drum mix help

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benward

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Hey i'd just like some pointers on mixing some drums. the band have been into a proper studio, with decent mics etc and i've got the audio files back. ive got a host of waves gates and compressors. some big fish ones and the kajerus ones.
he used about 12 mics on the kit 4 overheads, 1 kick, 2 for main snare, 1 on baby snare and 1 on the toms.

what ive done so far is to create a group track on cubase on for the snare, kick, and toms etc, and then applied gates and compression on the group tracks which run along side the normal. im after that famous punchy kick sound etc so i guess im after a few pointers. ive read about using filters and things but not to sure. what order would i use gates and compressors? should i be grouping them at all? or should i just use the busing?

i dont really know how to set the gates or compressors? expander or gate?

loads to cover here to any advice would be ace!

cheers!
 
What makes you so convinced you need compressors and gates??? Do your ears tell you this? Realistically, you probably will use some compression. Gates, maybe, though I never gate anything on my drums. But, the point is, nobody can tell you how to set these things....and certainly without hearing a sample of your track.

By, the way, and this is just my opinion that many will disagree with...But that's a hell of alot mics for nothing. If you're doing the mixing, and you're not sure how to set a compressor, the amount of mics will probably be more of a hindrance than a help for you.
 
I agree with RAMI. There are no set rules. You have to listen to the tracks and figure out how to get them to sound how you want. Gating/Expansion may be useful on some tracks, but is not always necessary, and can often be replaced by manual editing of the tracks.

When I think of "punchy," I think of parallel compression. So, when you get the dry drum tracks sounding good, you may want to mix them down and re-import them into the session on a separate track and apply compression to that track rather than the individual drums...or both...depends on the sound you want.
 
I agree with Rami, why so many mics? 4 overheads is probably overkill and just setting yourself up for phase problems.
 
is it possible that 2 of the "overheads" were meant as room mics?
 
Ironklad Audio said:
is it possible that 2 of the "overheads" were meant as room mics?
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Even if that's the case, unless you have a really nice room why even bother.
 
actually sorry yeh, 2 of them were room mics have lowered them a lot in the mix and it sounds better, got the kick drum sounding ok now to. ill post it up see what you think.
 
Start with gates and then maybe EQ or compression on the individual close drum tracks. That will tighten things up alot.
 
have you tried compressing the crap out of the room mics?
 
Ironklad Audio said:
have you tried compressing the crap out of the room mics?
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Wouldn't that just bring out the shittyness of the room even more?
 
jonnyc said:
Wouldn't that just bring out the shittyness of the room even more?
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No. With proper know how room mics are an advantage to any drum mix'es depth and image.
 
xfinsterx said:
No. With proper know how room mics are an advantage to any drum mix'es depth and image.
Click to expand...

Right on. And why assume the room is shitty? The guy said it was recorded in a proper studio with good mics. No one noticed he's using a gate on one of the main drum busses? If you need gates, use them on individual tracks. If the drums were recorded well with minimal bleed, you'll probably just need them for the snare and possibly the kick. For a poppy snare, make a copy of the track. Put a compressor on it with a fairly steep ratio, set the attack to around 6-10ms, and mess with the threshold and release settings. With the extreme compression settings, you'll definitely need to put a gate before the compressor, and do a low cut on the whole track. Bring it up along side the dry snare track until you've got the right amount of attack. If you want a really aggressive kick, I've been digging the Digital Fish Phones Endorfin compressor.

I'd leave the toms alone, maybe scoop some of the mids, add a small amount of gain around 5k for attack if you need to. You can do the same trick I talked about with the snare on the main tom buss for some punch. Compress the hell out of the room mics as stated before, I'll usually send them to the overhead buss. Mix them in like you would reverb. What the compression does is kill the attack and accentuate the reflections in the room. Start with them low, and add until you can just hear the overall depth of the kit increase.

This is kinda just my general guide for rock drums. Just relax, and before you do anything, just adjust the levels and listen to the drums. Ask yourself what issues you're actually having. Don't go looking for solutions to problems that don't exist.
 
Before you start grouping, gating, compressing... first listen to what you got. I'd start out by tweaking the individual drums and getting the kit to sit right. Try eqing the kick and snare, get them popping, hi pass the overheads a bit, take out some of the 400hz gunk if needed... once the whole kit is hitting, if you want some more juice, then some group compression can add some character, but you might not need it.
 
YellowMatter said:
Before you start grouping, gating, compressing... first listen to what you got.
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Exactly. I was going to post that, but didn't want to sound like I was trying to contradict everyone who suggested all the slicing, dicing, megamizing, and Hare Krishna techniques....Besides, it's pretty much what I said in my first post. :)
 
cheers very much for the advice!!

this is what iv done before reading what you guys have said. the overheads, ride, and ambient mics were killing so ive muted them for now. things are still bussed with a combination of waves and block/floor fish comps and gates.

i mixed down from cubase put the file in wavelab and used a waves track eq and put it on hard rock. there is also a setting for hi pass filter?

let me know what you think. the levels aint quite right yet!

http://afterworks.files-upload.com/289251/drumswavelabed.mp3.html

this host site is abit rubbish you have to wait for it to count down but only takes 30 seconds or so!

cheers
 
I would manually clean up the toms (use a wave editor and mute out everything but the tom hits) and not use a gate on them.
 
^while i prefer the above method to using a gate, i've also found that from time to time you're better off just leaving the tom bleed in.

this, of course, is assuming that there are no issues created by the bleed being there
 
Ironklad Audio said:
^while i prefer the above method to using a gate, i've also found that from time to time you're better off just leaving the tom bleed in.

this, of course, is assuming that there are no issues created by the bleed being there
Click to expand...

A really good way to go is to use an expander and let about 35-50% of the bleed from the toms residually stay in the mix, thus further defining the detail of the overheads/rooms.

Of course with the Key on the gate set properly it opens when the tom is struck. But when the tom is not being played the expander is still letting in some kit character. A good way to key filter toms is to low pass to around 230hz, and hi pass to around 80hz.

As a general statement....

Gates are so damn useful man. If you dont now allready how to fully use an expander/gate, its time to start.
 
i should give that a try...

all i know is that i chopped up some tom tracks a while back, and listened to the drums both with and without the bleed, and there was much more detail and depth in the kit with the bleed still in there

OTOH, i've also run into instances where tom bleed caused things to sound like ass...so once again, it just depends on the application/situation
 
ive cut out everything except the hits on the toms and i do prefer it. cuts through a lot better. the spill is proving to a hindrance. i'm working on the overheads for symbols which is proving quite tricky. as soon as i put them on, all the work done on kick toms snare etc becomes useless as they just bring the original sound back in. the drums on this track need to be very snappy so i guess ambiance isn't what im looking for. the advice given so far has brought on the mix a great deal. ill post up another link with whats been done to see what you guys think.
 
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