Please critique my drum sound and mix.

offcenter2005

offcenter2005

New member
I need some input on the drums for a hard rock song im working on.
If possible give me advice on how to make it sound better and maybe share a few tips and tricks. I really like the drum sound on the new Green Day album and thats what im going for. Thanks in advance.


drum example
 
Did you do any post processing (addition eq or compression?) to EZ drummer kit or is this just the default kit?

It sounds realistic enough so you should be good to go.
 
Guitargodgt said:
Did you do any post processing (addition eq or compression?) to EZ drummer kit or is this just the default kit?

It sounds realistic enough so you should be good to go.
Click to expand...

Good ear. It's ezdrummers default kit. Lots of eq on individual drums some verb on snare , gated kick and compression on snare and kick. Ezdrummer sounds good but lacks a little punch so I tried to emphasise what I thought it was lacking. Unfortunately I don't have the resources to track live drums but I figured that using ezdrummer to practice mixing would be the next best thing. Believe me , using ezdrummer is out of necessity not lazyness . If anyone has some drum tracks that needs mixed I would love the practice .
 
No prob...your welcome.

We could always use more drummers over at MCS as well if you like collaborating with other musicians or want to mix.

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That site looks like something I would be interested in. Although drums are not my main interest. I'm a drum programmer i guess you could say. My problem is recording live instruments in my apt. but i have gotten very good at direct recording. Im really interested in the recording aspect of music at this point. After a certain amount of time trying to "live the dream" Im more likely to succeed at the behind the desk part of it now. Sounds like a good way to be an adaptive musician. Thanks for the info.
 
You get no criticism from me on EZ drummer. I sort of think it's a bummer the library is so processed and the kit contains such a rare snare that it has made it almost impossible to make that kit sound anything other than EZ drummer no matter what you do.

But that's not necessarily bad either, it's a very good kit for sitting in the mix.
 
In my experience, the snare would drown when you put the guitars, bass and vocals in....
So, I will send the snare to a compression bus (parallel compression), so it doubled. Add 5 dB to around 200 ~ 250 Hz to add body.
Same with the kick, I'll cut a little on the highs freq, cause I don't like the drumhead sound pop out too much....makes your ear uncomfortable when you listen thru headphones.
 
Thanks the tracks on soundcloud were all recorded years ago before i even understood what a compressor did. I am working on one of the songs from mixoff.org to practice and im very pleased that the help ive already heard on this forum is making the process more understandable. ill post a small clip of the mix so far and maybe you guys could give me some tips on this. This is the first time ive mixed a complete acoustic drum set so give me honest opinions, dont hold back cause otherwise i cant learn from my mistakes. Thanks again..
 
I think it sounds great. I'm not crazy about the kick... I want to hear something a little more 'special'... or with more presence... but it sounds good to go.
 
I have a clip of some drums im mixing that were on mixoff.org. the first 9 seconds are the original drums and after that they are the mixed drums. Give me feedback and dont hold back. I think they sound better but any tips would be great.

Drum AB
 
Why are you mixing ezdrummer by itself? Without any other instruments? The samples are already processed; the only mixing you have to do is adjust the volume.
 
The drum ab link is a real drum set that i mixed. On the ezdrummer clip, Reverb, eq, small preference stuff. Im not real crazy about the room sound either.
 
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