Drum Kit Volume

  • Thread starter Thread starter frank1985
  • Start date Start date
F

frank1985

Active member
How do I control the volume of my whole drum kit without having to adjust the snare, kick volume etc. individually? For example, I have my db levels set for each drum element, but I now want to be able to increase/decrease the volume while still maintaining the relative difference in db levels. I'm using FL Studio.
 
Throw a Stereo Bus Comp plugin on that buss/group while you're at it for some extra mojo fun.
 
Preferably a Distressor or a 160VU.

Oops. I just spilled the beans on a trade secret.

Cheers :)
 
Send them all to a group track.

As in a bus, right? That's what I've always done, but I noticed something the other day. Usually, I'll send each drum track to a reverb dedicated to the drums. That drum verb was also set to go out the drums bus. On a few recent mixes, I wanted all the same type of reverb for most of the tracks, so I sent the drums to that main verb in these cases. That main verb was set to to go out the main output (not the drums bus out).

What I noticed was (which completely makes sense!), when I mute the drums bus, the drum reverb is still audible (even without the dry drums). It's almost the same as if I had all the drum tracks sent pre-fader to the verb unit. So when I go to turn down the drum buss fader, it's not turning down the reverb sends from each drum track. This is not a good thing.

Same goes for anything else sent to a master fader and also sent to an effects unit not affiliated with that bus.

Maybe I was just oblivious for not noticing it before?! So put it this way, I've never really used groups before (so I can turn the faders up/down for every track in a that group), but i DO now! Now I keep all my track busses (like guitars, drums, backing vox, ewtc), at the same volume all the time and just use group faders for volume adjustment, and the track busses now just to quickly mute them out for a second or to add something to the entire bus, like a drums bus compressor, etc.

Just some food for thought.
 
I put kick/snare on one subgroup and the rest of the kit on another. On the kit group, I roll the low end back at 100Hz.
 
Even though you want the same reverb on a lot of instruments, use a separate instance for the drums.

To avoid this problem with other instruments, send the signal to the reverb from the buss instead of the individual tracks. for example, have a rhythm guitar buss and a keyboard buss, etc... and use the aux sends on the busses to feed the reverb. That way, the signal sent to the reverb is always proportionate to the mix.
 
Yeah, to me, I don't like it when the drums sound like they're in a totally different space in the mix.
 
I tend not to put reverb on anything but the drums and maybe the vocal. Sometimes, to avoid completely dry guitar, I will send a very little guitar into the drum verb, but always from the place where I will be controlling the volume of the guitars.
 
Back
Top