Glad you like the guitars and vocals. As a guitarist I always seem able to get good sounds for the guitars, but drums are still a bit of a mystery to me.
The drums are real. A brand new Yamaha Maple Custom kit.
They're not in mono, but they're not widely panned either. It's just a four mic recording (kick, snare, two overheads). The overheads are panned about 40% left and right. Any wider and the sounds that are picked up by both overheads start being spread across the stereo field affecting the sound quite badly.
As for the compression on the drums it is as follows :
kick : ratio 5.6:1, attack 10ms, release 250ms, max gain reduction 6dB
snare : ratio 5.6:1, attack 12ms, release 300ms, max gain reduction 4dB
overheads : ratio 4:1, attack 10ms, release 500ms, max gain reduction 4dB
There is compression in the mastering with ratios of about 1:2 but the gain reduction is no more than 2dB in any of the frequency bands.
I may be wrong, but that's not vast amounts of compression (not compared to what I did to the vocals anyway). Could there be something about my mic'ing or the playing that gives it a really compressed sound?
Because the drums drop in and out of the song I concentrated on the vocals and guitars. I then fitted the drums in around them, but didn't really leave them enough room. Before it goes on the album I'll re-mix it to get a better drum sound.
Thanks for your comments they are incredibly useful. I should now be able to create a far better sounding mix.
Pete.