I want my kick drum to kick ***.

B

BillyBenson

New member
So I'm up working on this track, and I made sure the kick drum came through the mix via eq while creating the instrumental, but after I laid the vocals down they all got in the way, so I bussed all the vox to a bus and cut where I boost the kick. THe kick was coming through where the lead vocal stood solo, but when a background vocal kicked in the kick seemed to lose its impact.
My solution was to cut each individual vocal track in the same place. After I did this everything was fine. The kick drum now shines through the mix, but I feel like... that's wrong? Should I really have to cut the kick in all those tracks? Why isn't bussing them and doing one cut enough? I didn't go to school for this, but I work on this stuff all the time in my room trying to find new tricks because I just want my mixes to be great. This would really help me out, guys.
 
I am no expert, but maybe some clarification might help here. When you say your vocals were clashing with your kick, are you referring to the "snap" of the kick? Typcially the kick will have 2 components, a BOOM and a SNAP, the BOOM typically lives in the 100-30hz range, and the SNAP usually somewhere up in the 1-2k range (the experts on here can correct where I am off on this).

Point is, not sure the vocal should ever conflict with the BOOM, so it could be the "snap". There are some ways to solve this either with EQ, ducking, or other techniques, but not sure what the actual problem is.

However, the other big question I am sure folks may ask is around your monitors. It also may be something to do with the range of your monitoring solution, and how pumping lows through them may impact their ability to accurately reproduce the other mid range stuff.
 
BillyBenson said:
So I'm up working on this track, and I made sure the kick drum came through the mix via eq while creating the instrumental, but after I laid the vocals down they all got in the way, so I bussed all the vox to a bus and cut where I boost the kick. THe kick was coming through where the lead vocal stood solo, but when a background vocal kicked in the kick seemed to lose its impact.
My solution was to cut each individual vocal track in the same place. After I did this everything was fine. The kick drum now shines through the mix, but I feel like... that's wrong? Should I really have to cut the kick in all those tracks? Why isn't bussing them and doing one cut enough? I didn't go to school for this, but I work on this stuff all the time in my room trying to find new tricks because I just want my mixes to be great. This would really help me out, guys.
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Well it does sound like you are using eq to balance the mix, but you also have to keep in mind the dynamic range of other parts and balance the dynamic range. The limiting on the vocals might be the key. This takes practice. In other situations where the bass guitar and kick share the same frequencies, ducking might be helpful.
 
Thanks for the input, guys! Monitoring is an issue I've had for a while to be honest. I only have a pair of behringers to mix in, so I really only have a clue to what my music sounds like until I listen in the car.
Dynamics is my biggest problem when it comes to mixing, because I hear tracks with super loud percussion over vocals that are pushed soooo far back, yet it comes out sounding amazing? No pumping or anything stupid going on. For example

I know the snare is very wide and doesn't interfere, but how is the engineer doing this? Wouldnt it still pump in mono? I am the confused. :(
 
BillyBenson said:
Thanks for the input, guys! Monitoring is an issue I've had for a while to be honest. I only have a pair of behringers to mix in, so I really only have a clue to what my music sounds like until I listen in the car.
Dynamics is my biggest problem when it comes to mixing, because I hear tracks with super loud percussion over vocals that are pushed soooo far back, yet it comes out sounding amazing? No pumping or anything stupid going on. For example

I know the snare is very wide and doesn't interfere, but how is the engineer doing this? Wouldnt it still pump in mono? I am the confused. :(
Click to expand...

undesirable pumping is usually caused by compressors not adjusted correctly. However some people use this as an effect, usually triggered by another instrument. Give us a track example of one of your mixes.

One thing about monitoring. You have to acoustically treat the room that is used to mix in. Eqing the room monitors help a little, but it can cause eq issues that have to be undone at mastering time. I prefer to mix in headphones than to mix in an untreated room.

In your example the guy is using fake drums or to put it correctly, midi drums. They are preprocessed, and homogenized and very simple to mix. There is no real engineering that has to be done, other than the incidental EQ to make it balance in a mix.
 
drtechno said:
undesirable pumping is usually caused by compressors not adjusted correctly. However some people use this as an effect, usually triggered by another instrument. Give us a track example of one of your mixes.

One thing about monitoring. You have to acoustically treat the room that is used to mix in. Eqing the room monitors help a little, but it can cause eq issues that have to be undone at mastering time. I prefer to mix in headphones than to mix in an untreated room.

In your example the guy is using fake drums or to put it correctly, midi drums. They are preprocessed, and homogenized and very simple to mix. There is no real engineering that has to be done, other than the incidental EQ to make it balance in a mix.
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An example..
This is actually the mix that caused me to start this post.
The pumping isnt as severe, but I do realize that compression was the issue. I was using a multiband compressor on the master bus, but my attack and releases never really correlated from band to band. They were all over the place, but this time around I made more sense of things.

I also use sample pack drum kits. So the drums just have to be eq'd a little to sound so HUGE?
Hmm... Wait, if I intentionally make the drums that loud and just pull back on the compressor I won't have to worry about undesirable pumping AND get that in your face drum sound? Or is there more to it?


This track has very minute pumping that I have noticed in a LOT of hip hop mixes lately. Is this cool, or should I avoid results like this? SOmetimes I try to tell myself that minor problems in my mixes are okay because I have heard little mistakes here and there from some high end names.
 
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there's more to it. In the first track, the drums seems to need a good mix, then that mix needs to go with the rest of it. Multiband compression on the final is subjective and I would be conservative about using it to begin with. I would create a stereo bus and mix the drums without the synth bass. eq and possibly limit but that's about it. Then take the synth bass, add a comp that has a sidechain in, and send the drum mix via a send to the sidechain input, configure the compressor on the bass synth to attenuate a little so the drums cut through enough. This advanced compression technique is called "ducking". There are several youtube videos covering this with using different daws out there.
 
drtechno said:
there's more to it. In the first track, the drums seems to need a good mix, then that mix needs to go with the rest of it. Multiband compression on the final is subjective and I would be conservative about using it to begin with. I would create a stereo bus and mix the drums without the synth bass. eq and possibly limit but that's about it. Then take the synth bass, add a comp that has a sidechain in, and send the drum mix via a send to the sidechain input, configure the compressor on the bass synth to attenuate a little so the drums cut through enough. This advanced compression technique is called "ducking". There are several youtube videos covering this with using different daws out there.
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Amazing post. Only my program cannot side chain :( . Adobe Audition 3.0 All Day.
I also figured out how to make it work. I was boosting in the 300 range which really does nothing but wreck the kick (I legit thought that was the sound I wanted, but it didn't punch like I wanted it to, which led to this post), so I started cutting there and performing boosts at around 100 and another at around 850. I know the 800 is risky, but I do like the sound it makes. I'll probably find other nice frequencies later, but that's what I use for now. I also compressed it a bit for more of a thump. This then gets routed to a bus that gets compressed and gets cut in key areas. My end result was very satisfactory post MBC.
 
Well see.. the issue here is that you worked on the kick and after that you put the vocals on. When you are mixing, you want to bring in the instruments one by one when adjusting levels only.. but you are EQing and compressing etc.. you want work with everything there. Don't solo any instrument or mute any instrument.. Go back to your track and work on that kick with every instrument there and figure out how to make them work together without soling any of them when you are EQing.
 
I havent listened but anytime I hear of trcks that collide when they shouldnt, kick/vocal, I think compressor issue at the master out.
 
One of the tricks to pushing the vocals back in the mix without losing them is compression on the vocal.
I will compress the lead vocal separately from the background harmonies.

You need to flatten the dynamics of the vocal to make it "thicker", so it doesn't get lost as easily.

Compressing the drum bus also helps and keeps the mix from pumping.
 
not sure what kick sound you are going for but your's is flapping, by this I mean it's really heavy in the lo/hi mid. you want very little of this in the EQ. kick has 3 parts, thud, boom, and click(attack). the thud gives the beat and the click allows the sound to cut through the mix. Here is one EQ I use.

Kick EQ.PNG
 
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