How To Mix Drums?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Dr. Varney
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RAMI said:
I sit at my drum set and start playing. :)
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Indeed. Even when dealing with samples instead of a drum kit, you get a better feel/groove when you play in the pattern by hand on a keyboard rather than programming it. At least as much as you can, perhaps the skeleton pattern (kick/snare) and then do an overdub and fill in the rest. When playing, you react differently both when it comes to timing AND velocity.
 
RAMI said:
I sit at my drum set and start playing. :)
Click to expand...

I appreciate the notion of keeping things simple but now you're just being smug. :)

I don't play drums. Eh, wish I did... I just press buttons.

Dr. V
 
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miroslav said:
Not sure if you already did (as I was caught up in all the side BS)...
...but do you have a sample of the drum patterns you're recording?
It's much easier to understand when you can hear what is going on.

When I use to sequence drums instead of live...it took some work to make natural sounding drum tracks.
The basics (Kick, Snare, HH) are easy enough to sequence...but then when you go for the rolls/fills...etc...it was harder to do and not have it sound robotic.

Do you feel you are having problems with the sound of your drums or the rhythmic patterns?
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Right, well... I would... And thanks for the offer to listen... Just that I've spent some time on it and finally, things have worked out good.

Got that old spontaneity back but there were still one or two unforgiving mistakes in the rythym, which my musical side-kick has sorted out, without losing the original character of the piece.

Cheers

Dr. V
 
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noisewreck said:
Well, if it sounded good, then keep it ;) Just because something works for me, doesn't mean it's gonna work for everyone else. Although I am not sure why your levels would be all over the place by simply sending the drums to different channels, so I am a bit confused there. :confused:
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Part of the problem was caused by an oversight when using sends. I just couldn't make a bus which controlled the overall level of a group. Nothing happened when I tried to turn down the group's slider. That's because I was leaving the sends to the master on. Soon as I twigged it, I removed all sends, from my drum tracks to the main mix, then re-routed them to my subgroups and in turn, sent those to the drum master - and finally to the main mix. I found I could create roughly the sort of groups you described. It works extremely well and I can keep everything organised... So...

Thank you, Noisewreck!

Thanks also to everyone else who offered helpful suggestions and ideas. It's very much appreciated.

Dr. V
 
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Okay, I've just worked out how to post up a track. So, what do you think of my drums? Critisism and encouragement welcomed with equal enthusiasm...

https://homerecording.com/bbs/showthread.php?p=3263356#post3263356

Please note: The heavy 'crashing kick' at the start, is supposed to express the sound of a gunshot, so it's got a lot of compresson, reverb and a phaser, to create the special effect - and I make no apology for it. After reading what people have been saying about compresison and EQ, I've stripped out a lot of what I think are unecessary FX and changed my EQing habit to one where I make cuts instead of boosts. It seems to get better with each mix. I'd like to know your frist impressions.

Dr. V
 
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