Drummer's perspective, or audiences?

Which perspective do you usually mix from?

  • Drummer

    Votes: 119 60.7%

  • Audience

    Votes: 77 39.3%
  • Total voters
    196
I'm amazed that so far the voting is 67% for audience perspective, and 33% for drummer perspective. What amazes me about that is that 33% of the voters think drums should be mixed from the drummers perspective. I would have expected that number to be zero, or at least well under ten percent.

Why would anyone mix from drummer's perspective? The *only* person who ever hears the music that way is the drummer. Everyone else hears it the way it looks to them, and I think the recording should reflect that. At least, unless there is some special effect that is being sought. But that would be the exception to the rule.

That said, it's really not a bad poll, because other instruments have become commonly recorded from the player's position. Most notably piano. Lower notes pan to the left and higher notes pan to the right, it's so common these days in popular recordings. Classical piano is of course still recorded from audience perspective.

But drums, I don't know *why* that would done. Or even how. I mean, all the mics would have to be on the drummer side of the kit. The way drummers flail around, I could see a lot of problems getting that to work.
 
I have spent a lot of time behind a drum kit, so it's natural for me to mix from the drummer's perspective.
When it comes to final mix down, it's up to the band (who usually doesn't care and ends up drummer perspective because the band asks the drummer how he wants his instrument mixed).
It's easy to flip it one way or the other.
 
Drummers perspective. I play several instruments, and I listen to lots of music. I just prefer it from the drummer's perspective. Noone that doesn't know the difference gives a shit or even notices, so I might as well do it they way I like it.
 
The whole reason I did this vote is due to the fact that I was researching it, and about 5 people on another website said "audience perspective", and then about 10 people called those 5 people "dumbfucks", and the arguing went on until this day.

I was just curious.
 
I expect that most engineers mix drums from audience perspective, as that's the way the mics are set up. There are reasons for this. If you have an overhead pair, they are set up in audience perspective. Same goes for room mics, even more so.

If you start flipping around the pan positions of the tracks that were recorded with the individual mics, the their positions no longer match where they sit in the stereo room mic tracks. Each mic on a drum kit gets a ton of bleed from the drums and cymbals nearby. If you have a cymbal crash on the right in the room mics, but panned left on it's individual track, the stereo placement is fighting itself.

Maybe interesting as an effect, but it seems to me that the decision to mix from audience versus drummer perspective would need to be made very early and be taken into account when micing the drum set.
 
Here's my thing though.

I don't have a kit to mic, I individualize each track that is MIDI programmed, and have a track with just the cymbals on, and just the snare on, etc. I never have to worry about bleed, which helps when mixing the drums. I could mix from either perspective and it would sound just as good.
 
Na. I'll be 'non drummer doing it from the drummers side. a) Right, with the possible exception of maybe 'x/y style documentation' perspective, it doesn't mater squat so, b) it's convenient to me to 'see it from there if it's going to sound that close.
If they're wide at all, there's no way they came from' past the stage anyway is there? If they're even so far as in the back line', they ought to be damn near mono, but we still (typically) want to put on some spread. Candy? Can't resist? :p :D
To my ear this mix of illusion is way less incongruent than those close sounding spot mics they put on orchestras where the listener is placed in the audience/hall.
 
So I'm a left-handed drummer, like Phil Collins, Ian Paice and a few others. So if we mixed our drums from the "audience perspective", does that mean the audience would hear it from the drummer's perspective unless you put a disclaimer claiming it's a lefty playing?

It's not even worth thinking about. :rolleyes:


So where do the drums go on a Def Leppard record. Are they panned towards the one arm he uses???? :eek:
 
SonicAlbert said:
..If you start flipping around the pan positions of the tracks that were recorded with the individual mics, the their positions no longer match where they sit in the stereo room mic tracks. Each mic on a drum kit gets a ton of bleed from the drums and cymbals nearby. If you have a cymbal crash on the right in the room mics, but panned left on it's individual track, the stereo placement is fighting itself.
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That would be to say, pick one, and stick with it on all of them.
 
The drummer in my band is lefthanded so when I finally come around to recording us I'll stick with Hihat on the left wich will be the audience perspective, and for me it'll be drummers perspective. beat that :D


EDIT": oh shit, i didn't read the second page of the thred :o
 
RAMI said:
So where do the drums go on a Def Leppard record. Are they panned towards the one arm he uses???? :eek:
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Each drum hit must be panned from left to right, then vice-versa, with reverse reverb :p
 
I use drummer's perspective. 99% of the audience (including me) has absolutely no preference and drummers will be happy with the little treat you've given them. They won't have to reverse their headphones to learn the song.

Let's face it, most recordings don't sound like an audience listening to a live group. If you want that, get a PA and a binaural dummy head microphone thing and call it a day.
 
PhiloBeddoe said:
Let's face it, most recordings don't sound like an audience listening to a live group.
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Most recordings do not do drummer's perspective OR audience perspective. Most recordings build an artificial soundscape.

On those where at least some resembelence to a real perspective is gone for, it's just a 1-3 mic mono or stereo stem setup for the kit anyway. In such a case it makes sense to use the audience's left-right instead of the drummers.

For those genres and mixes where multi-miking is desired (I still find it amusing that it's far more popular in the rookie ranks than it is in the pro ranks), then the point to perspective is kind of lost altogether. What's the point of doing all that seperate miking if you're just going to re-create a natural stereo image? Stick to the overheads if that's what you want to do.

(And before someone says that multi-miking gives better control over the individual drum hits, everybody already knows what my reply is: learn how to play the damn things first, and you wouldn't have to worry about "re-playing them in the CR" via editing every damn skin hit. Spend the time practicing instead of editing. It's a lot cheaper ;))

G.
 
Im a drummer. I mix to the drummer's perspective. When I listen to music Im pretty much always air drumming or drumming on my desk or on the steering wheel so I need to have it from the drummers perspective otherwise its just wierd. A band that I was friends with got signed last year and their first record was drummer's perspective for the first half and audience for the second. It was a little ridiculous
 
mrhotapples said:
I never, ever do audience. I am used to hearing hi-hats on the left side of me, and when I started recordings drums, it always seemed more natural to have the hats on the left and ride on the right. I don't think I've heard a lot of albums where the hats were on the right.
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Well depends if the drummer is left handed. :)
Hats will usually be on the right if the drummer is left handed.
EIther way of mixing is fine.
To me it doesnt really make a difference.
IM just used to mixing from the drummers perspective and I most likely wont change that.
Eck
 
thebarnstudio said:
I am a drummer and I mix audience. I think it's because most of the cd's I grew up listening to were mixed audience perspective.
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:confused: ..but then you might be one of those 'lefties' we heard about..

:D
...And 'Audience' inches ahead by one! :)
 
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