Help me mix my drums - stuck at square one

[ninecows]

Hi there

I hope this thread can turn into a tutorial for all newbies on mixing drums, but at least just help me getting my drums mixed.

I'm using jamstix 2 for my drums (yeah - start flaming if you like, but I don't have a drummer nor a drum kit so...)

My problem is that I'm a total newbie on mixing and having to mix a complete drum kit is just way too complex for me. You might as well ask me to climb Mount Everest tomorrow. I have absolutely no idea on where to start and how to get where I want to end. I've read several guides n tips about mixing, but I think I need a basic starting point, somewhat close to the sound I want before I can go anywhere at all. So this is my cry for help ;-)

I have rendered wave files with 8 bars of a very basic drum track with kick, snare, toms, hi hat, ride, cymbals and ambience on separate tracks. They're on the link below together with a reaper project file for your convenience if you're using reaper. The file is pretty large - some 50 MB. Hope that's ok.

http://www.ninecows.dk/mix-my-drums.zip

These samples are my starting point. Obviously my songs have different and more interesting drum tracks and other instruments as well, but I would like the sound of the drums to be consistent throughout my album and build the rest of the mix around the drums. Seems like a good idea, but will it work?

Anyway. The place I want to end is with a sound somewhat similar to the drums on "The final cut" by Pink Floyd... They seem very powerful, but yet open and clear to my ears.

So how do I get there? I'm guessing that the right EQ and compression will get me pretty close... and of course a bit of reverb. I'd like to use the plug-ins in Reaper because they're free, got all the typical knobs available and are universal (as they doesn't try to model some old analog hardware), but other free plug-ins would do as well.

And as I said: I know that the rest of the instrumentation will affect how well the drums sit in the mix and that there's no "golden recipe" on mixing drums. I just hope that if I/you carve out reasonable bands with the EQ on the drums, then I should be able to fit in the rest of the instruments (guitar, bas, piano, hammond organ, vocal and a few synths) as well.

I hope someone in here will be kind enough to get me started. I don't expect magic, but a reaper file in return with ReaEQ, ReaComp and reverb with decent settings for my goal would be fantastic Otherwise, specific advices like "cut 6 db at 350 Hz with a q-setting of 1" or "set the comp ratio to 1:2, attack to 2 ms" etc... are also fine. I'll keep posting the results here (with smaller files of the samples) so other people can learn from this as well.

Thanks in advance and a nice day to all of you

 

[Grape]

http://www.box.net/shared/vian6zcnpd

I would still have to:
- add a rimshot sample stacked onto the snare track.
- quantize the off-beat hits


Do you like it??
<33

 

[ninecows]

http://www.box.net/shared/vian6zcnpd

I would still have to:
- add a rimshot sample stacked onto the snare track.
- quantize the off-beat hits


Do you like it??
<33

Sounds nice, but I'm currently on vacation away from my studio, so if it's fine by you I'll have to get back to you later.

But thanks

 

[Chili]

Here's a great tutorial for tracking and mixing drums. The advice given will work for sampled drums as well.

https://homerecording.com/bbs/showthread.php?t=273077

 

[DarkFriend]

Having the same sounding drums all the way through multiple songs can be really tedious on your ears, unless the music warrants that (i.e., big band, old jazz, etc). Even metal CDs have different sounding drums throughout the disc.

Listen to the radio - there's no "correct" way of mixing drums. It all depends on the song.

The drums in your MP3 may work for your music.

Regarding your MP3, from my personal tastes and opinion, the drum samples sound like pretty poor quality and somewhat "fake." When you start with good quality samples (try toontrack.com) you get good quality results.

Second, the use of effects on drums is tricky. Again, it depends on the music. Huge, long reverbs on kicks and snares isn't too terribly common. The reverb you chose for the snare sounds unnatural. Consider a room rather than a plate reverb.

Finally, getting authentic-sounding drums from software requires you to think like a drummer and program like a real drummer would play. That includes ghost notes, flams, and other accents that a drummer would do.

It is hard to say if your current mix is correct, since in the mixing world, whatever you think is correct for the song is correct.

You might look for some effects that have presets for kick, snare, hats, overheads, etc., that you can try.

Good luck..