Zach Frazier
New member
My setup is Pro tools 10, Tascam US-1800, Samson 8 piece mic kit.
I am recording in my bedroom and I know this is not the best place to achieve a great sounding drum kit. I have experimented numerous times when it comes to getting a good quality drum sound and have not been able to achieve what I want. I do understand that a good drum kit and cymbals is very important, because if you have crap sound going into the mics you will have crap sound recorded. I have done my best when it comes to tuning my drums and my cymbals are the best I can afford.
I am going to give a basic rundown of how I record and mix my drums and was hoping if I am doing something terribly wrong in the process that maybe someone can help me.
First off I check my levels on the mics because I hear recording at -3db is a good places for levels to be recorded. Then I will play a couple basic beats to have something to work with. Then I will go through starting with my snare drum using EQ getting the desired snare sound I am looking for and have pretty close to what I am looking for. Then I am unsure of what a compressor is used for, but I have watched a lot of videos where musicians use it to help the quality and sound of the drum.
And if someone could explain compressors to me that would be awesome.
I then would put a gate on my snare track to try and limit bleed from other instruments. I would also use reverb to achieve more desired sounds when it comes to the snare drum. For the toms I have tried using EQ, Compressor, and gate and can get close to the sound I am looking for. Kick drum is the same I use EQ, Compressor, and Noise Gate.
For my high hat and overheads I am very new when it comes to this part of the mixing. I use EQ for my high hats and both overheads. Also with my overheads I use reverb, and when using EQ I will use a low pass filter (not sure if that is right terminology but whatever is used to take out the low end in the EQ band 7) to take away the other sound bleeding from the drum set so I can really capture the cymbals.
I also use compression on both overheads. Then I have a master track with Maxim, and a compressor on there as well. I pan the tracks such as toms, overheads, high hats. Change my levels where I feel they need to be.
I know this is very vague and probably not helping at all, but if a step by step video would help I can do that as well. I also have a picture that shows all my tracks with their plugins.
Also I am only able to use the stock plugins that come with pro tools so I am very limited. I have also uploaded to soundcloud a short recording of what my kit sounds like with all the plugins I have added and used.
(http://soundcloud.com/zach-frazier-2/drum-mix-trial)
Anything at this point would be awesome, since I have been trying to get the Youtube drum cover project up and running for almost 2 years now. So thank you to whomever answers and trys to help.
Thanks
I am recording in my bedroom and I know this is not the best place to achieve a great sounding drum kit. I have experimented numerous times when it comes to getting a good quality drum sound and have not been able to achieve what I want. I do understand that a good drum kit and cymbals is very important, because if you have crap sound going into the mics you will have crap sound recorded. I have done my best when it comes to tuning my drums and my cymbals are the best I can afford.
I am going to give a basic rundown of how I record and mix my drums and was hoping if I am doing something terribly wrong in the process that maybe someone can help me.
First off I check my levels on the mics because I hear recording at -3db is a good places for levels to be recorded. Then I will play a couple basic beats to have something to work with. Then I will go through starting with my snare drum using EQ getting the desired snare sound I am looking for and have pretty close to what I am looking for. Then I am unsure of what a compressor is used for, but I have watched a lot of videos where musicians use it to help the quality and sound of the drum.
And if someone could explain compressors to me that would be awesome.
I then would put a gate on my snare track to try and limit bleed from other instruments. I would also use reverb to achieve more desired sounds when it comes to the snare drum. For the toms I have tried using EQ, Compressor, and gate and can get close to the sound I am looking for. Kick drum is the same I use EQ, Compressor, and Noise Gate.
For my high hat and overheads I am very new when it comes to this part of the mixing. I use EQ for my high hats and both overheads. Also with my overheads I use reverb, and when using EQ I will use a low pass filter (not sure if that is right terminology but whatever is used to take out the low end in the EQ band 7) to take away the other sound bleeding from the drum set so I can really capture the cymbals.
I also use compression on both overheads. Then I have a master track with Maxim, and a compressor on there as well. I pan the tracks such as toms, overheads, high hats. Change my levels where I feel they need to be.
I know this is very vague and probably not helping at all, but if a step by step video would help I can do that as well. I also have a picture that shows all my tracks with their plugins.
Also I am only able to use the stock plugins that come with pro tools so I am very limited. I have also uploaded to soundcloud a short recording of what my kit sounds like with all the plugins I have added and used.
(http://soundcloud.com/zach-frazier-2/drum-mix-trial)
Anything at this point would be awesome, since I have been trying to get the Youtube drum cover project up and running for almost 2 years now. So thank you to whomever answers and trys to help.
Thanks
Last edited by a moderator: