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

I want to start a topic about mixing the drums/beat of our tunes, to address problems like, for example : i have a hard time producing percussive beats, that sound "full" (as opposed to "thin") and natural, without the sound becoming harsh, especially in the high frequencies.

So, tell me, what are your techniques, do you know some good tutorials, what gear/vsts are you using, ect... ?

Some random tips :

- First and foremost,pick the "right" samples, or pay extra-attention to your drum synths : a good sound is easier to mix.

- Watch your levels : gain-staging is key !

- Don't be afraid to remove useless lows and highs on each drum track.

- Try to cut some 400ish Hz off kicks : it creates room for other percs... and fattens the kick itself.

- Gate ! gate ! gate ! So useful to me, to get a punchy yet huge drum sound. I usually gate after EQ.

- HP side chaining and parallel compression work wonders on (drum) buss. I prefer to leave the individual tracks uncompressed : I love the sound of buss compression.

TDR SlickEQ GE (EQ) and Kotelnikov GE (Compressor and Gate), and Valhalla VintageVerb (Reverb, obviously) and Ubermod (Delay/Chorus etc...) cover all my (drum) mixing needs.

that's a matter which is hard to generalize because it simply depends on what you're after, what kind of sound material you use, etc...

When I make a tune on software, I use Renoise for the beats and end up most of the time in using different kind of sources, mostly samples, both of a synthetic or real nature (breaks, field recordings, ...) and vst synths (but more for synthesizing separate elements of the beat like one vst = one sound). In the end mixing all of that "simply" equals in deciding which sound plays which role in the whole mix and as a consequence of that which sonic character this sound should have. That stands for the frequency content, the dynamics, the impression of space, ...

Put it that way it might sound almost simple but it can actually take a lot of time to become more familiar with this whole process. And things get even more complicate when you take into account that electronic music is the first place where composition and mixing blend together : mixing in a creative way is a great value and it makes it even harder to ask people for ready-made solutions.

If you want you can describe more specific problems you came across, why not with some sound examples and I can see if I have some tips (PM in french is also ok if you're too shy to share stuff here yet ;-)

For superior drummer, I like to use the multitrack function, gate the overheads/room channels and run them into a distortion unit like trash 2, then high pass and run regular synth/boomy drum samples in the low end, gets you a nice raw & airy presence while retaining serious low end punch..

Softube FET works wonders on kicks and snares, sounds nothing like other compressors and can turn your sounds into something quite different from what you expected, punchy but smooth, once you get the hang of it you'll swear by it

I'm a sucker for good shakers, the right samples are key, then some tight reverb, compression and some serious 250hz boost gets them in your face

it's important to have the right EQ when boosting the high frequencies to avoid that harsh sound, softube trident and plugin alliance Passeq have the cleanest high frequencies i've ever heard - bear in mind that trident has a 14-15khz dip in homage to the unit its modelled after!

A lot of people swear by Valhalla but I've never been big on it, I use Aether for hihats, percussion, shakers, everything, it's a bit complex at first glance but reverb-wise there isn't anything it can't do

Do you have some music online Diabrotikos, so we can hear what is the 'problem'?

If your drums sound brittle, pull up the low-mids, ya dingus.

Ahh nice thread. I too have trouble sometimes getting the drums to sound right. (reading all your tips and bookmarked things to look into in the near future)

How would some of you suggest going about getting the kind of sound Clark gets on tracks like totem crackerjack, future daniel, talis, the pinning 1, soft eruptor... I know a lot of it is live drum samples he did and lots of compression.

Also sometimes when I try making weird glitchy sharp percussion sounds in the style of Draft7.30, that's even harder to get right. It's a mess.

I'd appreciate any drum 101 for noob boy here.

  On 2/16/2015 at 8:15 PM, LimpyLoo said:

If your drums sound brittle, pull up the low-mids, ya dingus.

Not sure if serious because of 'dingus'...

Or fill the lower frequencies with percussions that live there.

I prefer getting the sources right instead of EQing.

But it's so hard to give advice on something that can be done in so many different ways. Generally, if you feel something is missing somewhere in your drums, fill it will a sound that fits there. Compression and gating can give some flavour and effect, but sometimes none of that is needed if your sources are good.

Well I don't think one achieves fat percussions through mixing really. I usually create them from samples/field recordings/synth stabs/etc layering and treat them through different effects, pretty much randomly most of the time. Repitching, resampling, etc. If a drum sound doesn't suit you, eq and compression alone just won't fix it !

  On 2/16/2015 at 7:13 PM, lin said:

Some random tips :

- First and foremost,pick the "right" samples, or pay extra-attention to your drum synths : a good sound is easier to mix.

- Watch your levels : gain-staging is key !

- Don't be afraid to remove useless lows and highs on each drum track.

- Try to cut some 400ish Hz off kicks : it creates room for other percs... and fattens the kick itself.

- Gate ! gate ! gate ! So useful to me, to get a punchy yet huge drum sound. I usually gate after EQ.

- HP side chaining and parallel compression work wonders on (drum) buss. I prefer to leave the individual tracks uncompressed : I love the sound of buss compression.

 

TDR SlickEQ GE (EQ) and Kotelnikov GE (Compressor and Gate), and Valhalla VintageVerb (Reverb, obviously) and Ubermod (Delay/Chorus etc...) cover all my (drum) mixing needs.

That's handy info - nice one boss.

  On 2/16/2015 at 7:13 PM, lin said:

Some random tips :

- First and foremost,pick the "right" samples, or pay extra-attention to your drum synths : a good sound is easier to mix.

- Watch your levels : gain-staging is key !

- Don't be afraid to remove useless lows and highs on each drum track.

- Try to cut some 400ish Hz off kicks : it creates room for other percs... and fattens the kick itself.

- Gate ! gate ! gate ! So useful to me, to get a punchy yet huge drum sound. I usually gate after EQ.

- HP side chaining and parallel compression work wonders on (drum) buss. I prefer to leave the individual tracks uncompressed : I love the sound of buss compression.

 

TDR SlickEQ GE (EQ) and Kotelnikov GE (Compressor and Gate), and Valhalla VintageVerb (Reverb, obviously) and Ubermod (Delay/Chorus etc...) cover all my (drum) mixing needs.

How do you use HP side chaining?

I tend to layer a bit, especially on my kick. Have one kick low-passed at around 100-120Hz to give the 'sub', and then another with a high pass around the same mark, plus a EQ boost around 5k-7k for added punch in the mix. It's about finding the right samples for that; naturally you find a sub heavy kick for the lower one, brighter one for the higher, but I've really found with practice I get some punchy as fuck kicks that still have a lot of bollocks. Don't always do it on the snare, but again it can definitely work. Just select the right samples and filter accordingly.

And yeah, WATMM taught me the values of removing all unnecessary frequencies and it cleared up my drum mixes no end. Found you can be very aggressive on that count.

^ yeah I layer almost all of my drum sounds. I always use 2-3 snares from different 80s drum machines, sometimes EQing them individually, but always going into a single comp, EQ or even distortion to blend it all into one. Same with bassdrums really, but with those it's a bit more of a delicate process; I still haven't reached optimal sound design with bassdrums but I'm getting there!

I like to use synthesized sources for bass drums, the classic sine sweep thing is simply ageless. Of course combining that with a sample or several also works (great).

I know that there's a good amount of gating and compression to solve this answer, but I've always heralded the drum mixing on this track to be top notch. How the eff does one get their drums to be this punchy and snappy?

Yeah I'd agree, I go pretty hard on my compression ratio on drums, and also tend to have a lower threshold than other instruments. The attack/decay are usually where I can shape the sound the most. I also always always always turn off any auto make up gain and do it myself. I just find I can control it much better and even just an extra dB on top of where it would normally be can add much needed punch and clarity. If using a VST I also prefer using the RMS instead of Peak setting on the compressor.

  On 2/18/2015 at 1:46 AM, modey said:

^ yeah I layer almost all of my drum sounds. I always use 2-3 snares from different 80s drum machines, sometimes EQing them individually, but always going into a single comp, EQ or even distortion to blend it all into one. Same with bassdrums really, but with those it's a bit more of a delicate process; I still haven't reached optimal sound design with bassdrums but I'm getting there!

Yeah! Layering samples to get something unique and interesting is great, especially for big snares, then it's a matter of balancing all the disparate samples with eq edits and you can have something that sounds cohesive (the lower 'umf' of one, the upper mid 'thwack' of another, and the crispies/harmonic resonance of another).

  On 2/17/2015 at 4:36 PM, b born droid said:

 

  On 2/16/2015 at 7:13 PM, lin said:

Some random tips :

- First and foremost,pick the "right" samples, or pay extra-attention to your drum synths : a good sound is easier to mix.

- Watch your levels : gain-staging is key !

- Don't be afraid to remove useless lows and highs on each drum track.

- Try to cut some 400ish Hz off kicks : it creates room for other percs... and fattens the kick itself.

- Gate ! gate ! gate ! So useful to me, to get a punchy yet huge drum sound. I usually gate after EQ.

- HP side chaining and parallel compression work wonders on (drum) buss. I prefer to leave the individual tracks uncompressed : I love the sound of buss compression.

 

TDR SlickEQ GE (EQ) and Kotelnikov GE (Compressor and Gate), and Valhalla VintageVerb (Reverb, obviously) and Ubermod (Delay/Chorus etc...) cover all my (drum) mixing needs.

How do you use HP side chaining?

For example, by using the "Low Freq Relax" in TDR Kotelnikov :

or the HPF in Klanghelm DC8C2's SC section :

Many compressors have similar features. Equally as useful as a Mix/Dry knob if you ask me !

Sorry I should have been a bit more detailed. You apply a HPF to the whole kit, or just send through specific elements? At roughly what frequencies do you tend to set the HPF? Gentle/hard compression?

But cool, I will try that one for sure. I love what parallel compression does to a mix.

  On 2/23/2015 at 11:31 AM, b born droid said:

Sorry I should have been a bit more detailed. You apply a HPF to the whole kit, or just send through specific elements? At roughly what frequencies do you tend to set the HPF? Gentle/hard compression?

 

But cool, I will try that one for sure. I love what parallel compression does to a mix.

Oh sorry, my bad ! I should have read more carefully ;)

It depends a lot on the compressor I use. TDR Kotelnikov GE has ended my ever-going quest for the best compressor (very subjective thing, I know). It's damn flexible and will sounds musical no matter which settings, and remains artefact-free even with the most agressive compression. It can be set to focus on parts of the spectrum if needed, so I use HPF side-chaining and mids focused compression at the same time : I love how it emphasizes groove and movement.

The whole drumkit goes into the drum buss compressor, and then all tracks and busses through another compressor on the master buss.

On both instances, HPF SC is set somewhere between 150 and 300Hz (3dB slope), and Wet/Dry between 25 and 35%. I love to compress the drumbuss quite aggressively (tons of GR, high ratio, sometimes pretty fast attack/release), but mix back in a ton of unprocessed signal. I use much gentler setting on the 2buss (2 or 3dB of GR max, slower enveloppe).

Used in Delta mode, Kotelnikov turns into a wonderful gate/expander. It might be a bit tedious to set, but you can get some insanely clear and punchy drums with it (think RDJ's drums ;)). Absolutely amazing !

I'll add that I barely ever compress individual tracks, pay tons of attention to synth programming / samples / overall composition and arrangement, so that mixing doesn't equal fixing issues.

This is roughly how I proceed. Of course, the way I use compressors is tied to the way I program synths, to the way I EQ, and to the sound esthetics I want to reach, so all I'm saying might seem totally - and legitimately - irrelevant to you guys. I have two releases planned this year to hopefully back all my advices and science hehe ;)

Ps: my previously released stuffs sound like shit

Ps: my workflow to set a compressor : set it 100% wet, then abuse it until it strengthens the groove of the audio, then either put back a lot of unprocessed signal in and/or set it to much gentler ratio and/or threshold. Et voilà :)

Excellent, thanks for that. I will certainly give it a go for sure, and don't worry I totally understand about the fact the way you mix drums is related to the rest of your tracks. But definitely want to try a few techniques to see what could work for what I'm doing.

after all this talk it reminds me why i moved to hardware for production..

All i have on my 16 channel mixer is parametric eqs for channel and 3 compressors i hardly use expect on basslines plus the filters in the mpc for fine tuning/eq.

Another key thing is using good samples. Want a punchy snare, start with a punchy snare. With layering i find it helps to use a good classic sample eg a 808 or 606 snare for the punch and character and layer it with something else for added character.. The classic samples are classic for a reason, people respond to them!

Also real basics but eqing out the lows or highs on a sample or channel that arnt being used is something i wish someone taught me from day 1. Also lots of filters, bandpass too.

Depends on the sound your after but i like to bandpass my cymbals and hihats for a dulling of the sample in the high end, i always high pass it also so it doesnt get muddy but of course done to taste and whatever is appropriate for the sound your after.

Personally i used to get so bummed out mixing with all the options i find it to be a lot more fun with less and my tracks have probably never sounded better but i would like a mixer with groups! Ive learnt to trust my ears more then anything.

Another thing ive recently gotten into is using guitar fx on channel and processing channels. I always keep the kick clean, maybe some distortion but the other channels i rarely keep 100% dry. slight verb, modulations where you can. Gives everything a bit of life and movement, keep in mind its relative to the music you make..

But again another bit of advice i wish i was told was to use a reference track (turned down) to compare a 'sound' your going for with. By turned down i just mean lower the volume in itunes cause you wont be able to mix like a master. Its helped me a lot, especially considering a lot of the music i make is directly inspired by something which pretty much therefor will share a similar sound in whatever way im going for

Yeah one thing ive learnt going all hardware is simple is normally good. If you dont want to make simple music all good.

I used to try use all these samples ive made and all the drums lacked weight and presence and really a recognisable and almost relatable sound for people to latch onto.. Again it does depend what your trying to achieve.

Even simple things with the mpc that anyone could do with a computer or whatever help like setting up 3 different 808 hats (or whatever hi hats) your using and setting each of them to their own volume and env and even slight pitch variations (micro) can help with creating some movement and something interesting and different.

For me that approach is easier then using velocity cause i use note repeat to death and also those older drum machines only had 2 or 3 velocity settings so for techno and electro is ideal.. endless ideas when your having fun. This being an experimental music forum dudes will be switched on to this but im sure someone will learn something.

Another thing, i learnt how to produce through trial and error, literally years of doing it all wrong until i figured it out for myself. Even though i wouldnt advise people to follow in some ways as you can save years and time and 100's of bad mixdowns, learning through experience is priceless and unique with music in my experience

  On 2/26/2015 at 11:50 AM, sun drugs said:

 

But again another bit of advice i wish i was told was to use a reference track (turned down) to compare a 'sound' your going for with. By turned down i just mean lower the volume in itunes cause you wont be able to mix like a master. Its helped me a lot, especially considering a lot of the music i make is directly inspired by something which pretty much therefor will share a similar sound in whatever way im going for

Is using a reference track helpful? I've shied away from doing it as I feel like if I make a direct comparison with another song when mixing that the other track will consciously/subconsciously affect my creative process. Perhaps I'm missing something...in what way do you find it helps?

Cheers

I go through periods where I use reference tracks and when I don't, but I do think it's very useful. For starters is just helps you recognise how clear your mix is. I've been working on stuff before and thought it sounded good, but it was so muddy compared to the references I had. I realised I could really go a lot hard on instrument separation and my mix improved a lot. It's not like the song didn't work, but it was a detail that really made the whole thing 'pop'.

I found it especially useful too when thinking about hi hats and percussion, for things like brightness and overall levels.