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MixingDrumsYourUltimateGuide

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MIXING STRATEGIES!

YOUR ULTIMATE GUIDE FOR MIXING DRUMS!

RECORDING

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
a number one priority for laying that solid
foundation to your tracks, guaranteeing you a
solid rhythm section.

Recording Tips
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Drums can be one of the most problematic

instruments to get right in a mix. The
complexity of recording drums is equally
complex when it comes time to mix them.

MIXING
Mixing
Compression

If you find it easier to learn about recording

and mixing drums via video, check out the
ReThink Drums series here.

Equalization
Mixing Drums

PRODUCTION
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If you did a great job recording the drum kit, then mixing your drums can only be a
pleasurable experience.

BUT WHERE TO START?

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Mixing drums starts with the foundation of the kick drum. The sound of the kick drum,
along with the snare will be the defining factors of your drum sound. If you leave the
kick drum sounding bad, the whole foundation of the song will lose its footing. The kick
drum needs to be tight and punchy, with enough low end to fill up the bass range and
enough mids to cut through the mix.

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EQ
It's important to emphasize the low end of
the kick with EQ. If you feel there isn't
enough bass to your kick drum, a low
shelving boost around 80 100 Hz
normally does the trick.
A boomy kick drum can also cloud up the
clarity of your kick drum sound, so it's
normally a good idea to cut around 200
250 Hz if you feel there is too much
muddiness in your kick drum sound. A boxy

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MixingDrumsYourUltimateGuide
kick drum sound is also a common nuisance, which can be fixed with Eq'ing out the
boxiness that resides in the aread around 300 600Hz or so.
If your kick drum is all thump and no snap then we need to bring out the sound of the
beater. We can usually find it around the 2 4 Khz area. Depending on the genre of the
song, and the type of beater used, different frequency boosts in the beater area
generate different sounds. A boost at 2.5 Khz is more of a typical rock sound as
opposed to a narrower boost at around 4 Khz, which results in a Hardcore Metal type
snap.

COMPRESSION
When mixing drums, along with everything else,
using compression is a subjective subject and
everyone has an opinion on how things should be
compressed. That said, there are a few guidelines
you can follow to get a steadier kick drum sound.
How much gain reduction you want from the
compressor depends on the genre, the steadiness
of the drummer and the feel of the song. I usually
start with a ratio of 4:1 or 6:1 and lower the
threshold down until I'm compressing around
6dBs.

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Then I adjust the attack and release depending on what sort of sound I want. A fast
attack clamps down on the transient of the kick drum, dulling the initial attack down
somewhat, but a slower attack lets the attack of the beater break through before the
compressor starts working.
I try to time the release in time with the beat, so that the compressor has stopped
compressing before the next hit. It's easy to do this in modern DAWs because you are
able to see the gain reduction meter working, enabling you to tweak the release
perfectly in sync with the song.
EQ and Compression are the fundamental processors for any mix session. If you
understand how these two processors work, then you've solved at least 80% of your
mixing problems.

For more information about learning about compression and EQ, check out
Understanding Compression and Understanding EQ here.

SNARE DRUM SOUND

Partner in crime with the kick drum, the snare drum is the other defining rhythmic
factor to the song. It's all about the snare an experienced engineer once told me,
because it's what supplies the song with that steady backbeat. Since it's such an
important aspect of mixing drums, there needs to be a lot of care taken with getting the
best sound possible.

EQUALIZATION
EQ-wise, there is not an awful lot you need
below 100 Hz, so you can start by highpass filtering all the low end away.
The body of the snare can be brought
forward with a little boost at around 150Hz,
if you feel like it's lacking some thickness.
I like thick snares so I often catch myself
adding a little weight to the snare around
that area.
If your snare has ringing frequencies that you find annoying you can try pinpointing
them by boosting a specific frequency band with a high Q and sweeping the spectrum
until they pop out. I find that sometimes the snare needs a little cut in the mids, either
resulting from boxiness at 500 800 Hz or too much of a nasally attack from the area

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MixingDrumsYourUltimateGuide
around 1 Khz. Enhance the attack of the snare with a broad boost around 2 4 Khz and
search for the sizzle of the snares in the higher frequencies.

COMPRESSION
Like I do with the bass drum, I try to make the snare compress in time with the song. By
timing the attack and release I can get a nice steady snare sound that breathes with
each hit. I normally leave the attack at a medium to slow setting so that the snap of the
snare is unaffected, and time the release so that it stops compressing just in time for
the next hit.
I start with a ratio of 3:1, often going way higher as it depends on the genre how hard I
want the compressor to be pumping. You can adjust the threshold so that it is only
lightly compressing the peaks for a subtle sound, or you can push the threshold down
harder for a heavily compressed sound.
Snare compression is perhaps one of the most argued about subjects in audio
production. Every engineer has a certain method to mixing drums, and I think it's up to
you to experiment and get acquainted with the knobs and sliders on your audio
compressor so that you can create the sound that you want.
The World's Most Alternative Snare Drum Sounds!

REVERB
You can create a completely different snare sound by just applying an interesting reverb
to it. Whether that's a rock arena reverb, subdued room or even a spring reverb,
different reverbs can transform the sound of your snare drum.
Go through your reverbs and see what type of reverb sounds best with the song you're
mixing. Are you going to add a bright plate reverb to make it stand out, or will you be
mixing it into a specific room with a small room sound? If you are in a particularly
adventurous mood, you can try adding some gated reverb to your snare.

MIXING THE TOMS

EQING
If the toms are playing a big part in your drum
sound, mixing them so that they sound
punchy and powerful is crucial to a great drum
sound.
Get them punchy with EQ. The best way to EQ
toms is to find the unflattering frequencies
with your equalizer. Normally, these are the
middle frequencies, from 300 800 Khz or
so.
Find the boxy and unwanted frequencies, cut
them out and then add low end power and
high end punch as needed.
When mixing drums like toms, sometimes you
need to finely cut a few adjacent frequencies
instead of scooping out a big portion of the
frequency spectrum.

COMPRESSING
By adding a generous amount of compression to your toms you can get a larger than
life sound out of them. You can fatten them up considerably with some tight
compression, and with the addition of a little reverb you can make them sound huge
and powerful. If that's what you want to go for. The same rule of subtle compression
applies as well to toms if you only want to control the peaks and lightly color their
signal.

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MixingDrumsYourUltimateGuide
How To Get a Powerful Tom Sound in 3 Easy Steps

OVERHEADS
The overheads might be the most important microphones on the kit. The overheads are
the microphones that are supposed to pick up every drum and give a complete sound to
your drum kit. There are two ways of mixing drums with the overheads; you can either
use them as the primary sound, sculpting every drum around the overhead sound or
you can use them to primarily accent the cymbals and air around the kit.

By adding the overheads to the mix early on, you can get a better sense of the full
sound of the kit, making your drum mixing easier. Just notice how different a snare
drum microphone sounds compared to a snare that's coming from the overhead mics.
By adjusting the overheads with the rest of the close miked drums you can get a
different sound. By focusing on the overheads you can get a roomier sound, but if you
want a close in-your-face drum sound you would rather use the overheads as
complimentary to the rest of the drums, mainly using them to accent the cymbal
sounds.

THE HI-HAT
Mixing drums is a selective process, meaning that certain elements of the drum-kit only
need specific frequency ranges. You only need a specific frequency range from the hihat. Considering that the hi-hat microphone is probably picking up a lot of bleed from
other drums, some heavy high-pass filtering is in order. Filter up to 250 Hz at least,
even higher if you feel that you aren't losing anything from the hi-hat sound with higher
filtering.
Now if you feel that there is something lacking from the hi-hat, or that you want to
bring out the gong sound, you can find it in the 200 Hz area. So if your hi-hat needs a
little more gong to it, you will have to sacrifice that aggressive filtering. Like everything
else, just filter until you start hearing the sound becoming compromised and then back
off a little bit.
Cutting at 1Khz can reduce the cheap jangly sound from the hi-hat, but you can
enhance and give it some sparkle with a boost from 7 Khz or so. Use a high shelving EQ
if you want to enhance the high end with some air, but a parametric bell EQ if you just
want to accent a specific frequency area.

ROOM MICS
Room microphones give a different sound to the drum kit than the regular overhead
mics. Due to the distant miking technique most room mics are recorded with, we get a
full sound of the drum-kit as well as a great amount of the reverb of the room it was
recorded in. Which, depending on the sound of the room, can either sound amazing or
horrible.

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Mixing Drums With a Roomy Sound

But let's assume our recording room is great. With a nice room
complete kit we can try a few different techniques. We can
compression to the room mics to get an even punchier sound. We
draw out the most important elements, such as kick and snare
underneath an already great drum sound for that final touch.

mic picking up the

apply some heavy
can EQ the kit as to
and we can add it

MIXING DRUMS INTO A ROOM

If the drums weren't recorded in a nice sounding room and sound quite dead when they
come from the recording stage, it's time to add some space to our drum tracks.
A good way to add some ambience to our drum tracks is to add a 0.5 second drum
room reverb. You can add a a nice amount to the overhead tracks, and maybe even a
slightly different reverb to the snare to make it stand out. Go through your reverbs to
try to find the best sound to your particular track.

MIXING DRUMS DRUM REPLACEMENT

If you have ended up with badly recorded drums that you can't get even get close to a
good sound out of, maybe it's time to look elsewhere. Drum replacement is a great way
of mixing drums in order to keep the dynamics of a real performance with the sound
quality of amazing sounding drum samples. Audio recording software such as Pro Tools
and Logic Pro have great drum replacement options when you are stuck with crappy
sounding drum tracks.

CONCLUSION
Mixing drums is a challenging but enjoyable aspect of audio production. Since there are
so many different ways of getting the drums to sound with EQ, compression and other
mixing tricks there is no actual right way of mixing drums.
Little Known Ways to Add Punch to Your Drum Sound
The only solid piece of advice I can give you for mixing drums is to experiment with all
the tools you have on hand. Get every element to sound as good as possible and then
try to mold them together to make them sound like a complete whole.
As always, there are trends in the music industry as to what sounds good right now, but
being able to get whatever sound you want, whether it's huge 80's toms or a 90's arena
rock snare is an important aspect of being a well rounded mixing engineer.
We've gone through quite a long journey on the different aspects of mixing drums,
which I hope you enjoyed. If you liked this articles please share it with your friends on
Twitter or Facebook by using the box below.

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MixingDrumsYourUltimateGuide

MIXING STRATEGIES - PLANNING THE PERFECT MIX

Mixing Strategies is an ebook that focuses on the important subjective parts of mixing
music. It teaches you the philosophies of mixing and how to approach your next mixing
project for a successful outcome. Get your copy of this invaluable ebook now

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