Drum mixing

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Monkey Allen

Monkey Allen

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When you eq or compress the snare (for example...could be the tom/ bass/ cymbal...whatever) by itself in its own track...how do you make the result of that eq/ compression stand out among things like room and overhead tracks?

What you do to the individual part of the kit is not going to be done to room/ overhead tracks. Won't the room/ o/h sort of mask any eq/ comp work you do to individual kit pieces?

Is it common to lower the room/ overhead tracks quite a bit...and let the individually mic'd kit pieces shine on their own behalf?

I am just talking about using ezdrummer...not a real kit...but the principles are similar I suppose

So...I've read a number of drum mixing articles and what not...but haven't come across a specific reference to what I am talking about.

Any help?

thanks a million
 
honestly...ezdrummer is not the same...not at all

because the drums are already processed, maybe not a lot, depending on the kit, but they are.

I mean with the programmed drums, they already do sound kinda mechanical and you want them to come alive, right? so try to not really process them too much anymore, but try add loops and stuff.

but to answer one of your questions ;) yeah, usually I do turn the room mics kinda down, but thats a matter of taste, I guess..
 
I guess they are already processed yeah.

So anyway...what about for a real kit? You said you turn down the room and o/h...and it's up to the guy mixing to make that decision...but would you say it's a fairly general practice to do that given that you want to hear what you do to individual kit parts eq/ comp wise?
 
I think it's important that you don't solo something when equing that track. If that's what you mean, because you always want to hear what it does to the mix, not the individual track. does that make sense to you?

it's always up to the mixing engineer, well except for the artist, who always has a say in things, but it depends on the song, is it slow, mellow or fun, punk, rock or whatever....can really help you, w/o any info.
 
Yeah I don't mean soloing the individual track without the rest of the mix. I just mean...if you eq the snare track...then that same eq is not there on the room or o/h...so if the room and o/h is too loud then anything you do to the individual snare may not be so noticeable unless the room and o/h are lower in the mix. I know that the room and o/h tracks wont have the same kind of presence to them as the individually mic'd snare on its own track...but I was just thinking that...well actually I was tweaking some snare on an ezdrummer multi'd drum track and I was thinking that I couldn't really notice much difference from that snare track in amongst the room and o/h...if you know what I mean.
 
I usually never eq the oh. I turn them down. They just glue the drums together in a way. Even though I may have eqed the other drums. Hope this helps:)
 
In my world, if the overheads aren't close to what I want, then I failed and I need to re-track. The other tracks (however many there are) I just turn up to emphasize something or other. I guess the kick track is the exception, since I don't hope/aspire to get a workable kick sound from the overheads. The snare tracks are really not an exception, although I usually do use (it/)them.

I don't yet know how to use EQ very well, so I pretty much don't do it. I'm still in the plugin-preset stage of my compressor usage maturity cycle, which means I can't tell you much about that either - even though I'm sure I understand the various factors of compression, I'm currently nearly powerless to dial in the right settings from nowhere. So.... overheads better be good :)
 
I'm still at school about eq and compressors too....I practice sometimes on snare or whatever instrument. I managed to make the snare...as they say 'snappy' or 'splashy' depending on compressor settings.

I wasn't really taking notes on what settings.

There's a lot of variables on your average compressor plug for the inexperienced...like trying to juggle 6 tennis balls in one hand while the other hand ties your shoelace...while you're walking.
 
Absolutely not...I couldn't think of where to take the discussion at that moment...so I didn't want to say nothing...you hoped what you said helped...I said it did...that's all.
 
All of this depends on the desired drumsound and what genre the music is.

With larger-than-life stuff, you EQ the crap out of the close mics and turn down the overheads. Maybe even high pass the overheads around 300hz.

With more 'real' sounding drums, you would use more overheads as the basis for the overall drum sound and just use the close mics to fill things in.

There is no one true drum sound. All of it is context.
 
Sure...and those two contexts you give help in my understanding. I know what you're saying.
 
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