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
Yeah, it's surprising to me that so many went for drummers perspective. But then, this is a forum made up of musicians, so, go figure. Before the advent of video, I wouldn't have put much thought into which perspective, but with videos being so important these days, it would seem odd for the perspective to be backwards.

It always seemed to me that a good 90+% of commercial releases were audience perspective, so I generally go that way as well. Plus, I always try to build the soundscape around the listener, and I have never thought to put them behind the drummer......


Whatever floats your boat though. In any instance, I don't think it would be a make or break kinda deal.
 
SouthSIDE Glen said:
I think this question should be qualified into two seperate questions. "Is there anybody who is not a drummer who mixes drums from the drummer's perspective?" - and - "Is there anybody who is a drummer who does not mix from a drummer's perspective?"
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Hah, good question.

I started mixing before I started playing drums. For some reason, I always wanted to hear the hi-hat on the left side even before I picked up the drums (I'm really a guitarist, but I moonlight on the bass and kit a little).

I don't know if this is "correct" or not, which is one of the reasons I was curious to read this thread. :)
 
One thing I read a couple of years back that traditionally, in Britain they did it one way, and in America they did it the other way. Not sure if this is still relevant today or even the prevalence of these techniques in those respective areas, but still interesting.
 
interesting

i think that i mix the drums imagining that i playing, ie high hat on the left ride on the right, so i gues i do it from the drumers perspective as well but imagine myself listening in the audience...i don't like this question anymore. one of them screwed up word problems!!!
JasonBird
 
I do drummers because I figure all these cappy bands that I record will be the only ones listening to there cd anyway. And I am not a drummer.
 
I've been a drummer my whole life and I still mix audience perspective. I dunno, someone just told me that's how it's done when I started, and it made sense to me, so now I do it that way. It really doesn't matter to me which ear stuff comes out of. It'd be good coordination practice for those of you that like to play along :p

Glen: I know this was a couple pages ago, but it's not just metal that mixes to the drummer's perspective. I can't figure out which band I'm thinking of, but I'll try to look it up. There are quite a few non-metal bands in my library that have it drummer's perspective. Of course, I could be making that up, as I often do...

EDIT: Found one. Blues Traveler, which is about as far from metal as you can get. Box Car Racer, Cake, Counting Crows, Dishwalla... There's a couple where it's hard to tell because they stick the hats kinda middleish, but those are just through the Ds in my library.
 
Chris Jahn said:
a little off subject by not really, but why in older stereo recordings, especially country, and some mo-town are the drums panned hard to one side, like the whole set is over to the left or right??
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Probably due to one or more of the following:

Some older consoles didn't have pan pots on every channel. Just Left/right/center assigning to the mix buss.

The engineers/producers wanted to show off as much "stereo" as possible (drummer is stage left; bass player is stage right; everything else placed discreetly in between.

The concept of stereo was so new that anything and everything was tried.

According to the "Tom Dowd and the Language of Music" documentary, the practice of placing kick drum and bass up the center started at Atlantic Records when Wexler and Ertegun got tired of having to re-cut lacquers because having so much low end/high transient info off to the sides often resulted in unplayable records.
 
when I first started recording, my soundcard was shit and actually reversed the stereo, so even though my left speaker was on the left, the right channel would play out of it haha. so every piece of music I listened to (for like 2 years or more) was from drummers perspective, till i got a new and decent computer and such. now i just mix that way becuase the other way around sounds wierd to me. plus, as it was stated before, it can also depend on the genre/band too. I like racer x and they recorded from the drummers perspective, for example.
 
travisisgood said:
when I first started recording, my soundcard was shit and actually reversed the stereo, so even though my left speaker was on the left, the right channel would play out of it haha. so every piece of music I listened to (for like 2 years or more) was from drummers perspective, till i got a new and decent computer and such. now i just mix that way becuase the other way around sounds wierd to me. plus, as it was stated before, it can also depend on the genre/band too. I like racer x and they recorded from the drummers perspective, for example.
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You think that's bad? I had a built in card on an old Dell that had the 2 channels out of phase. I had to reverse a channel via CoolEdit to hear things properly. Fortunately, it was never used for anything critical.
 
Drummer's perspective for me. Dunno why. Frustrated drummer, I guess. Just seems more "right". But then I'll tend to pan my overheads very wide. Which isn't natural.
 
SouthSIDE Glen said:
I might also point out that "mixing from a drummer's perspective" would include having the drums in the front of the mix, not amplifying the kick, and not being able to hear the rest of the band outside the bass and the lead vocals. ;)

G.
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"Must spread around more rep before... blah blah.."

+5

That got me some odd looks at work when I started laughing loudly in a very quiet office.
 
if a dummer sets this kit up left instead of right does it sound wrong to the audience :confused:









even the simple things can be made complicated if you analize them too much:D
 
Thank you Sonic Albert , question answered . When accurate understanding is applied .

Play your stereo room track , pan the snare track to the location of where it sounds on the stereo room track . do with all drum hit tracks .... that simple..
 
I lean towards hats on the left, probably because my left ear hears less highs, so er right handed drummer perspective for me!

Though of course i love playing with stuff in a crazy way too, running with a silly idea can be great!
 
Chris Jahn said:
a little off subject by not really, but why in older stereo recordings, especially country, and some mo-town are the drums panned hard to one side, like the whole set is over to the left or right??
Click to expand...

Tracking had a limited number back in the day. It went from 2 to 4 to ETC ETC.
 
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