Do you ever bounce drums to one stereo track?

[FattMusiek]

Do you guys ever bounce your drum tracks (however many you've got going at once) down to one stereo track? Is this a common practice in professional mixing? From my own experience it seems to enable me to achieve a more refined, processed, and compressed tone. What do you guys have to say about it?

[tarnationsauce2]

The only time I ever did that was with old 4 and 8 tracks.
With software that has more than enough tracks, I see no need to mix them down during the mixing process. That would just complicate things should I want to change something with the drum mix.

If it's the universal control of all the drums at once you like, maybe assign the drum tracks to a buss.

[Bulls Hit]

Well I'm no professional, but I usually create a drummix and use it for parallel compression alongside the original tracks

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Originally Posted by FattMusiek

Do you guys ever bounce your drum tracks down to one stereo track? Is this a common practice in professional mixing?

I do it all the time. In most of my stuff I treat the drum kit as a single large instrument, not as a group of distinct instruments. I don't seperately mix toms and snares and hats in the main mix any more than I seperately mix the six individual strings on a guitar.

G.

[killmachine]

I would always use 2 tracks just so you can still get your stereo seperation. You use one all the panning you just did is scrapped.

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Originally Posted by killmachine

I would always use 2 tracks just so you can still get your stereo seperation. You use one all the panning you just did is scrapped.

Ah, you're right, kill; I misread the original question. I mix down to dual mono tracks, not to a single stereo track. In fact, there are extremely few situations where I'll use a stereo track at all.

G.

[FattMusiek]

Two mono tracks huh? You'd do anything to the left mixed down to one mono track and everything to the right on another?

[RAMI]

Originally Posted by FattMusiek

Two mono tracks huh? You'd do anything to the left mixed down to one mono track and everything to the right on another?

Not speak for Glen but I think he means he mixes them down to 2 mono tracks but treats them the same...probably linking them and panning each one hard Left and Right. Which is the same as a "stereo track". Correct me if I'm wrong, G.

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Originally Posted by RAMI

Not speak for Glen but I think he means he mixes them down to 2 mono tracks but treats them the same...probably linking them and panning each one hard Left and Right. Which is the same as a "stereo track". Correct me if I'm wrong, G.

Yes...and no . You have the basic idea correct, but the details can vary a bit.

By "dual mono", I do indeed mean one for stereo left channel and one for stereo right channel (I usually keep the kick as a seperate 3rd mono channel, but that's the only exception). However, the degree of panning is variable. Depending on my soundstage plan and the type of tracking I'm working with, I might hard pan, but as often as not the pan for each track could be anywhere from +/- 20% to +/- 50% or more.

It's rare, but on those times where I'm mixing a live recording of a simple acoustic trio or quartet, I might even elect to throw the whole kit some degree left or right of center *if* I'm going for a documentary reproduction of the live stage as is a common technique in many "old school" live acoustic recordings.

Anyway, the main point is when doing a stereo submix of the drumkit, regardless of the final pan spread, I prefer to throw the L and R submix tracks to seperate tracks in the editor rather than a single stereo track. The reason for this is it simply gives me more flexibility.

First in the panning, like I described above, where I can keep the full stereo image and center it where I want. While 90% of the time I'll center the kit on dead center of the panspace, there are times when I might offset it a bit (e.g. a 60% spread going from 20L to 40R). If I tried doing the same thing by panning a single stereo track to 10R, the effect would be entirely different (and usually undesireable). Also, with the single stereo track, the stereo width could not be controlled without an extra plug for stereo compression (yuck).

Second, the dual mono tracks do allow for seperate signal processing control over each side. While I would not recommend going wild with different compression between L and R, sometimes slight differences between the two sides can help fit things together in busy mixes. But more than that, seperate EQ control between L and R can help with "tongue and groove" EQing in busy mixes. If I have to remove some mids from the right side of the drum kit because I have an organ panned mid-right that's giving me some interference, I can do that without hurting the toms and crashes on the left side. This gives the overall effect of notching out the drum kit without it sounding that notched out. It saves me from having to seperately find the right notch combination for the seperate snare and hat tracks if I don't have to; that's a real time saver is the notching is automated.

Sometimes it's better to go back to individual drum/cymbal tracks before the submix to do such notching, of course. But I don't always have individual tracks to work with (I often like to track entire kits with just 3 mics.) And even if I did, the dual-mono submix still just offers one more option of flexibility that can't be gotten with a single stereo track.

That's a lot of words, I hope it makes sense to somebody . YMMV, but it's a technique that works well for me.

G.

[RAMI]

I see, thanx for the correction and explanation.

If I did the same thing, would it not be the same if I decided what my panning would be and do that DURING the bounce. That way, my drum sub-mix would be panned hard left and right to re-produce the panning I already took care of?

[MadAudio]

I don't go as far as rendering a submix, but I do send drums and drum fx to their own bus.

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Originally Posted by RAMI

If I did the same thing, would it not be the same if I decided what my panning would be and do that DURING the bounce. That way, my drum sub-mix would be panned hard left and right to re-produce the panning I already took care of?

Sure, that'll work too. It's a question of where in the mix process one prefers to do it. There's no right or wrong here, they'll both work.

My reasoning for shaping the pan coming out of the submix instead of going into it is two-fold:

First, doing it going into the submix is not always an option for those of us who do not automatically use 179 microphones for tracking drums. Ignoring the kick for this conversation, I often record drums using just overheads or (near)coincident pairs. In such a case, all there *is* is a stereo submix. There is only one place to customize it's pan space, as there is no "bounce".

Second, as good as any of us is in designig a mix gameplan going in, when we do finally go to fit all our tracks together in mixing, changes - or at least tweaks - to the gameplan sometimes happen when we hear everything together the first time. By waiting to set the stereo spread on the drums until I get to the main mix, I'm leaving all options open.

G.

[xfinsterx]

I dont.
I always have to go back the next day for a snare up or down, or a reverb up or down....etc.

It just wouldnt be an option.

[RAMI]

Originally Posted by SouthSIDE Glen

Sure, that'll work too. It's a question of where in the mix process one prefers to do it. There's no right or wrong here, they'll both work.

My reasoning for shaping the pan coming out of the submix instead of going into it is two-fold:

First, doing it going into the submix is not always an option for those of us who do not automatically use 179 microphones for tracking drums. Ignoring the kick for this conversation, I often record drums using just overheads or (near)coincident pairs. In such a case, all there *is* is a stereo submix. There is only one place to customize it's pan space, as there is no "bounce".

Second, as good as any of us is in designig a mix gameplan going in, when we do finally go to fit all our tracks together in mixing, changes - or at least tweaks - to the gameplan sometimes happen when we hear everything together the first time. By waiting to set the stereo spread on the drums until I get to the main mix, I'm leaving all options open.

G.

Cool thanx...I don't usually sub-mix my drums anyway. I only use 4 drum tracks and I don't fill up all 24 of my tracks, so I leave all 4 tracks on their own and pair up the overheads. But it's good to know all the option and their reasons if I ever need to.

[TexRoadkill]

I don't know that there's any point in bouncing the mix to two tracks but it's very common to process the drum mix on a stereo buss. If buss latency is an issue then I guess it would make sense to bounce down to two tracks.

[Robert D]

Sub Buss. No need to print it unless you're track constrained.