Drum submixes - big bang theory?

[Dr. Jeep]

Just for the record - all the advice on the board has been great. My mix(es) have already improved. But alas, the woes of the home engineer will never cease. Here's the scoop, yo:

I am mixing with ReWire (Reason) - I use the drum ReFills (24bit) - and they do sound amazing within Reason. They are hypersampled to act like a real kit - vaired in character per hit or strike. They also have overhead and ambient channels - they really do sound like a pro kit in a real studio (and yes - I would know - i have made a record in one with my old band) Its wired thru a virtually Mackie mixer in Reason so I can tweak each channel even as it runs thru the stereo track in ProTools. So I am not chained to one level set on the kit.

I am still doing my mixes dry so as to get levels nice and clear - but the kit appears to come across a bit thin in the mix. I don't want to over EQ - I have followed Cloneboy's tutorial pretty closely, and he hasn't lead me astray - so I am at a point where I want to bring in more ambience (Bohnam sounding kind of track). But that may just make it muddy.

Cloneboy talks about submixing a squashed stereo channel and putting it low in the mix to "beef" up the kit. Basically - this drum machine sounds awesome by itself and I want it to come thru in the mix that way. Maybe this is leveling - EQ - ambience - space - all of the above.

Anyone got experience with this?

 

[AlexW]

I've tried it a few times and it hasn't worked out that well for me. But I've heard of others having success with it. I record live drums, and I think with my room, mics, preamps etc. I get a beefy enough sound. If anything, I'll compress a room mic and use that as you say. But I'd say try and see if you get good results. If you're working in PT, just set up a stereo aux input track and bus your stereo drum track into it. You can add compression and EQ to the aux track and tuck it up under the original. See if you get something you like. You may need to apply the same plugs to the orginal drum track (just leave them flat) to account for any latency induced in the aux track; but depending on the plugs you use it may not be necessary.

 

[Farview]

There are a lot of things you can do.
1. Squash the ambiant track and bring that up behind the drum mix.
2. Squash the drum mix, record it to a stereo track and play it back with the unsquashed version.
3. Send the whole thing into a compressor and make it pump (gently) in time whith the tempo of the track.
4. etc....