Mixing the drums : your tips, your best tutorials, ect...

[nickthefish]

Interesting. You've given me some food for thought there an might give referencing a try (god knows I need all the help I can get!). Cheers

[sun drugs]

I guess for me it depends track to track but often just levels of instruments. It might be something i do once ive made the track and before i record it i listen to a reference. For a long time i also used it to break down sounds in tracks and re-create them or at least try to reverse engineers some of the sounds to learn more and that.

For me not having monitors i find it helps with mixdowns a lot. I dont really spend too much time doing it tbh, i just find it helpful.

Another thing ive done is sent a reference track over to mastering guys to give them an idea of the overall sound i want out of a mastering job which has had mixed results but i guess its something important enough to have a conversation about..

[rev85]

Yeah the best mixes I've made are when I'm not overworking each instrument and they work better as a whole. For example, I was really happy with this one mix - the bass was growly, the kick was punchy as fuck, but when I solo'd each instrument it sounded crap - muffled sounding bass and kick had hardly any bottom end! I guess it's about allowing each instrument to breathe on it's own merits. One negative thing about this approach is it limits you in your composition a bit b/c your tying elements together.

 

Coming back to drums, recently I've been automating the volume throughout all my drum tracks instead of fiddling with compressors/EQ to get that clarity in certain sections. Works a treat and I do it on all other instruments too.

[melancholera]

I'm afraid I've been settling for sub-standard samples in this area for a while now. This thread has inspired me to up my game.

[Guest nbven]

I recently had problem with mastering. When track goes into really expressive part with distortions, heavy beat and high gain, whole mix "eats" drum kick, so you can barely hear it. I would really appreciate some advice.

[Nil]

Your own tunes ? If so, try first to have the best sounding mix you can, leave tons of headroom and dynamics, and finally forget about loudness.

[Guest nbven]

Your own tunes ? If so, try first to have the best sounding mix you can, leave tons of headroom and dynamics, and finally forget about loudness.

Yeah, my own tunes during mastering stage. Thanks for the advice

[rev85]

I recently had problem with mastering. When track goes into really expressive part with distortions, heavy beat and high gain, whole mix "eats" drum kick, so you can barely hear it. I would really appreciate some advice.

Sounds like the issue is your mix. Do you have a sample we can hear?

 

At a guess, the added distortion and energy could be covering the high frequency of your kick drum, leaving you with that flabby sounding, low end dull thud. Try giving each instrument a frequency, or space, to live in.

 

Mastering is more about optimising the track - like glossing a shiny floor, you have to make sure there's no cracks in the floor to begin with - better fixed in the mix :)

[Perezvon]

Ableton's Vocoder is pretty good for percussions, whether it's for adding punch or just mid-end personality (or both usually). Phaser works really well too.