Mixing Drums

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Muffin

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Greetings,
I've been experimenting a bit with recording drums. Once their recorded and I have the overall mix to how I want it, with the kick and snare being well heard. Once I add everything else(guitars, bass, keys). The kick is harder to hear while accompanied by the bass. I've done some research with this and I came across something called sidechaining. I use Cubase LE 4 and I can't find any sort of sidechain add on to experiment with.
Is there a different way to get the snare and kick to cut through the mix?
Thank-you for your time.
 
It depends on the style of music. Most of the time, the kick has enough attack to be heard. If it doesn't, add some 3k to 5k.

If the snare is getting buried, chances are you have the other instruments too loud. But it needs some 'crack' in the 2k area.


If the other instruments are burying the drums, turn them down. The drums tend to the loudest thing in the mix.
 
Muffin said:
Greetings,
I've been experimenting a bit with recording drums. Once their recorded and I have the overall mix to how I want it, with the kick and snare being well heard. Once I add everything else(guitars, bass, keys). The kick is harder to hear while accompanied by the bass. I've done some research with this and I came across something called sidechaining. I use Cubase LE 4 and I can't find any sort of sidechain add on to experiment with.
Is there a different way to get the snare and kick to cut through the mix?
Thank-you for your time.
Click to expand...

The kick and the bass share a lot of the same frequencies with EQ you can give them their own space so as to not step on each other in the mix.
 
Yep. What they said.

Whatever frequency you boost one, cut that frequency in the other. Not anything drastic, but a little goes a long way.

If you boost the kick at 150 hz, then cut the bass at 150 hz.
 
yep, the way I see it - there's "airy" treble, high-mid, low mid, bass and sub-bass. The kick is the only sub-bass instrument in a rock band so any sub-bass frequencies in anything else are just getting in the way - cut them. The bass guitar has more than enough bass frequencies, plus unless you have John Paul Jones playing, the low notes on a bass tend to come out with erratic volumes depending on which fret and string is being played - so compress the hell out of the bass frequencies and it should sit a lot better with the kick.

Sidechain compression is not a magic cure so I wouldn't bother too much with it if I were you. It can help the kick jump out but at the expense of the rest of the music's dynamics and really, you'd get a much better result if you spent the time it would take you to piss around getting the sidechain to work on learning to mix the kick in properly :)
 
I will only add to the above that the bass guitar could be panned slightly off center to provide some room for the kick and snare.
 
the snare is always a very attacking sound with a sharp transient. The kick is always less attacking, but the degree of attack can vary. If a hard beater is use for example, then the sound will be attacking. Sometimes a piece of hard plastic is attached to the drum head to emphasize this. But if a soft beater is used, then the sound will not have such an aggressive transient. Either way, the sound can still benefit from compression. But you have to use your ears and fine-tune the settings to get the best results. it also matters the drum u use, drum heads, mics and miking one applies.
 
For the kick you can try cutting some 400hz and adding 4khz.
 
Well thank-you for all your replies. Right now I'm recording some hardcore music, so everything is quite loud, I'll experiment with frequencies from bass to kick and also the snare.
 
This is hands down the best technique for beginning to record drums and get your stereo phasing correct.

As you improve on this you cann add a kick mic and a snare mic.

Watch this video and folow the instructions. You'll be amazed at the sound you get from two mics. Then, once you add in the kick and snare mics you can start to control the levels and get a really big sound form a simple setup.[video=youtube;<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="https://www.youtube.com/v/IiFOD1EeKhQ&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="https://www.youtube.com/v/IiFOD1EeKhQ&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>]video[/video]
 
Muffin said:
Well thank-you for all your replies. Right now I'm recording some hardcore music, so everything is quite loud, I'll experiment with frequencies from bass to kick and also the snare.
Click to expand...

Hardcore? That changes things a little. I'm not sure what you're doing now, but while it's kind of become conventional to scoop the mids out of a kick even for most rock and pop music these days, really heavy stuff (particularly modern metal - Soilwork, Strapping Young Lad, that kind of stuff) has taken it a step further, and generally the kick drums you'll be hearing are scooped to shit, with a fair amount added back in around 3-6k to really bring out the click of the beater on the skin (experiment until you really begin to hear the sound of the beater, it'll probably vary based on what your drummer is using and how the kick's tuned). Done right, your kick drum should exist in the mix both above the bass guitar (the click from the beater, providing attack and definition) as well as below (the deep thunk, providing that kick-to-the-chest sound on double bass), but almost entirely not inside where a bass guitar normally falls. I don't really do this stuff much, but I suspect you're probably going to want to pull out most of the kick from 1-200 up until maybe 2k or so. again, experiment and use your ears, listening to how it interacts with the bass guitar tone. Remember that what you're looking for is NOT a natural sound.
 
chewbacaface said:
(video)
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Chewie - is that the Recorderman or John Glyns technique? have you tried adding in tom close mics in that setup yet? I'll be recording a drummer in the not-too-distant future and will probably do that for the sake of convenience, but as I have the mics and channels I was thinking of throwing a couple spot mics on the toms as well (and maybe a single room mic in front of the kit, if I have the available strip and it doesn't sound like ass); I was just wondering if you've ever tried it. Thanks!
 
I have the same problem, triggering the kick would help alot. what I do is put some high end up on the kick and lower the mid a little bit. Brighten up the kick makes a huge difference. For the snare check your mic placement always remember inches are miles, are you using 2 mics on the snare one on top and one on the bottom?
 
DrewPeterson7 said:
Chewie - is that the Recorderman or John Glyns technique? have you tried adding in tom close mics in that setup yet? I'll be recording a drummer in the not-too-distant future and will probably do that for the sake of convenience, but as I have the mics and channels I was thinking of throwing a couple spot mics on the toms as well (and maybe a single room mic in front of the kit, if I have the available strip and it doesn't sound like ass); I was just wondering if you've ever tried it. Thanks!
Click to expand...


Ironically, I use both. I use the recorderman which places a mic directly over the snare and one back behind the drummers right sholder pointed at the snare. Then, I also have two more mics, one pointed directly over kick beater, and one about six inches above and out from my floor tom pointing at the hi-hat. All mics being as close to equalt distance from the snare head center as possible. Then, I use a Sennheiser e609 on the snare angled at 45 degrees towards the cender of the head. Last I use a Shure Beta 52a on the outside of the kick drum pointed through the port directly at the beater and I muffle the batter head of the kick with a sweatshirt.

With this configuration I have no need to mic any toms as they often turn out louder than the snare and kick and I have to use the individual snare and kick tracks to blend them in equally. This also keeps the cymbals nice and mixed. I like to keep about 36-40 inches between the overheads and the snare center. Remeber, the farther away they are the louder the drums become and the quieter the cymbals will be. this seems like it should be the opposite since the cymbals sit above the drums but it isn't. Backing the mics away actually makes the drums louder because the sound has more room to expand.

This is a good way to get that big tom heavy sound of the Seventies. It sounds a lot like Sabbath to my ears although I don't play anything like that. I do like the drum sound.
 
One other thing is that with this setup you need to make sure the drummer has somewhat new heads and they are tuned properly. In a more direct recording, you hear a lot more of the initial attack of the tom and less of the reverberation, thus a poorly tuned tom or hacked up drumhead wont be as damaging to the sound. In this setup, the volume you're hearing is the reverberation of the drum almost entirely. So, anything that sounds bad is amplified that much more. If the toms are out of tune, they will really sound bad.
 
chewbacaface said:
One other thing is that with this setup you need to make sure the drummer has somewhat new heads and they are tuned properly. In a more direct recording, you hear a lot more of the initial attack of the tom and less of the reverberation, thus a poorly tuned tom or hacked up drumhead wont be as damaging to the sound. In this setup, the volume you're hearing is the reverberation of the drum almost entirely. So, anything that sounds bad is amplified that much more. If the toms are out of tune, they will really sound bad.
Click to expand...

Yeah, this guy I'm working with is pretty damned good, and definitely knows how to tune his kit. The album in question is a solo project of mine (instrumental guitar) so while we haven't discussed anything yet I was going to offer to either pay him or buy him new heads or something for his time and effort.

I figure I may not even end up using the close mics on the toms, but I lose nothing by having them there, and I could see where it might be useful to have them available mixed back but strongly boosted or cut in a couple frequencies to augment the OH's a bit. It's kind of a double margin of safety, anyway - if mid-mix I find I like the toms but the cymbals are way too high, I can pull the OHs down and bring up the close mics, and while I'm not sure how much I can do if I'm having the opposite problem, at least it cuts the liklihood of my absolutely fucking up the recording down 50%. :D
 
Good stuff, chewbacaface. Thanks for the simple, yet effective tips.

The drums tracks I'm currently working on are turing out to be quite the chore, no doubt from phasing issues.
 
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