Drum buss processing: two different approaches

A

andreacaccese

New member
When processing the drum bus, there are two different ways people usually go at it:

Option 1: work on the bus strip first, then on the individual tracks (snare, kick...)

Option 2: work on the individual tracks first, then use master bus processing to create balance and "glue".

I've been grown accustomed to working with option 2 because I like the idea of being able to create and balance a kit without using compression or eQing the bus as much as possible. How do you usually go about processing your drums? curious to hear what people does!
 
As a said, I ve always been a "2" guy , but yesterday I tried work the other way on a mix I am working on, and I have to say, it went surprisingly well for the situation. This was an instance where a really natural drum sound was needed, so it did not require too much fine tuning, and I feel the process kind of helped speed things up a bit! it all depends on the material you work with I guess :-D
 
I used to not to, but even if just to be able to remove all the drum tracks from my sight while mixing the rest of the stuff (in logic pro you can create busses that work as track stacks, allowing you to folder your tracks) it makes it all feel cleaner to me!
 
using #2 method works on many levels... but with one caveat...

do NOT send the drums to the master buss.

send them to a DRUM BUSS....
and then THAT to the master buss.

you can control the overall punch with select compression...
you can control the overall EQ with select eq.....
you can very quickly bring the entire drum kit up and down, once you have the balances between the kit worked out.....
you can add reverb to the whole kit, IF you need a roomier sound, and don't have good room mic tracks....
you can easily set up new york style compression, or simple parallel compression, with only the drum buss and a compression buss....

you can still make micro edits to the individual tracks, and not really affect the drum buss....

you can AUTOMATE your drum mix on the drum buss, with one simple envelope.
in fact, you can AUTOMATE EFFECTS, such as the reverb, so easy with just one control on the buss.....

lots of reasons to use #2
 
Just starting to mix live drums, my approach was two, seemed more natural, then group the tracks, then a glue compressor on the group and volume control to the master.
 
Definitely mix the drums first, and apply individual track processing (snare, kick, etc) before bussing them all together. I find myself using a drum bus virtually every time, however. Sometimes subtly for glue, sometimes hard for parallel squashing. If you know that the end result of mastering is inevitably going to use moderate compression and some brick wall limiting for loudness, then you should take care of some of those dynamic issues in your mix. It will give the mastering engineer an easier time getting the track up to commercial loudness levels without as many audible effects.
 
GONZO-X said:
using #2 method works on many levels... but with one caveat...

do NOT send the drums to the master buss.

send them to a DRUM BUSS....
and then THAT to the master buss.

you can control the overall punch with select compression...
you can control the overall EQ with select eq.....
you can very quickly bring the entire drum kit up and down, once you have the balances between the kit worked out.....
you can add reverb to the whole kit, IF you need a roomier sound, and don't have good room mic tracks....
you can easily set up new york style compression, or simple parallel compression, with only the drum buss and a compression buss....

you can still make micro edits to the individual tracks, and not really affect the drum buss....

you can AUTOMATE your drum mix on the drum buss, with one simple envelope.
in fact, you can AUTOMATE EFFECTS, such as the reverb, so easy with just one control on the buss.....

lots of reasons to use #2
Click to expand...
Yep.
 
Option 2. I'll also pre-group drum channels if I want to process them as a group before routing to the Drums buss. For example, I'll group Overhead tracks and Tom tracks before routing them to the Drums buss. Same with Kick and Snare tracks if they have multiple tracks I want to combine and process before sending to the Drums buss. Gives me more control and can save processing power by reducing the number of VST plugins running.
 
Definitely #2.

But I'll make a bunch of busses for snare T+B, Overhead L+R and Toms, and send those to the Master Drum buss with the Kick.

Don't normally have to do much on the master Drum Buss, mainly have it for convenience of automation and muting/soloing the kit.
 
I'm probably not as experienced as most of you guys (5 yrs learning) but I actually use number 1 but in a different way. I send everything into a group bus and put a Compressor on it right away. Then I'll in each drum individually. After I mix the drums I take that compressor back off and run the drum bus out of the daw through a old Tapco C12 mixer and a Art Pro vlaii compressor. I'll push the preamps pretty hard on the mixer and compress about 4 -5 dB with a medium attack and release and 4:1 ratio. I like the sound the analog gear gives it even though it's not top of the line gear. With that said I still have not found the perfect drum sound I'm looking for.
 
somewhat related to this, i have been wondering how you guys who have multiple snare and kick mics level these in your final mix. For example, SD2 has 3 mics for the snare (top, bottom, and FX). i try to keep all at the same level, with minor adjustments, and i EQ each individually. they are all routed to a snare buss. But, is there some fundamental concept behind the overall level of each piece? should the top usually be louder than the bottom, or is the same ol answer of "there's never a rule" going to be thrown at me here? ;) Let's say it's alternative rock stuff - how would you THINK those three snare mics should be balanced, before even starting to mix them together? i'm not a drummer, so perhaps there's some underlying concept i'm not aware of.
 
As a musician you've been around real drum kits, right? Start by making it sound as much like the real thing as possible, then modify that to fit the mix.
 
bouldersoundguy said:
As a musician you've been around real drum kits, right?
Click to expand...

As a musician, i've also cranked amps to 10, turned up the bass, and killed the overdrive into oblivion for live performances...i'm sure that drums have preferable methods for mixing that is directly opposed to how they should sound live. I'm just wondering what those with multiple snare mics do with each...turning knobs until it sounds right is something i was sure someone would say. thank you.
 
andrushkiwt said:
i try to keep all at the same level
Click to expand...

No inherent benefit to doing this.
Bring up one fader, then bring up the others and see what combinations with the others work
I like to process on the buss, means you only have one set of EQ and compression going on, other tonal changes are done by altering the balance of the mics rather than having to tweak 3 sets of processing.
 
andrushkiwt said:
As a musician, i've also cranked amps to 10, turned up the bass, and killed the overdrive into oblivion for live performances...i'm sure that drums have preferable methods for mixing that is directly opposed to how they should sound live. I'm just wondering what those with multiple snare mics do with each...turning knobs until it sounds right is something i was sure someone would say. thank you.
Click to expand...

Really it's pretty wide open. I suggested a methodology for getting the drums to sound right in your mix: start by making them sound real then modify that to fit the mix. Maybe in some cases a set of samples will work with all the faders set the same, but I wouldn't assume that's automatically the case. Hence the above suggested process. I wasn't being smartass, I was sincerely assuming you had some experience on which you can base the decisions that have to be made.
 
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