Questions about mixing drums...

  • Thread starter Thread starter TelePaul
  • Start date Start date
TelePaul

TelePaul

J to the R O C
Alright lads! Few questions about mixing drums.

1) If I've tracked each tom seperately, shoud I pan the individual tracks or will the OH take care of stereo placing?

2) Same question as above, but this time with hi-hatt?

3) Should I sub my drums? I have 8 tracks EQd to taste.

4) If I do sub, should I apply compression first where needed, to the overall sub-mix, or both?

5) What's the deal with reverb? On a sub-mix or just for the snare?

Think that's all for now....

Cheers lads!
 
TelePaul said:
Alright lads! Few questions about mixing drums.

1) If I've tracked each tom seperately, shoud I pan the individual tracks or will the OH take care of stereo placing?

2) Same question as above, but this time with hi-hatt?

3) Should I sub my drums? I have 8 tracks EQd to taste.

4) If I do sub, should I apply compression first where needed, to the overall sub-mix, or both?

5) What's the deal with reverb? On a sub-mix or just for the snare?

Think that's all for now....

Cheers lads!
Click to expand...

Hey TP, check out my sticky at the top of this section and see if it helps. I address pretty much all of that in that post.
 
Greg_L said:
Hey TP, check out my sticky at the top of this section and see if it helps. I address pretty much all of that in that post.
Click to expand...

Thanks dude! Saw that there. Dude do you think I could e mail ya a drum track I'm trying to mix? I know it's kinda pointless without a mix but you might spot something obvious.
 
TelePaul said:
Thanks dude! Saw that there. Dude do you think I could e mail ya a drum track I'm trying to mix? I know it's kinda pointless without a mix but you might spot something obvious.
Click to expand...

Sure, go ahead.
 
1. It's up top you. It depends on what the drum part is. Most of the time I pan the rack toms and leave the floor tom centered so I don't end up with a bunch of low end on one side of the image.

2. I pan the hat to the side that it is in the overheads.

3. I sub the drums and the overhead separately

4. Both. I compress the individual drum tracks and then compress the sub to make them pump. I compress the overheads in a different sub. The overhead compression is to add decay to the cymbals

5. Reverb on a aux send. Send the snare and toms to it and maybe a little kick if appropriate. Sometimes I send the output of the reverb to the drum buss to make it pump with the drums, sometimes I don't.
 
TelePaul said:
Alright lads! Few questions about mixing drums.

1) If I've tracked each tom seperately, shoud I pan the individual tracks or will the OH take care of stereo placing?

2) Same question as above, but this time with hi-hatt?

3) Should I sub my drums? I have 8 tracks EQd to taste.

4) If I do sub, should I apply compression first where needed, to the overall sub-mix, or both?

5) What's the deal with reverb? On a sub-mix or just for the snare?

Think that's all for now....

Cheers lads!
Click to expand...


i can't tell you what you should do, only what i do:

1) i absolutely would pan (and did when i used tom mics) the individual mics. i can see farview's point about the floor tom, but i panned it w/ the rest. note that my OHs are panned at 9 and 3 o'clock, not hard left/right. so i would have the floor tom at 9 (i pan audience's perspective per my right-hand drumming).

2) same deal as floor tom. 3 o'clock on the hats. but again, i no longer use tom mics OR a hat mic. just OHs.

3) i never do. the OHs almost always sound right on as tracked--i almost always leave them flat. plus the eq i add/subtract from snare and kick is VERY different.

4) i don't compress anything except the kick, and that's only occasionally. usually i coax the sound i want without it. on overly dense mixes i'll use it to punch through.

5) i only use it on snare. i hate reverbed kick, and my OHs usually don't need it.

so much of this depends on technique, room, desired sound, etc. hence the introductory sentence.

good luck! :)
 
TelePaul said:
3) Should I sub my drums? I have 8 tracks EQd to taste.
Click to expand...

And now to show how jargon challenged I am...what does it mean to "sub" the drums? I'll venture a guess that it means to submix, but I'm not entirely sure what that means either.
 
disgruntled-inc said:
And now to show how jargon challenged I am...what does it mean to "sub" the drums? I'll venture a guess that it means to submix, but I'm not entirely sure what that means either.
Click to expand...

Yah it means to merge your 8 tracks into one stereo track.
 
Thanks everyone for your replies. Gerg I'll send ya that mix later, I'm think I'm having serious snare issues.
 
I should have added the disclaimer that I mostly do hard rock and metal.

The thing about panning the floor tom to the center is really drum part dependant. If he isn't hitting the toms that much, I'll pan. IF the song is based aropund some jungle beat thing where he is riding on the floor tom, I pan in to the center.

Sometimes, even when he just rolls, I will pan it center if he always rolls down the last two toms. It bugs me when all the tom rolls are panned to the left...
 
Farview said:
I should have added the disclaimer that I mostly do hard rock and metal.

The thing about panning the floor tom to the center is really drum part dependant. If he isn't hitting the toms that much, I'll pan. IF the song is based aropund some jungle beat thing where he is riding on the floor tom, I pan in to the center.

Sometimes, even when he just rolls, I will pan it center if he always rolls down the last two toms. It bugs me when all the tom rolls are panned to the left...
Click to expand...

Thanks. I think there are maybe a half-dozen low tom hits in the entire song. The snare is what's causing me trouble at the moment.
 
I like panning toms so a fill that rolls down them sweeps across the stereo image. I won't say which way in fear of sparking a debate about which perspective to pan drums from (I think there's already a thread about that somewhere), but I also like it sweeping in one particular direction :)

Really down to personal preference though. Its very unlikely that someone is ever going to listen *that* critically to where things are panned unless it sounds really awkward. If it sounds good to you, its fine.
 
Pump

What is this "pumping" you speak of, and how do you make tracks "pump"?

Is there a reliable way to do this in time with a rhythm?
 
Sorry if that sounds like Walters, it's actually a real question.
 
Supercreep said:
What is this "pumping" you speak of, and how do you make tracks "pump"?

Is there a reliable way to do this in time with a rhythm?
Click to expand...

I'm thinking he's talking about compression pump, but I'm not sure. Compress the hell out of a drum submix and it'll "pump". It's not usually a sound that I'd go for, but whatever floats your boat.
 
1 & 2: I usually pan the floor tom slightly to one side, and the rack tom about the same distance to the other side. I don't usually record the hi-hat separately, but if I did, I'd do the same thing and pan it more or less to its rightful place.

3 & 4: I don't do drum submmixes, but I will use a combination of individual and group tracks. For example, once I get a volume balance between kick & snare, I'll group them together (usually along with the toms) so I then increase or decrease the volume of both while maintaining the same relative balance. Similarly, I may eq some tracks individually, or I may apply substantially the same settings to a group of tracks (eg., overheads and room mics). I record on a PC and applying effects like compression to group tracks generally uses less resources than apply the same effects to individual tracks.

5. I never apply reverb to drum tracks any more-- I find I can get a pretty decent sense of space by using room mics (in addition to kick, snare, toms, overheads). Even if the room mics are just a few feet ahead of the drum kit, it's enough for me. Applying reverb to drums can add a lot of muddiness, particularly in the home recording environment, where you may not be starting with the most pristine tracks to begin with.
 
Supercreep said:
What is this "pumping" you speak of, and how do you make tracks "pump"?

Is there a reliable way to do this in time with a rhythm?
Click to expand...
Yup, getting the compressor to pump. This obviously works better with sparse drum parts, but if you can get the compressor to release just in time for the next hit, it will help drive the song.

It doesn't have to be obviously overcompressed to pump with the song.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top