Mixing in that powerful kick and snare without clipping

[shackrock]

So I record my drum set to my delta 44. My kick and Snare are on their own seperate channels.

I compress both (individually of course).....add spikes acordingly...take away from some other instruments where i put the spikes....and already, it clips anywhere from 2db over 0 or 10db over 0!!

And, it STILL doesnt have that extreme powerfulness that you will hear in other recordings, especially the commercial stuff.

SO...how can I get the kick to really be powerful, and the snare as well. I went them crisp, thick, and up front (without the extreme clipping!)! HA!

any tips to help me do this?

 

[jazzrich9]

what are you using to compress them? Is it clipping when you solo the tracks? If these are the focal points of your track, then start your mix there, and add everything else accordingly. You may have to use an A*shole limiter, or if you can't get the sound you want... use drumagog or something similar (no idea what gear your using or if a plug-in trigger is even an option... to replace your drums with someone elses

What kind of headroom do you have when you're tracking? Are you recording hot on the delta? I usually shoot for about -6 to -12db when tracking drums to leave myself plenty of room to process them... but then other guys will do it differently.

Realizing I'm asking more questions than answering, hope it helps a bit.

Cheers

 

[Massive Master]

(A) Yes, you could use some headroom when you record.

(B) Powerful sounding drums sound powerful almost by themselves. If you're really having to "work for it," start with the instrument itself.

 

[Teacher]

send the stuff thats clipping to a separate subgroup and put a limiter on it or something that has output control

 

[Raw-Tracks]

I compress both (individually of course).....add spikes acordingly...take away from some other instruments where i put the spikes....and already, it clips anywhere from 2db over 0 or 10db over 0!!

What do you mean, you "add spikes"?

 

[Cloneboy Studio]

What do you mean, you "add spikes"?

I was curious about that too. My guess is that he means 'enough attack time on the compressor to allow the front end to get through', but assuming is never a good policy.

I'm also curious to what he means when he says he drops the instruments on the spikes. Is he ducking the other audio tracks???

Honestly, good drums sounds shouldn't be *that* much work. Put the mics up where they sound good and drums usually mix themselves. Well, if the drummer is decent and the kit doesn't suck that is.

 

[shackrock]

yep yep... check it:

I add some spikesin the high end (paragraphic eq), to give a little boost.

then, where that is spiking, I subtract a bit from say - dist. guitars (only 1db or so), and a small Q.

also leaving attack time on the compressor for the high end, yes.

 

[masteringhouse]

So I record my drum set to my delta 44. My kick and Snare are on their own seperate channels.

I compress both (individually of course).....add spikes acordingly...take away from some other instruments where i put the spikes....and already, it clips anywhere from 2db over 0 or 10db over 0!!

And, it STILL doesnt have that extreme powerfulness that you will hear in other recordings, especially the commercial stuff.

SO...how can I get the kick to really be powerful, and the snare as well. I went them crisp, thick, and up front (without the extreme clipping!)! HA!

any tips to help me do this?

Try using a bit of parallel compression to beef things up.

 

[shackrock]

paralell??

 

[masteringhouse]

paralell??

Have a look at the following article:

http://www.nthelp.com/mastering/faq/specialtechniques.htm

Don't take the threshold, ratio, etc. setting too literally though. This setup is geared more toward mastering than mixing.

You can also use this technique with an analog compressor, the latency issues don't apply as much then. I've heard great results using a distressor, but if you don't have one, try what you've got ...

Essentially just mult the snare track, one going to an uncompressed track to maintain the transients, the other to a track that is heavily compressed. Then adjust the levels of the 2 tracks once you have adjusted for any phase differences. The basic idea is to use the compressed track to add beef. You can also EQ this track differently than the uncompressed track, maybe adding a bit more bottom.

 

[DigitMus]

Well, you've been given some good suggestions, and there are probably issues with tracking/recording levels to be sorted, but I'll bring up another old mix trick for adding "punch" to kick and snare. Try this: assign all the drums EXCEPT kick and snare to a pair of busses (you'll probably want to add the bass as well...), route those busses through a compressor with a key input, and use an aux buss to assign the kick+snare to the key input. You'll need to experimant with the compressor settings (fast attack and release is probably called for). What you accomplish this way is to "duck" the other percussive and LF elements in the mix every time the kick or snare hit. It's not a cure-all, and you need to be conservative on the amount of gain reduction, but it can be quite effective.

Scott

 

[b-face]

that is some good info. i have been doing the same thing in my setup.

 

[Bulls Hit]

Have you checked the phasing between the kick & snare mics?

If you blow up the audio waveforms, you'll see how much bleeding there is between the mics, and how in or out of phase the wave forms are. You can lose a lot of punch if say the kick peaks on the snare mic are out of phase with the corresponding peaks on the kick mic

 

[masteringhouse]

Have you checked the phasing between the kick & snare mics?

If you blow up the audio waveforms, you'll see how much bleeding there is between the mics, and how in or out of phase the wave forms are. You can lose a lot of punch if say the kick peaks on the snare mic are out of phase with the corresponding peaks on the kick mic

Very true, also check phase with the overheads ...

 

[guttadaj]

If there is bleeding, perhaps using gates on the tracks could help...

 

[glimmer_doll]

perhaps the issue is the drumming. you have to hit hard with a quick attack if you want that really punchy in your face drum sound...you couldn't record like, Mr Rogers playing drums and expect it to sound like Tommy Lee...no matter how good a beat Mr Rogers could've kept...

 

[jazzrich9]

actually

Fred Rogers was a killin' jazz pianist. All the twinkling on the show was him, and he used to play small clubs under the radar.

 

[rcktdg]

I like to dig a little space in the other instruments for those frequencies peaking in my kick and snare. The thought being that since these instruments are always in place the hole wont be noticed.

I have also started mixing my upper midrange a tad lower. For me, this makes the kick and snare standout a bit more. Depending on how you compress the whole mix at the end you can get plenty of power fromt that range while still maintaining the kick/snare energy.

RD

 

[glimmer_doll]

Fred Rogers was a killin' jazz pianist. All the twinkling on the show was him, and he used to play small clubs under the radar.

oh i'm well aware of that, and didn't mean any disrespect at all...actually that's why i used him, because i'm sure he could keep a beat...but he would never have that powerful in your face delivery...on drums anyway...i think if you want that sound you just need the right person...

 

[shackrock]

close up

PIC 1:
here's a close up of the 4 drum tracks I got.
L overhead.
R overhead.
KICK
SNARE

This is a close up of the main part of the kick, but also being played is a snare roll....with little accents on the kick hits.



The second picture is another band I recorded...same 4 tracks in the same order. However, this is just a kick drum hit, alone.


What can you trell me about this? I really don't know think it's very off...should I zoom closer? HA!