Where do you start your mixes from?

[jkuehlin]

^^^See that's where you start to lose me. If they're not supposed to sound like real drums, then why are you starting with real drums? Especially if the "performance" is going to get edited onto a grid, smashed to hell for dynamic consistency, and layered with samples anyway. MIDI makes timing and dynamic edits super easy, and if you just pull up samples that sound the way you want to begin with...

Ashcat, most pro mixers (in the pop/rock/country/latin realm) are using the kick and snare replacement samples as supplemental sources that support the overheads and room mics. Even then, great care is taken preserve the sound, feel, and vibe of the original take. Many times samples are taken from parts of the snare track itself, and retriggered through various spots of the mix. Other times, when using a library like BFD or Slate, I attempt to find a snare drum that has similar characteristics. If the guy brings in a Gretsch kit, I'll usually start looking for samples in a Gretsch snare drum library. Or at minimum, if they bring in a wood piccolo snare, I know not to reach for a deep aluminum snare. Those samples are then BLENDED into the room and overhead mics. Not put there to replace them. So the essence of the performance is still very much present.

 

[Farview]

all good...I didn't take it like that. And I'll be the first to admit I have very little experience with that style. I am surprised you referred to Metallica as metal...I tend to think of them as radio pop/top 40. Or classic rock maybe. I thought you were talking about sludge death screamo tear-your-head-off ish stuff. I figured that in a mix with all that noise, room mics might be pretty lost on the overall sound.

Maybe I'm just old...or still influenced by Metallica before the black album got airplay. The top 40 part of their career was a complete surprise for everyone. The black album (and all the Bob Rock produced albums) do have a ton of room mics set up in a huge room. But they were really used for reverb, with the close mics being the main sound. I believe there is a snare sample in there too,

The death metal stuff is almost always samples, most of the time played on an electronic kit. The only drummer I know for sure actually gets that sound out of acoustic drums is Jason Bittner (Shadows Fall and now Flotsam and Jetsam). I will never figure out how he is able to hit the kicks that hard while playing that fast.

 

[timvracer]

I'm not a pro mixer, but drum layering has proved essential for me. I am able to get a great tone on the kick and snare, while preserving the human variations of the player (with proper blending of the original track, and with a replacer that uses different samples for different transient shapes). I also do manual editing of the replacements in specific areas where it is needed (don't just rely on the replacement algorithm).

In my case, this was to fix crappily recorded drums as well, too much bleed of the high-hat into the snare and kick, which ruined the tail of the hit (release) and the snap on the kick (attack). so I run a super tight transient filter on the original snare (capture the hit, but cut off the trail) and aggressive EQ on the kick (lose the snap, capture the boom) and use the layering from samples to help provide the parts I filtered out.

Ashcat, most pro mixers (in the pop/rock/country/latin realm) are using the kick and snare replacement samples as supplemental sources that support the overheads and room mics. Even then, great care is taken preserve the sound, feel, and vibe of the original take. Many times samples are taken from parts of the snare track itself, and retriggered through various spots of the mix. Other times, when using a library like BFD or Slate, I attempt to find a snare drum that has similar characteristics. If the guy brings in a Gretsch kit, I'll usually start looking for samples in a Gretsch snare drum library. Or at minimum, if they bring in a wood piccolo snare, I know not to reach for a deep aluminum snare. Those samples are then BLENDED into the room and overhead mics. Not put there to replace them. So the essence of the performance is still very much present.

 

[jkuehlin]

Maybe I'm just old...or still influenced by Metallica before the black album got airplay. The top 40 part of their career was a complete surprise for everyone. The black album (and all the Bob Rock produced albums) do have a ton of room mics set up in a huge room. But they were really used for reverb, with the close mics being the main sound. I believe there is a snare sample in there too,

The death metal stuff is almost always samples, most of the time played on an electronic kit. The only drummer I know for sure actually gets that sound out of acoustic drums is Jason Bittner (Shadows Fall and now Flotsam and Jetsam). I will never figure out how he is able to hit the kicks that hard while playing that fast.

Isn't that when they had cameras following them around for like....2 years strait? I think I remember that. Even accounting for the drastic changes in mixing since then, there's some grey area on what is referred to as a room mic vs an ambience mic. I think of room mics as mics that are pointed at certain parts of the drum set specifically to capture the sound of the drum as the sound expands and evolves within the context of the room. Where as an ambience mic is set up to capture basically anything that has to do with walls and reflections...think verb tail and chamber resonance (for a gross oversimplification).

I'm not saying one couldn't use close mics. Nor am I suggesting there's anything inherently wrong with using them. Just for me personally...I started getting a lot better at mixing in general when I quit relying on them to carry the bulk of the tone. But at the time I was starting to work with better sounding rooms and bigger commercial studios. I think that does make a difference as well. I completely understand that some guys have to use close mics and overheads because they simply don't have regular access to commercial rooms.

 

[witzendoz]

You know what, I have never used drum samples. I just record the kit and work it until it sounds good, then hit record. A lot of music today sounds too clean and sampled.

Alan.

Now I wait LOL

 

[Farview]

Yup, that was the one that was on video. But I won't able to dig up more info. They had 20 + mics around the room to capture the reverb. They just chose the mics that worked for the tempo of the tune. But those would be what you call ambience mics. There were a ton around to the kit too, but who knows what got used when.

 

[rmastering]

I usually start my mix with the drums going over to the bass so the balance and low end is right. Mostly i listen to the vocals from time to time too during this process and then mix the remaining instruments and vocals.

 

[ashcat_lt]

Ashcat, most pro mixers (in the pop/rock/country/latin realm) are using the kick and snare replacement samples as supplemental sources that support the overheads and room mics.

Well sure. I find that practice questionable also, but I wasn't talking to those people. I was talking to Farview who has said repeatedly that this is not what he's shooting for. He said that he needs the drums to not actually sound like drums, and I asked why would you start with real drums in that case. I do see now that this is not strictly up to the mix engineer. It's a tracking stage issue, but then so ultimately is the other. I am most often both, but I understand that a lot of people are just trying to get the best mix out of whatever they've been given, and then you gotta do what you gotta do.

To (sort of) actually respond to the OP - Since I am usually the tracking engineer as well, I've usually already got a decent rough mix going by the time I sit down to do the proper mix, and I kind of just dive into there and fix things I think need fixing and massage things that need massaging. I don't really have a set system, and it would probably drive most people nuts to watch me. That's part of why I don't let people sit in on mix sessions. I don't think I'm sacrificing any efficiency this way because things tend to come together pretty quickly, but I'm getting paid by the hour anyway, so....

 

[Farview]

To (sort of) actually respond to the OP - Since I am usually the tracking engineer as well, I've usually already got a decent rough mix going by the time I sit down to do the proper mix, and I kind of just dive into there and fix things I think need fixing and massage things that need massaging. I don't really have a set system, and it would probably drive most people nuts to watch me. That's part of why I don't let people sit in on mix sessions. I don't think I'm sacrificing any efficiency this way because things tend to come together pretty quickly, but I'm getting paid by the hour anyway, so....

I used to do this too, when I was the tracking engineer as well. But, since you tend to start by tracking the drums, your mix probably starts there and meanders on, depending on what order things get tracked.

Maybe I overstated that my drums don't sound like drums. When I mean is they sound like a bigger, deeper, more in your face version of drums. For example, no kick drum when you are standing next to it will have an accentuated 8k snap and a dip around 900hz. It will be much boxier sounding than that, because that is what the instrument sounds like.

Drums sounding like drums would be the John Bonham thing. Which wouldn't work on a five finger death punch album.

Drums not sounding like drums would be the black album bigger, brighter and deeper sound. The main reason I keep referring to the black album is because everyone is familiar with it. If I start referencing Shadows Fall, Five Finger Death Punch, etc... people might have to dig to hear it. Even the black album is pretty tame by comparison now.

Like I said before, once you get into death/black/speed/ metal, it's pretty much electronic drums with real cymbals anyway.

 

[ashcat_lt]

I used to do this too, when I was the tracking engineer as well. But, since you tend to start by tracking the drums, your mix probably starts there and meanders on, depending on what order things get tracked.

When I record my own stuff, drums are almost always last. When I record others, it's usually all at once, so not really, but I suppose that would be true for most people most of the time.

If I start referencing Shadows Fall, Five Finger Death Punch, etc...

...I tune out.

Like I said before, once you get into death/black/speed/ metal, it's pretty much electronic drums with real cymbals anyway.

Yeah, if I was working with a group that insisted on those types of sounds, I'd try to push them toward triggers, but I'd probably try to talk them into shooting for a more natural sound first. This part is all off topic and subjective in a lot of ways, but the folks I end up recording aren't usually able to pay me enough to do all that fucking around.

 

[jkuehlin]

, I'd try to push them toward triggers, but I'd probably try to talk them into shooting for a more natural sound first. This part is all off topic and subjective in a lot of ways, but the folks I end up recording aren't usually able to pay me enough to do all that fucking around.

Interesting. Daw based triggers or physical ones on the drums?

 

[ashcat_lt]

Interesting. Daw based triggers or physical ones on the drums?

Whatever it takes, really. Preferably a decent e-kit if it doesn't cause too much bleed from the drummer whining like a bitch.

Edit to add - this is getting way off topic, but...
My first couple of recordings I set up all the close mics like you're supposed to, EQd and compressed each individually and all that. At that time I was on 4-track cassette, so that whole mess had to be mixed to tape and I pretty much got to choose between a mono mix of those mics or a stereo mix of those mics AND the bass(!). Those actually turned out pretty well except the one where I thought cheap suction cup mics would be cool on the toms (it was interesting, but not what that group needed), but then one day I decided to try just a stereo pair and a kick mic and it was just so much easier to get a solid, natural sound from the drums that I decided then and there (22 yrs ago), that if I needed to use more than 3 mics to get the drum sound I needed, I'd just go to triggers and be done with it. Course then I didn't really record much of anybody else for quite a while.

I've never used acoustic drums for my own stuff. I mean, most of my music is on the fringes anyway, so I could get away with just letting a drum machine be a drum machine and not try to fool anybody, but more recently SuperiorDrummer has made it almost to easy to come up with something convincingly natural sounding. But the project I'm working on now (kind of a reunion of a band I was in for a while, all of our drums were mp3s of EZD sequences) is going to be the first time I've ever put acoustic drums on an "official studio album" of my own.

But the folks I record all play acoustic drums and in fact I had one group come to me saying "everybody we talk to wants to do drum triggers and amp sims", and I was like "No fuck that, just come in and don't suck and it'll be great." These are groups I've seen in real rooms with nothing but a PA that can barely support the vocals - where what we're hearing is what their amps and drums actually sound like. And it just rocks. And so far most of the people I work with really just want the record to sound like that, so that's what I do. Massage it a little bit so it maintains some excitement and impact even when it's not hitting absurd real world SPLs. Then they go play it through a guitar amp and record through the built-in mic on some thrift store cassette machine to make the tapes they're going to sell. :/

In those cases the drummer has to mix itself and I have to not second guess its intentions. If it didn't want its high hat to overwhelm everything, it would probably step on the pedal every once in a while or not hit the thing so hard.

But this again is all project specific. These are the projects I get and maybe prefer, but it's a bit of it's own aesthetic. Farview is talking about the Black Album and frankly I think that's a great sounding album, and probably should be the industry standard and if you're going for a corporate metal sound, I can see using some of the same techniques. Except it would have been a lot easier for them even with triggers and decent MMS drum software.

The philosophical difference I think is demonstrated better by the contrast between Nevermind and In Utero. Both great sounding records. Powerful, full, beautiful. But very different production styles. One sounds the way they actually sounded (on a good day), and the other sounds the way Butch Vig thought they should sound. It's probably true that Albini's album wouldn't have sold as many copies if Vig's hadn't come out first, but I think both are equally valid. Ultimately it should always be about understanding the client's goal and working to achieve it. But it's also about managing those expectations. If there are constraints - budget, time, talent, gear... - those obviously limit our options and we have to decide how to make the best with what we have and can do.

 

[Farview]

Whatever it takes, really. Preferably a decent e-kit if it doesn't cause too much bleed from the drummer whining like a bitch.

I would opt for triggers for two reasons
1. You can use real cymbals without having to deal with the sound of him hitting the pads.
2. He gets to play his kit, which will be more comfortable for him, so he plays better and with more confidence.

BONUS 3rd reason! You can blend the real kit into the samples to give the illusion that there are dynamics happening.

It's usually a lot less work for me if the musicians are comfortable with what they are doing and how they are doing it. If I don't think the guitar sound is going to cut it, but the guitar player is nervous about not having 'his sound', I let him do the track with his sound and take a DI to re-amp later, if necessary.

Same sort of thing with the drums. If his suck, I just fix it with a sample. No one has the budget to sit there for hours trying different heads, different tunings, different placements, and then have the drummer play on them long enough to get comfortable before we go for a take.

 

[jimmys69]

I would opt for triggers for two reasons
1. You can use real cymbals without having to deal with the sound of him hitting the pads.
2. He gets to play his kit, which will be more comfortable for him, so he plays better and with more confidence.

BONUS 3rd reason! You can blend the real kit into the samples to give the illusion that there are dynamics happening.

It's usually a lot less work for me if the musicians are comfortable with what they are doing and how they are doing it. If I don't think the guitar sound is going to cut it, but the guitar player is nervous about not having 'his sound', I let him do the track with his sound and take a DI to re-amp later, if necessary.

Same sort of thing with the drums. If his suck, I just fix it with a sample. No one has the budget to sit there for hours trying different heads, different tunings, different placements, and then have the drummer play on them long enough to get comfortable before we go for a take.

This is exactly what works for me as well. Depending on the genre I may use more of the natural mic'd kit but there is usually a trigger or two in there somewhere.

 

[ashcat_lt]

2. He gets to play his kit, which will be more comfortable for him, so he plays better and with more confidence.

I guess I should have said I prefer an e-kit, but I don't have have to play it. I think I covered this point with my thing about whining.

You can blend the real kit into the samples to give the illusion that there are dynamics happening.

Any decent trigger method into any decent MMS drum sampler will give about the same dynamics you'd get out of real kit, with the added bonus of being able to fine tune those dynamics at the MIDI level - essentially change the way the thing was played to begin with - which is usually better than trying to mess with it after it's actual audio.

It's usually a lot less work for me if the musicians are comfortable with what they are doing and how they are doing it.

Yes, that, but like I said, I don't usually think it's my job to tell the performer that their tone sucks. Maybe it's supposed to suck? If what they're giving me is obviously not going to get them where they've told me they want to go, if they complain that they can't seem to get what they want, or if there's a real problem (like the bassist that brought two different cabs to two different sessions and neither of them had more than one screw holding the speaker), I can find ways to help, but I try to address most of these kinds of issues in pre-production so that everybody can be ready to rock when the clock starts ticking.

 

[jimmys69]

Any decent trigger method into any decent MMS drum sampler will give about the same dynamics you'd get out of real kit, with the added bonus of being able to fine tune those dynamics at the MIDI level - essentially change the way the thing was played to begin with - which is usually better than trying to mess with it after it's actual audio.

Did you really just say that? And believe it?

Sorry, but in my opinion nothing compares to a live drummer ever. Enhance or trigger it to death, but it still better to me than complete fake or played on a drum machine or e-kit. Not the same dynamics at all.

But, then again I often find myself fixing the dynamics of a poor drummer. But much better than trying to fake humanity from a machine.

Not arguing but....

 

[ashcat_lt]

Maybe I should have said all the dynamics you need most of the time.

I really was trying to bring this back around to mix philosophy and practice rather than tracking and production, but they all do kind of go together. And yes, I'm aware that I'm the one who derailed this thing to begin with.

 

[Farview]

The 'dynamics' (probably the wrong word) I was talking about was more about the difference in attack when the drum is hit in a slightly different place on every hit. Or rim shots (accidental or purposefully)

 

[timvracer]

Wow.. like so many subjective things, this has gotten all philosophical!

So funny, I am from the tech world, and conversations about programming languages ("which is better"), or coding styles, etc. etc. all devolve in the same way, pretty soon it is discussion about "the right way" and what is pure vs. what is not, etc. etc. -- and of course, in the end, so much of it comes down to preference.

What I do love is many of you, as I have struggled to learn, have constantly reminded me -- in the end, it's about how it sounds and what the objectives are. If you want to sell records, you have to do some things (like loudness) to sell records. If you want to express the purity of the musicianship... if you want to make somebody's ears bleed... etc. etc.

I really have learned a ton from this board.

 

[timvracer]

This... I think preserving the mistakes, the flam's, the off center shots, etc. is valuable (at least for the stuff I am working on) to keep it human. Certainly depends on the style though... lots of stuff out there wants to be as inhuman as possible!

The 'dynamics' (probably the wrong word) I was talking about was more about the difference in attack when the drum is hit in a slightly different place on every hit. Or rim shots (accidental or purposefully)