how to mix drums

8/11/2019 How to mix Drums

1/4

Your Ultimate Guide for Mixing Drums!Get a great sound from your acoustic drums.

Your drum sound is one of the most important aspects of your mix. Mixing drums is therefore anumber one priority for laying that solid foundation to your tracks, guaranteeing you a solidrhythm section.

Drums can be one of the most problematic instruments to get right in a mix. The complexity ofrecording drums is eually complex hen it comes time to mix them.

"f you find it easier to learn about recording and mixing drums #ia #ideo, check out the $eThinkDrums series here.

"f you did a great %ob recording the drum kit, then mixing your drums can only be a pleasurableexperience.&ut here to start'(ick Drum )ound

Mixing drums starts ith the foundation of the kick drum. The sound of the kick drum, along iththe snare ill be the defining factors of your drum sound. "f you lea#e the kick drum sounding

bad, the hole foundation of the song ill lose its footing. The kick drum needs to be tight andpunchy, ith enough lo end to fill up the bass range and enough mids to cut through the mix.*+

mixing kick drum"ts important to emphasi-e the lo end of the kick ith *+. "f you feel there isntenough bass to your kick drum, a lo shel#ing boost around / 0 1// 2- normally does the trick.

3 boomy kick drum can also cloud up the clarity of your kick drum sound, so its normally a goodidea to cut around 4// 0 45/ 2- if you feel there is too much muddiness in your kick drum sound.

3 boxy kick drum sound is also a common nuisance, hich can be fixed ith *ing out theboxiness that resides in the aread around 6// 0 7//2- or so.

"f your kick drum is all thump and no snap then e need to bring out the sound of the beater. 8e

can usually find it around the 4 0 9 (h- area. Depending on the genre of the song, and the type ofbeater used, different freuency boosts in the beater area generate different sounds. 3 boost at4.5 (h- is more of a typical rock sound as opposed to a narroer boost at around 9 (h-, hichresults in a 2ardcore Metal type snap.:ompression

8hen mixing drums, along ith e#erything else, using compression is a sub%ecti#e sub%ect ande#eryone has an opinion on ho things should be compressed. That said, there are a feguidelines you can follo to get a steadier kick drum sound.

2o much gain reduction you ant from the compressor depends on the genre, the steadiness ofthe drummer and the feel of the song. " usually start ith a ratio of 9;1 or 7;1 and loer thethreshold don until "m compressing around 7d&s.

Then " ad%ust the attack and release depending on hat sort of sound " ant. 3 fast attack clampsdon on the transient of the kick drum, dulling the initial attack don somehat, but a sloerattack lets the attack of the beater break through before the compressor starts orking.

" try to time the release in time ith the beat, so that the compressor has stopped compressingbefore the next hit. "ts easy to do this in modern D38s because you are able to see the gainreduction meter orking, enabling you to teak the release perfectly in sync ith the song.

*+ and :ompression are the fundamental processors for any mix session. "f you understand ho


2/4

these to processors ork, then you#e sol#ed at least /< of your mixing problems.=or more information about learning about compression and *+, check out Understanding:ompression and Understanding *+ here.)nare drum sound

>artner in crime ith the kick drum, the snare drum is the other defining rhythmic factor to thesong. ?"ts all about the snare@ an experienced engineer once told me, because its hat suppliesthe song ith that steady backbeat. )ince its such an important aspect of mixing drums, thereneeds to be a lot of care taken ith getting the best sound possible.*+uali-ation

snare drum sound*+Aise, there is not an aful lot you need belo 1// 2-, so you can start byhighApass filtering all the lo end aay.

The body of the snare can be brought forard ith a little boost at around 15/2-, if you feel likeits lacking some thickness.

" like thick snares so " often catch myself adding a little eight to the snare around that area.

"f your snare has ringing freuencies that you find annoying you can try pinpointing them by

boosting a specific freuency band ith a high + and seeping the spectrum until they pop out. "find that sometimes the snare needs a little cut in the mids, either resulting from boxiness at 5//

0 // 2- or too much of a nasally attack from the area around 1 (h-. *nhance the attack of thesnare ith a broad boost around 4 0 9 (h- and search for the si--le of the snares in the higherfreuencies.:ompression

Bike " do ith the bass drum, " try to make the snare compress in time ith the song. &y timingthe attack and release " can get a nice steady snare sound that breathes ith each hit. " normallylea#e the attack at a medium to slo setting so that the snap of the snare is unaffected, and timethe release so that it stops compressing %ust in time for the next hit.

" start ith a ratio of 6;1, often going ay higher as it depends on the genre ho hard " ant the

compressor to be pumping. You can ad%ust the threshold so that it is only lightly compressing thepeaks for a subtle sound, or you can push the threshold don harder for a hea#ily compressedsound.

)nare compression is perhaps one of the most argued about sub%ects in audio production. *#eryengineer has a certain method to mixing drums, and " think its up to you to experiment and getacuainted ith the knobs and sliders on your audio compressor so that you can create thesound that you ant.

The 8orlds Most 3lternati#e )nare Drum )ounds!

$e#erb

You can create a completely different snare sound by %ust applying an interesting re#erb to it.8hether thats a rock arena re#erb, subdued room or e#en a spring re#erb, different re#erbs cantransform the sound of your snare drum.

Go through your re#erbs and see hat type of re#erb sounds best ith the song youre mixing.3re you going to add a bright plate re#erb to make it stand out, or ill you be mixing it into aspecific room ith a small room sound' "f you are in a particularly ad#enturous mood, you can tryadding some gated re#erb to your snare.Mixing the toms*+ing


3/4

mixing drums toms"f the toms are playing a big part in your drum sound, mixing them so that theysound punchy and poerful is crucial to a great drum sound.

Get them punchy ith *+. The best ay to *+ toms is to find the unflattering freuencies ithyour euali-er. Cormally, these are the middle freuencies, from 6// 0 // (h- or so.

=ind the boxy and unanted freuencies, cut them out and then add lo end poer and high endpunch as needed.

8hen mixing drums like toms, sometimes you need to finely cut a fe ad%acent freuenciesinstead of scooping out a big portion of the freuency spectrum.:ompressing

&y adding a generous amount of compression to your toms you can get a larger than life soundout of them. You can fatten them up considerably ith some tight compression, and ith theaddition of a little re#erb you can make them sound huge and poerful. "f thats hat you ant togo for. The same rule of subtle compression applies as ell to toms if you only ant to control thepeaks and lightly color their signal.

2o To Get a >oerful Tom )ound in 6 *asy )teps

#erheads

The o#erheads might be the most important microphones on the kit. The o#erheads are themicrophones that are supposed to pick up e#ery drum and gi#e a complete sound to your drumkit. There are to ays of mixing drums ith the o#erheadsE you can either use them as theprimary sound, sculpting e#ery drum around the o#erhead sound or you can use them to primarilyaccent the cymbals and air around the kit.

o#erhead mixing

&y adding the o#erheads to the mix early on, you can get a better sense of the full sound of the

kit, making your drum mixing easier. Fust notice ho different a snare drum microphone soundscompared to a snare thats coming from the o#erhead mics.

&y ad%usting the o#erheads ith the rest of the close miked drums you can get a different sound.&y focusing on the o#erheads you can get a roomier sound, but if you ant a close inAyourAfacedrum sound you ould rather use the o#erheads as complimentary to the rest of the drums,mainly using them to accent the cymbal sounds.The 2iA2at

Mixing drums is a selecti#e process, meaning that certain elements of the drumAkit only needspecific freuency ranges. You only need a specific freuency range from the hiAhat. :onsideringthat the hiAhat microphone is probably picking up a lot of bleed from other drums, some hea#yhighApass filtering is in order. =ilter up to 45/ 2- at least, e#en higher if you feel that you arent

losing anything from the hiAhat sound ith higher filtering.

Co if you feel that there is something lacking from the hiAhat, or that you ant to bring out thegong sound, you can find it in the 4// 2- area. )o if your hiAhat needs a little more gong to it, youill ha#e to sacrifice that aggressi#e filtering. Bike e#erything else, %ust filter until you start hearingthe sound becoming compromised and then back off a little bit.

:utting at 1(h- can reduce the cheap %angly sound from the hiAhat, but you can enhance andgi#e it some sparkle ith a boost from (h- or so. Use a high shel#ing *+ if you ant toenhance the high end ith some air, but a parametric bell *+ if you %ust ant to accent a specific


4/4

freuency area.$oom mics

$oom microphones gi#e a different sound to the drum kit than the regular o#erhead mics. Due tothe distant miking techniue most room mics are recorded ith, e get a full sound of the drumAkit as ell as a great amount of the re#erb of the room it as recorded in. 8hich, depending onthe sound of the room, can either sound ama-ing or horrible.

mixing drumsMixing Drums 8ith a $oomy )ound

&ut lets assume our recording room is great. 8ith a nice room mic picking up the complete kit ecan try a fe different techniues. 8e can apply some hea#y compression to the room mics toget an e#en punchier sound. 8e can *+ the kit as to dra out the most important elements, suchas kick and snare and e can add it underneath an already great drum sound for that final touch.Mixing drums into a room

"f the drums erent recorded in a nice sounding room and sound uite dead hen they comefrom the recording stage, its time to add some space to our drum tracks.

3 good ay to add some ambience to our drum tracks is to add a /.5 second drum room re#erb.You can add a a nice amount to the o#erhead tracks, and maybe e#en a slightly different re#erbto the snare to make it stand out. Go through your re#erbs to try to find the best sound to yourparticular track.Mixing drums 0 Drum $eplacement

"f you ha#e ended up ith badly recorded drums that you cant get e#en get close to a goodsound out of, maybe its time to look elsehere. Drum replacement is a great ay of mixingdrums in order to keep the dynamics of a real performance ith the sound uality of ama-ingsounding drum samples. 3udio recording softare such as >ro Tools and Bogic >ro ha#e greatdrum replacement options hen you are stuck ith crappy sounding drum tracks.conclusion

Mixing drums is a challenging but en%oyable aspect of audio production. )ince there are so manydifferent ays of getting the drums to sound ith *+, compression and other mixing tricks thereis no actual right ay of mixing drums.

Bittle (non 8ays to 3dd >unch to Your Drum )ound

The only solid piece of ad#ice " can gi#e you for mixing drums is to experiment ith all the toolsyou ha#e on hand. Get e#ery element to sound as good as possible and then try to mold themtogether to make them sound like a complete hole.

3s alays, there are trends in the music industry as to hat sounds good right no, but beingable to get hate#er sound you ant, hether its huge /s toms or a H/s arena rock snare is animportant aspect of being a ell rounded mixing engineer.

8e#e gone through uite a long %ourney on the different aspects of mixing drums, hich " hopeyou en%oyed. "f you liked this articles please share it ith your friends on Titter or =acebook byusing the box belo.

how to mix drums

Documents