ultimatemetalforum - mixing drums

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Mixing Drums Here are basic tips. Don't give me any jank about preset garbage and not all drums are the same or whatnot: Compression for most individual drums -15 Threshold 4:1 Ratio 15ms Attack 80ms Release (for metal IMHO) Make up gain is up to you EQ Kick Boost 60, Cut 120, Cut 480, Boost 3khz, Boost 6khz Snare HP@140 Boost 200, Cut 400, Boost 5k, Boost 8k Toms HP@80 Boost 110, Cut 440, Boost 3k, Boost 6k (low shelving/low roll of helps a lot-frequencies decrease with drum size) Overheads HP@500, Cut 800, Boost 8-10k (shelf) Room HP@120, Cut 500, LP@8k Subtractive eq before compression, additive after. Use reverb on toms/snare with nice pre-delay. Send Kick/Snare/Toms/Cymbals/Rooms to different busses. Limit and clip there if needed. Cut out silence between tom hits and fade nicely. The most important thing is to close your eyes and raise and lower compression attack and release. You'll know where you like it best with your ears. I just like those settings the most. eq: subtraction is your friend addition eq is ok for higher frequencies (in my opinion) reach for harmonic-type plugins (like waves max bass) for controlling bass instead of reaching for an EQ, unless your original tones are whack, then you'll need surgical eq If you're using the Avatar library then you have some fantastic snares, toms and rooms right off the bat. Fight the urge to over-process. That's your biggest enemy. Ok here is your golden plug-in: Waves SSL E-channel The in-line EQ and compressor on this thing works great on drums. Start minimalistic, don't go overboard, just tweak the EQ, do some mid cuts, and some high and low boosts to give fidelity to the drums. Kick and snare work great if you turn the shelf into a bell boost. You get more definition and cut from the boosts. 300 to 500hz can be your problem areas if things are a little too muddy. Suck 600 to 800 and 200 to 300hz on the toms , crank the highs with a shelf, and bell boost the lows at like 70hz. Fast attack on the compressor, ratio maybe 3 or 4. Take off around 3 to 6dB, to taste. Instant fatness. Hit the overheads with fast attack compression, 4:1 ratio, but VERY LIGHTLY. I'm talking barely any movement at all. Just something to add a bit of excitement. With all of these settings, always have the compressor release at its fastest (100ms).

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Page 1: UltimateMetalForum - Mixing Drums

Mixing Drums

Here are basic tips. Don't give me any jank about preset garbage and not all drums are the same or whatnot:

Compression for most individual drums

• -15 Threshold

• 4:1 Ratio

• 15ms Attack

• 80ms Release (for metal IMHO)

• Make up gain is up to you

EQ

• Kick Boost 60, Cut 120, Cut 480, Boost 3khz, Boost 6khz

• Snare HP@140 Boost 200, Cut 400, Boost 5k, Boost 8k

• Toms HP@80 Boost 110, Cut 440, Boost 3k, Boost 6k (low shelving/low roll of helps a lot-frequencies

decrease with drum size)

• Overheads HP@500, Cut 800, Boost 8-10k (shelf)

• Room HP@120, Cut 500, LP@8k

Subtractive eq before compression, additive after.

Use reverb on toms/snare with nice pre-delay.

Send Kick/Snare/Toms/Cymbals/Rooms to different busses. Limit and clip there if needed.

Cut out silence between tom hits and fade nicely.

The most important thing is to close your eyes and raise and lower compression attack and release. You'll know

where you like it best with your ears. I just like those settings the most.

�����

eq: subtraction is your friend

addition eq is ok for higher frequencies (in my opinion)

reach for harmonic-type plugins (like waves max bass) for controlling bass instead of reaching for an EQ, unless your

original tones are whack, then you'll need surgical eq

�����

If you're using the Avatar library then you have some fantastic snares, toms and rooms right off the bat. Fight the

urge to over-process. That's your biggest enemy.

Ok here is your golden plug-in: Waves SSL E-channel

The in-line EQ and compressor on this thing works great on drums. Start minimalistic, don't go overboard, just tweak

the EQ, do some mid cuts, and some high and low boosts to give fidelity to the drums.

• Kick and snare work great if you turn the shelf into a bell boost. You get more definition and cut from the

boosts. 300 to 500hz can be your problem areas if things are a little too muddy.

• Suck 600 to 800 and 200 to 300hz on the toms, crank the highs with a shelf, and bell boost the lows at like

70hz. Fast attack on the compressor, ratio maybe 3 or 4. Take off around 3 to 6dB, to taste. Instant fatness.

• Hit the overheads with fast attack compression, 4:1 ratio, but VERY LIGHTLY. I'm talking barely any

movement at all. Just something to add a bit of excitement.

• With all of these settings, always have the compressor release at its fastest (100ms).

Page 2: UltimateMetalForum - Mixing Drums

• Slam the living shit out of the room. Like 10 to 20dB, all buttons in on an 1176 style plug-in if you have one.

This will effectively turn the room mics into reverb ambiance. Just a wash of awesomeness to fill out the

back and add air. Use the mid and far field room mics too. Throw the snare into them - no need for anything

else.

• Consider cutting the cymbals and hats from the room mics a fair bit. Also consider cutting the hats from OHs

if you need. EQ to taste. Then slowly bring it up into the back of your drum mix. It will unify everything and

virtually negate the need for a reverb.

• Kicks sometimes like a 50 or 60hz sinewave side-chain gated to them. Just enough to fill out the subs. If I'm

not mistaken, Randy is still fond of this. It's a similar thing to using Joey's harmonic enhancement suggestion.

SD2.0 is almost there for you. All you're doing is tailoring work. Getting it that little bit more punchy and clear.

�����

The 'L1 trick' is best achieved by side-chaining the limiter or compressor on your overheads to your snare track. This

way you ensure reduction every time that thing is hit, and at a minimal cost to your cymbals (you can get serious

tearing/artifacts if you hammer them with a limiter).

But go easy on cymbal compression. They don't need much - if any. I just hit them up with an 1176 for some extra

sizzle and movement. Beyond that it's just a high pass and mid-cut if it's making the snare and toms sound

cardboard, and a high shelf to give as much air as needed.

And yeah, I love how many times Joey's repeated himself here. Waves Maxxbass is like a sub-harmonizer. It bumps

low harmonics relevant to the source, so you can achieve clearer, fatter low-end than just using a low-shelf or the

like. I've never done this myself, but I might experiment with it soon.

�����

I need to try out a subharmonic enhancer. I've only heard great things.

I eq the Avatar kick so that a lot of the sub frequencies are gone and I sculpt a hump between 60 and 80 hz. I don't

boost any of the low end, the peak of the hump is around -5db. Then I boost around 3-6k with a high shelf so I can

hear it in the mix. The kick is then sent to a drum bus, which is sent to an fx channel for parallel compression, where I

boost 100hz by 6db or so. This boost makes up for a lot of the lows I subtracted on the kick track, but without the

mud.

Ben Sharp of Cloudkicker does something similar if I'm not mistaken. Listen to "]]][[[" or "Beacons" to hear a nice and

fat Avatar kick drum.

�����

every snare i record goes through the same thing, because im cool like that

SSL E-Channel

TOP SNARE

threshold : -20 db

attack (leave fast attack off)

release : .100

Page 3: UltimateMetalForum - Mixing Drums

ratio : 3 or 4

+9db at 8 no bell

+9db at 200 no bell

use expander to cut a little ambience if you need to, gate if its a live kit

BOTTOM SNARE

turn this one up 6 decibels LOUDER than the top snare

threshold: 0

attack (fast attack on!)

release: .100

ratio: 8:1

+3 at 8 no bell (bell if you want a rock sound)

+6 at 200 no bell

then just use Q1 mono on each track to cut the particular head's "ringtone", a Q of 50 or 100 will do it, -18db of cut

wherever the ring is (there might be many, find the one that sticks out in the track while its left flat eq, find it, and

cut it)

i usually use RVERB for drum verb, but i've been toying with plate 140 from UAD to save my cpu's ass

the RVERB gives the snare body in the mix, because it produces a wide tail

the UAD can do the same, and it will be wider, but you'll need to know how to compress the reverb so it doesnt stick

out like a sore thumb

this is just what i do to my actual snare tracks, much of the snare sound comes from the room mic's, and the

agressive compression applied to them

p.s.

a trick for kick drums that dont pack enough low end punch waves transx multi mono load that on a kick track, load

the preset "bass amp" change the first gain to 6, the second to -6, the third to -6, and leave the 4th alone dont adjust

volume or total make up gain or you'll lose your power pump that sucker into your master bus compressor for

thump

�����

Tutorial: Processing extreme metal kick and making samples Alright, I was talking to lolzgreg the other night on AIM and we were talking about EQ and stuff, and on the side I

made some processing on this one kick file I recorded last year at uni. I decided to make it into a tutorial, hope it

helps someone... I won't put the exact frequencies I cut, because it varies by the incoming sound. And do note that

this tutorial is for processing recorded material, this doesn't work well with pre-cut and pre-processed samples.

PHASE 1: Recording the source

The thing starts with getting the sound good at source. No way around that. If your source tone sounds like shit, your

sample will sound like shit too. And record the samples separately from the actual sessions (listen to the recorded

clips below)

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When choosing microphones and especially if you are doing metal and hard rock music, forget AKG D112. Eventho

they are ok kick mics, but they just don't have the snap in them that is needed in metal music. Even Shure Beta52 is a

"maybe" as the snap sounds like shit (but it is there), but it can be used if nothing else is available. Audix D6 works

nicely, as do PZM mics like Shure beta91 and Sennheiser e901. Here is an example where we compared 4 different

mics on the kick (The last one is a subkick so it sounds kinda bad by itself):

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1338211/kicktest-01.wav (groups of 8 hits)

PHASE 2: Choosing source and goal

I chose to go with the first clip, which was Sennheiser e901. It already has a well defined snap to it so it was easiest

to start with as I don't have to actually boost the snap to actually get it there. The aim is to scoop the shit out

between the timbre and the attack, because those mask especially the low end a lot, and if you see clear spikes (like

the ~200 and 470 in the picture below) you really want to use a spectrum analyzer to find those exact frequencies

and kill them. The result should look like two equally high mountains and a deep valley in between.

PHASE 3: Subtractive EQ

Then what I did was that I added just EQ. I only did cuts on the 200-1000Hz region, highpass filter at 31hz and a slight

low shelf boost to compensate for the lost low end. I also added a highshelf boost just to bring out the air just a bit.

As you can hear the "beachball" character went away quiete efficiently. I think I used something like 6 bands of cuts

+ 3 more (highpass, low shelf, high shelf)

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1338211/kicktest-03.wav

(pink is original and orange is after)

PHASE 4: Compressing the snap

The next step I did was that I used the Waves Renessaince Vox, aka RVox. The cool thing about that compressor is

that it is super easy to use and it has a chacrater to it and it is specially designed to make the vocals cut thru the mix,

so I abused it to make the snap of the kick cut thru all the other shit. The bad thing about that compressor is that it

also brings out all the shit back, so I had to re-cut some of the mids down and I ended up with this:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1338211/kicktest-04.wav

(pink is original and orange is after)

PHASE 5: Limiting the peaks

As you might've noticed, the kicks are at varying velocities, but since I didn't want that, I jut put a limiter to shave off

2-3dB from each hit so that they are more equal in volume and ended up with this:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1338211/kicktest-05.wav

(pink is original and orange is after)

PHASE 6: Cutting the sample

Then what I did was that I listened thru all the clips and if you listen closely, you can hear the squeeking of the pedal

between the songs, so when you are making the sample, you need to (or actually no; you don't NEED to, but I highly

recommend it) crop the sample as tight as possible but so that you have as long tail as possible without any squeeks.

Crop the start of the clip as close to the beginning of the hit as possible and add a really short fade in (I think I had

something like 10 samples or so) and a fade out that starts from the end of the hit. I ended up with a sample like

this:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1338211/kicktest-05_single.wav

PHASE 7: Try the sample on a song

The next step that I did was that I tried the sample I just made on my older song. Atleast it doesn't get buried in the

chorus like the old sample, but it needed some minor tweaking. I used the Majken Grizzly sampler and I used the

Page 5: UltimateMetalForum - Mixing Drums

distortion effect to slightly shape the sound and cut ~10dB from 200hz that it boosted, but otherwise it was

untouched:

song with old sample: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1338211/ahjt...lehead_v05.mp3

song with new sample from this tutorial: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1338211/ahjt...lehead_v06.mp3

the sample after fitting: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1338211/kicktest-06_single.wav

Pink is 05_single and orange is 06_single

edit: Sample 05 used in metal context: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1338211/tut/loop_v7.mp3

PHASE 8: Summa Summarum

So what did we learn? You can get heavy metal sounding kick sample with just 3 plugins in 10 minutes, if it is well

recorded. Compare different mics, choose the best sounding as staring point, get rid of the mud in the mids,

compress, limit the peaks and cut the sample.

Hope it helped someone.

�����

how to get a BIG tom sound I'd cut around 300hz on all the toms, otherwise they just stick out too much.

And if you want super huge toms with not much attack (so you 'feel' them more than they punch you in the face, I

really like this, huge lowend).. EQ everything below 1khz with a lowshelf at -18db, then clip and limit all the attack

out, then put the lowend back in with another lowshelf at 1khz with like +15db. But not for everyone's taste.

but also add some parallel compression and use the joey trick (adding a harmonic enhancer to the low end of the

toms).

�����

Acoustic Drums for Metal: A Guide

PART 5: MIXING

"This is art, not mathematics. There is no "wrong." Jazz session drummer, Kevin Schmidt.

The best way to teach is by example. I can ramble on for days about things, but to help you truly understand, I've put

together a very short demonstration.

Here's some tracks, first raw, then mixed, then with accompanying instruments:

You can grab the file HERE

"Just Do It. ...Later." --T-Shirt I saw earlier today.

Ok, I know this installment is seriously overdue. When I started this thing I was starting five week layoff from my day

job & I had a grand total of one project on the go, and it was only a 2 song deal. Here we are some eight(!) months

later... I've got 2 albums on the go & one more to start before year's end... not to mention I'm back full time at my

day job.

Page 6: UltimateMetalForum - Mixing Drums

Not only that, but I've seriously been wrestling with the notion of how to write this segment. Mixing can be a difficult

task, and how to put my ideas into words can be quite challenging. Chalk it up to writer's block. I know what I want

to say, but it's been difficult to say it. So, I'm gonna take Strongbad's advice here: "Hold out your hand like you're

holding a giant mystical orb and let the evil flow...."

Philosophy

So, you've got your record tracked. Playback is pretty cool. Guitars are thrashing away & your vocalist sounds like

he's gargling razorblades. But the snare is a little dull. So, I guess you should reach over and crank up the 10K on the

snare mic to brighten it up, right? FUCK NO!!

Ok, repeat after me: "Boosting EQ sucks." Why? Well, that subject could be a book, but to simplify: When you boost

an EQ, you're adding noise. And on a snare mic, it's like a "turn up the hi-hat knob." Which is what we don't want....

that is unless you're doing disco. If you have a wood floor, you won't have to reach for a boosting EQ nearly as much,

either. Subtractive is the way to go here, folks. The end results will be cleaner.

Don't get me wrong, both have thier place. But a good rule of thumb should be "Cut first, boost later."

Some tools you'll need: A compressor plugin with a backend limiter on the makeup gain, & a DAW that can

sidechain. If your DAW can't sidechain, you can get a copy of SawBasic for $300 US, and it's faster than anything

you've ever seen.

That being said, I'm still very much an old school guy. I try to avoid drum replacement as much as possible. I'm into

capturing the sound of the band, as opposed to the band having my stamp on them, and having the mics work with

each other. So, where do I think drum replacement is appropriate? Well, let's start at the bottom:

Kick Drum

After you've spent so much time adding new skins, falam slam pads, changing out beater types, moving mic positions

& generally tweaking to perfection, this is the drum, for me anyway, that most likely winds up being replaced. Why?

Dynamics. Some drummers just naturally hit a little softer during fast double bass parts... and look out if he doesn't

hear it in the mix. Now, there's numerous ways to deal with this. Gating, compression, etc, etc, but the harder you

compress the kick mic, the more background noise you bring into the mix. That means cymbal wash, and more

importantly, bottom snare noise.

Generally, if the drummer has put in a very solid performance on the kicks, I'll stick with the natural mic. But if not,

I'll have him play some solo kicks at the end of the day & make up a custom .gog file for the record. It's really not

that hard to do, it just takes some patience as there's lots of cutting & pasting the hits into individual files. If you've

tuned your drum right, have a good mic & pre on it & the kick sounds wonderful, you'll have a pretty killer sample to

work with.

I find the kick is the easiest part of the kit to replace. Why? Because the beater only hits in one spot. The only

variable is dynamic strength... position doesn't matter. If the drummer is using two bass drums, you can sample each

one & run a pair of drumagogs for that authentic 2 bass drum sound. A little bit of variation from drum to drum is a

good thing. This avoids the "machine gun effect."

Replacing the kick also give you room for some boosting EQ to bring out that all important "click" sound. Since it's an

"after the fact" sound, you don't have to worry about a big boost fucking with the phase of the other mics.

Usually, I'll put a pretty wide scoop in around 500hz, and a boost around 8-10k depending on the sound I'm after.

That, and lots of compression. 15ms or so attack, and around 100ms release, with plenty of makeup gain. If you're

using drumagog, one critical point: Remember to click on the "advanced" tab & pull back the "dynamic tracking"

knob. This will really even out the kicks. Here's a shot:

Pull back the dynamic tracking knob to even out the kick hits

On the other side of the coin, with a natural kick, I'll sidechain thru Saw's channel strips. In the pic below, I've got the

key coming in from channel 2, which is the snare. Attack 0, release 20, a gentle ratio & a very low threshold. This will

step on any snare drum transients bleeding into the kick mic.

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But if you'll notice, I've got 2 kick tracks. The top is using drumagaog, for the attack. The second track is a copy of the

first, but it's the live mic, with a lowpass filter set around 200hz, and a bass enhancement plugin. Mix the two

together & you get a pretty slammin' kick!

SNARE

This can vary greatly. Each drummer has his own style of hitting the snare, from strength to position, and it's your

job to make the dumb shit sound good. One HIGHLY, highly recommended tool is the Dominion plugin from digital

fishphones. It's free, so why don't you head on over to Dominion Download Site and grab a copy.

Now, if you've lambasted the drummer enough about the hats, hopefully he's backed off enough & you've got

something useable. Hopefully you've also put the mic in the right place & minimized bleed.

If not there's a few tricks to get around it. First, you can gate the snare. With an ultra-fast attack & a sensible release,

you can get away with a lot. The other idea might be to use an expander. This will drop the noise floor, i.e. the

goddamn hihat bleed, in relation to the snare. Dominion has one built right in, and it's great.

So, EQ is next. As you can see, I've violated my own rule & used a pretty healthy boost around 8k on this snare. I was

able to get away with this because the bleed on the snare mic was pretty minimal. If the hat was louder I'd have to

get a little more crafty. Physical separation, mic placement, and most importantly, a light touch on the hat make life

easier for the engineer.

I've also got a 1.5 dB cut at 460 & a 2.5 db cut at 100, and the mic is rolled off at 75hz. This will vary from drum to

drum & drummer to drummer, so don't take these numbers as concrete rules.

I'm also using Dominion, post channel EQ, to drop the bleed. Look at the "sustain" faders and you'll get what I mean.

Dominion also has a pretty cool high frequency exciter, under the "hf details" knob. This can be a very cool

alternative to boosting EQ. The attack faders are used for tuning the incoming transient. Overall, I've found this

plugin to be indispensible. You can tweak the attack & release of a drum, drop the bleed by several orders of

magnitude, and generally fuck with sounds till your hearts' content. On this particular track, I felt the snare didn't

need any more attack, just a little bleed management.

After dominion, I'll use a plugin comp to bring the level waaay up. If you've got one with a backend limiter, say, a

Sonditus comp, this will be your best friend. Set for about 15 ms attack, & crank it up till the output limiter light goes

off. Say, 8-10 dbs. Ba-Bang!

OVERHEADS

This has gotten a lot easier since I moved over to spaced pairs. Rolloff at around 600 hz, depending on the drummer,

(Mr. Sneap's idea. Just fn' brilliant!) and sidechain from the snare. Attack 0, release 20ms, ratio & threshold to taste.

This will take the snare transient out of the overheads & leave some of the sustain. If you've set your threshold right,

you can get a great effect with ghosting on snare rolls. It will leave the softer hits in the overheads & only step down

on the hard ones. The rolloff with clean your mix up big time as well. Cool!

The other nice thing about sidechaining from the snare is it turns off on the tom rolls. This is great at it adds some

pretty heavy attack to the toms in the full mix. Great stuff.

After the sidechain, I'll usually use a plugin comp to even out some of the cymbal hits. Theshold at around -15 to -18,

4:1 ratio & perhaps a bit of makeup gain. Put this up with the snare & things should be sounding pretty explosive.

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Toms

Pretty much the same idea as the snare. Mid scoop, & smashed with a comp. Be sure to rolloff the lows though, so

your speakers don't puke on the floor. Dominion can be a great help for adding attack if your drummer can't hit toms

very hard. That & the 'hf details' knob can be a big help too.

I'll usually set up SAW to auto-remove silence for the tom tracks, & remove the bleed when the toms aren't being

played. Saw has a pretty cool feature to add a 'reverse' to the gate when removing silence. What this means, is that

if you set it for say, 5ms, it will open the gate 5ms BEFORE the tom strike, thereby letting the tom thru with all it's

attack. Man, what a timesaver. Generally, after silence has been stripped, I'll listen to every fill & make sure things

turned out correctly.

REVERB

Don't overdo it. Seriously. Pick ONE reverb you like and stick with it for the song. I set the verb's tail to the tempo of

the song, so it's not stepping over itself. Generally, I'll put the ver on a return buss & take a send from the snare &

toms to a verb plugin, & that's it. Kick? Almost never. Only in very special cases, when it's all out in front by itself.

Overheads? Even less. It just clouds up the mix.

One critical point: On your verb return buss, add an EQ plugin before the reverb & rolloff everything below 200hz.

That way, you're not reverberating the mud, only the mids & hi end stuff. This will clean up your mix bigtime.

If you listen to the mixed drums in the .rar file, you can hear the only thing with verb on it is the snare. Since it was

an old school tune, we used a fairly large verb. But, the key is to go with what works for the song. Talk to the band

you're working with and make sure you can get what they're after. These days, a big fat verb on the snare is usually

not what people want. It usually makes people cringe "Bon Jovi." The trick is to use 'just enough.' Because even a

short verb can greatly enhance a snare sound. Same with the toms. Make them sound like they're on the inside of an

oil tanker only when the song calls for it. The rest of the time, make sure there's 'just enough.'

BTW, here's a link to the full song:

Final Stage - In the Night

Well, that's it for now. It's a pretty basic mix guide, but hopefully someone will find something useful in here. Feel

free with the questions & comments.

�����

Drum Mixing – Part 1 by Sacha on Apr.02, 2009, under Drums, Recording

So we looked at a few ways to track drums on a budget and in less then ideal situations, now that we have the tracks

we need to mix them. This consists of applying the processing such as EQ, Compression, Reverb etc. to make the

drums sound killer in the mix. There’s quite a lot to it and I certainly am far from being an expert but hopefully you

can glean some tidbits from this primer. I’m using these techniques on sampled drums but they are raw recordings

of a real acoustic kit so much of the process mirrors that of working with acoustic drums.

What you will need:

If you mix all ‘in the box’ like I do this means you will use software plugins to process your sounds as opposed to

hardware units. The concepts however remain relatively the same between both methods just the workflow will be

different. I would need at a minimum the following processors to work with drums on my mixes:

Page 9: UltimateMetalForum - Mixing Drums

EQ – boost and cut the frequencies to tailor the sound. essentially you want to remove what you don’t need and

possibly accentuate what you like

Compressor – enhance the transient to give the sounds more ‘attack’ and ‘punch’ and even out the volume

between hits

Reverb – give the impression of space and ‘bigness’ to the sounds

Most recording software will come with basic but usable versions of these. You can of course buy additional plugins

and even download free ones on the net. By free I don’t mean warez or cracked software, I believe in supporting the

developers of this software so they can continue making good shit so if you plan on using something BUY IT.

I’ll give you some basic pointers on how to apply the processing, some examples and then some links to further

reading and resources.

Panning: For the n00bz out there panning is where you place the elements of the tracks in the stereo field, left to

right. For drums you will most likely match a real drumset, so kick and snare in the middle, toms panned around and

cymbals panned farthest. Some people mix from the audience perspective, I prefer the player perspective mostly.

Kick Drum chain:

Compressor – enhance the attack and punch

EQ – shape the ‘click’ of the attach, scoop out some mids that aren’t needed and shape the low end to punch and fit

with the bass guitar

Snare chain:

Compressor – this will give the snare that SMACK that you want for aggressive music.

EQ – depends on the source but usually I will cut out some mids to remove mud and decrease the ringing, find the

frequency where the crack (the snare) lives and boost that a bit and sometimes boost some upper lows / lower mids

for beef and ‘thud’.

Reverb – once you’ve enhanced the attack and the transient the sustain can suffer. Reverb helps bring back the

sustain and the ‘larger then life’ sound. I like using a nice thick Plate reverb like the UAD Plate 140 and I put it on an

FX send.

Toms chain:

Compressor – similar settings for snare but usually a little less aggressive

EQ – scoop some mids to remove mud, boost some upper mids and treble to enhance the attack

Reverb – add back some sustain and huge roomsound

Cymbals / Overhead Mics chain:

EQ – high pass filter to remove uneeded frequencies and kick drum, then a high shelf around 1-2k to help give some

more shimmer and cut

Hi-hat mic chain:

EQ – level wise I usually keep this one fairly low since the hats are coming through the other mics already and you

don’t want them to become overpowering

Room mic / ambient mics chain:

Compressor - I like to crush the ambient mic pretty hard with compression and then keep it blended in relatively low

in level

Page 10: UltimateMetalForum - Mixing Drums

EQ

Another popular technique to beef up drums is to group the drums together or ‘buss’ them and then apply ‘parallel

compression’ to them. Essentially you are mixing a heavily compressed and EQd drum signal with the original drum

signal to further emphasize the attack and increase the apparent size of the drumsound. You can read more about

how to apply that technique in Cubase here: http://www.faderwear.com/guides/parallel_compression.shtml - it

should be a similar process in most DAW programs.

Sample Replacement

If you end up with shitty recorded live drums you can still save the mix with the use of sample replacement. Many

Metal mixes these days are using at least partial sample replacement on augmentation to give that consistently huge

and polished sound. Essentially you are using the original performance to trigger a different drumsound that plays

instead of / in combination with the original sound. Some of the tools available that can help achieve this in your

DAW are:

Drumagog

Drumtracker

ApTrigga

This is just a primer and there are a lot of other things you can try including layering samples / sounds, other effects

such as distortion, things like transient designers which are like a cousin of compression and more. When recording

acoustic drums there is obviously a whole lot more to it such as mic techniques, tuning, editing, sidechain gating etc.

etc. I’ll post some links at the end for further reading if you are interested in that. Make some good Metal!

Faderwear Guides

Guide to Acoustic Drums

Drum Samples FAQ

EQ Guide

Compressor Basics

Free or Cheap Plugins:

Variety of Sound – http://varietyofsound.wordpress.com/downloads/

Audio Damage – http://www.audiodamage.com/

Smart Electronix – http://www.smartelectronix.com/

DDMF – http://www.ddmf.eu/

KVR Audio – http://www.kvraudio.com