how to get the kick drum to stick out in the mix

  • Thread starter Thread starter Nick The Man
  • Start date Start date
lol im sure many people have used it


im just not really into triggers.. didnt mean to offend anyone :cool:
 
cut 200-450hz, somewhere in that range, thats were the mud is, compress 1.5:1...ish, boost 1800-2000hz and 3500-4000hz. BUT......you have to have a good sound in the first place! Shit in, shit out. Can't polish a turd etc.
 
Nick The Man said:
lol im sure many people have used it


im just not really into triggers.. didnt mean to offend anyone :cool:
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They are certainly not a necessity, but they do help sometimes.

Try some of the stuff I mentioned above, if you don't do it already. It makes a HUGE difference in the sound of a drumkit.

ps - I'd bet you couldn't tell properly gogged tracks from non-gogged tracks. It's really is no different than guitar effects. Although I understand your point, because I just like to plug an LP into a Marshall and call it good..........
 
NL5 said:
Although I understand your point, because I just like to plug an LP into a Marshall and call it good..........
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lol yeah definitely thanks for the good advice.
 
jonnyc said:
If you think it's cheating to replace or enhance drum sounds, then there are hundreds and hundreds of platinum records that people have "cheated" on.
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Silly statement. What do you think eqing or compressing is if it isn't "enhancing the drum? If drumagog is used properly it sounds great. In particular the stellar acoustic samples it has or the extras you can buy. If you have tried it and think it sounds poor, you did not use it correctly. I, in may cases BLEND the "real" drum with "fake" ( "fake" being...recorded by great engineers with great mic preamps in great rooms with great acoustic drums with about 5 high end mic's like Neumann etc) drumagog drum. Kick mostly
 
I think your kick sounds fine. It has a lot of punch (which can be good or bad depending on the style), and maybe needs a low shelf to help the bottom end (esp circa 61hz). also consider a little dip around 250hz (as much as needed) to help boxiness, and use compression to change the ambiance of the kick

So here's what you can do to help that kick stick out of the mix once you are happy with the way it sounds:

High Pass EVERYTHING that doesn't need frequencies below 100hz ... and try to get away with as much of a HP as possible without thinning things out. It's a tricky compromise that takes a lot of practice (I know I'm not there yet) you can also Buss the bass guitar and the kick to a new buss (post FX) and throw a limiter on them - lower the threshold until they feel like they are locked together. Use the new buss as your low end to the track.

You may find that using a limiter on the kick itself and adjusting both the threshold and the "out" ceiling might work better than compression for fixing inconsistent foot. Just make sure there isn't too much gain reduction happening or you will flatten the kick completely.

OR

you may need to duck the bass - which is a GIANT workaround in Vegas ... but stupidly easy to do in reaper ... in Vegas, you'll need Gpan and a side chain enabled compressor. There are tutorials around on how to do it so I won't write it all out again ;)

hope that helps a bit
 
RedStone said:
I think your kick sounds fine. It has a lot of punch (which can be good or bad depending on the style), and maybe needs a low shelf to help the bottom end (esp circa 61hz). also consider a little dip around 250hz (as much as needed) to help boxiness, and use compression to change the ambiance of the kick

So here's what you can do to help that kick stick out of the mix once you are happy with the way it sounds:

High Pass EVERYTHING that doesn't need frequencies below 100hz ... and try to get away with as much of a HP as possible without thinning things out. It's a tricky compromise that takes a lot of practice (I know I'm not there yet) you can also Buss the bass guitar and the kick to a new buss (post FX) and throw a limiter on them - lower the threshold until they feel like they are locked together. Use the new buss as your low end to the track.

You may find that using a limiter on the kick itself and adjusting both the threshold and the "out" ceiling might work better than compression for fixing inconsistent foot. Just make sure there isn't too much gain reduction happening or you will flatten the kick completely.

OR

you may need to duck the bass - which is a GIANT workaround in Vegas ... but stupidly easy to do in reaper ... in Vegas, you'll need Gpan and a side chain enabled compressor. There are tutorials around on how to do it so I won't write it all out again ;)

hope that helps a bit
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hey thanks alot, good post. I need to learn some more EQ termonology so ill research some stuff but this sounds like a great idea.. i like the idea of bussing the kick and bass together.. i need to find the limiter on vegas first though lol but then ill adjust that thanks again!
 
Hello??? Anyone going to ask what kind of mic and where it's placed, or did I miss that somewhere?

The best thing I ever did for my kick sound was upgrade from an atm25 to a Shure Beta52.
 
this is for a rock kick drum.. more classic rock but i still want that solid punch sound
 
ez_willis said:
Hello??? Anyone going to ask what kind of mic and where it's placed, or did I miss that somewhere?

The best thing I ever did for my kick sound was upgrade from an atm25 to a Shure Beta52.
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Yes you missed it, fucking tard.
 
well I've mixed one song through some head phones :o (its 2 in the morning here) and i can already tell when i play it back on some monitors I'm gonna like what i hear. These techniques are great.

I have the kick and bass on their own bus which is equipped with a limiter. The kick is boosted slightly at around 80hz and then dipped in the 150hz area and then boosted again in the 2Khz to give it some punch... working out quite well so far. Then the bass is rolled off after the 80hz mark and then from about 100hz or so it starts boosting and at 1Khz its at the highest and then it rolls off from there. Similar to the kick but offset slightly so that the two fit together and don't hog the same frequencies.

I will play it through some monitors tomorrow and make some other tweaks if necessary and then you can all expect a sample and then critique it and let me know what you think.
 
ok i got a mix... i haven't tried it on any others systems, and i haven't really paid much attention to anything else but drums. But let me know what you think, the song sounds like a lynyrd skynyrd rip off to me... simple man i believe. But anyways its called Angel City a band from my school came here to record it.

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/pagemusic.cfm?bandID=644522
 
Nick The Man said:
god no matter what i do the kick gets buried ... when i eq it i must be doing something wrong??? what do you do to make the kick stick out?
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Either the kick or the bass needs to be "on point". Both cannot hog the same frequency space. At mixing, EQ and compression is used to fit the various tracks into it's own sonic space. BS to the advice of using no EQ. No one can forsee the problems at mixdown during the tracking phase of a recording. The more complex the recording, the more EQ you may need. All mix AEs use whatever they have to to achieve a clear, coherent mix and that includes parallel compression, EQ, creating drum stems, guitar stems, vocal stems etc.

You have to fit everything into a total picture and that takes lots of practice and experience as well as good rooms blah blah blah.

The better the tracking is done (no EQ etc.), the better the chance that you can get away with less processing. and the better the mix will be.

Room and monitors: Mix a take and burn a CD. Go to anywhere else and listen to your CD on as many different systems as you can. If the bass and kick stay about the same volume/mudiness you have a mix/EQ/sonic space problem. If they vary wildly, you have a monitoring room problem.
 
NTK88 said:
Aww I cannot use drumagog :(

I have aducacity, sound forge 8 and adobe and it doesnt work in adobe.
Will it work in the other 2?
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yes it does work in Adobe....I only use Adobe Audition 1.5 and I use Drumagog....
 
thajeremy said:
yes it does work in Adobe....I only use Adobe Audition 1.5 and I use Drumagog....
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I tried and it said it was unsupported.
 
What kind of music is this? I find kick really easy to work with on clean guitar stuff, but whenever I'm doing a hardcore/metal/punk band it usually gets buried really quickly, and not from the bass guitar but from the wall of distorted guitars!
 
they did some other stuff with distortion too so we'll see how that goes too
 
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