Need help getting a solid drum sound

guitarplayr82

guitarplayr82

New member
So I'm in the process of mixing a reggae/rock type song and I'm struggling to get a good, "finished" sound with the drum recordings I'm working with. I don't have much experience mixing live drums and I'd appreciate it if somebody could listen to these tracks and possibly recommend some settings to throw into my plugins?

Some notes:
  • The tom tracks are very noisy. Don't worry about that - I've already automated and gated them to take out all the extra noise.
  • I'm debating on whether I should replace the kick track with a sampled kick... thoughts?
  • The overheads were recorded in an XY setup and I didn't have a hihat mic, so the overheads are supposed to capture the hat as well as all the other cymbals.

Here is a link to download the drum tracks. I had to convert them to MP3 in order to meet the upload requirements, so I hope that is okay.
Drums.zip

Here is the track with the drums in it. The drums start at about 0:50. This track isn't fully mixed yet, but I'm just putting this up here so you can see how the drums fit into the song.
Output 1-2.mp3

And here is the same track without the drums:
Output 1-2 No Drums.mp3

Thanks for the help!

P.S. I just realized the raw drum tracks might not have the tempo/quantization edits made to them. Sorry about that!
 
Very nice job on the drums-they sound real. It's no easy task to record a drumset. Was this home recorded? I'd be interested to hear what gear you used. Anyways--I use addictive drums these days which is the absolutely amazing, but in general compression and eq are your friends. The kick is a little woofy-sounds like it would be great on a rocker, but maybe a little click in the kick might suit the raggae style? I used to mike drums same as you no high hat mic and the drummer hated me for it! But rolling off some lows from the over head might make the cymbals sizzle a bit more. I'm sure there's tons of stuff on the web about settings and stuff but it sounds like you're doing fine.

Strat

*edit to add-I think since you were so focused on the drums they are a little hot in the mix in general, but just my opinion.
 
Stratomaster said:
Very nice job on the drums-they sound real. It's no easy task to record a drumset. Was this home recorded? I'd be interested to hear what gear you used. Anyways--I use addictive drums these days which is the absolutely amazing, but in general compression and eq are your friends. The kick is a little woofy-sounds like it would be great on a rocker, but maybe a little click in the kick might suit the raggae style? I used to mike drums same as you no high hat mic and the drummer hated me for it! But rolling off some lows from the over head might make the cymbals sizzle a bit more. I'm sure there's tons of stuff on the web about settings and stuff but it sounds like you're doing fine.

Strat

*edit to add-I think since you were so focused on the drums they are a little hot in the mix in general, but just my opinion.
Click to expand...

Okay, thanks. After I posted this I played with the drums more and I think they are a little more relaxed in the mix now, but still not quite right.

I recorded this using a Focusrite Saffire Pro 40. I put Shure PG56s on the toms, a PG52 on the kick, an SM57 on the snare, and a pair of DR-HX1s for overheads.
 
Dude... The drums themselves sound good. In the mix, they seem to be occupying a different space than the rest of the instruments. I've found tweaking reverb and compression can help that. You're really not off by much, dude. They sound good.
 
I like the guitars. The drums to me sounded fine, but lacked any sense of space. They seemed very centered, especially the toms. The toms didn't sound as good as the snare, which i liked. The mix in general seemed very separated to me with the guitars and such way out wide and everything else dead center. I'm a big fan of panning, even LCR panning as long as it fits the song, instrumentation and the song has something to glue it all together.
Like mentioned above, drums are hard. You did very well on them and everything else!!
 
Okay, thanks everybody for your help. I've worked on the compression on the overheads and I think the drums fit in the mix a lot better now. I've also EQ'd and panned the toms more, which I think made the fills really come alive.
 
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