Drum mixing basics ?

thanks Nil, no problem with long answers, always a pleasure to read, tons of useful information !

I tend to think that more often than not when it comes to compressing drums a compressor with a harder knee sounds usually better than one with a softer knee, but it of course depends.

Just keep in mind, if relying on various "layers" of compression (compressing individual drum hits, then drum buss then mixbus) that ratios multiply.

Say you compress a snare hit with a 20:1 ratio (à la 1176) then use a 4:1 ratio on the drumbus then a 2:1 ratio on the mixbus :depending on the enveloppes of all these comps and the rest of the mix, tiny parts of the snare can be compressed up to 20*4*2=160:1 ratio. Which is a huge lot.

So I'd suggest to go backwards if you plan to use any kind of bus compression : set master buss comp first, then group comp, then sub group comp, then individual compressors. That way I've realized that a layer or 2, tops!, of compression is often more than enough.

I LOVE compressors, and they're so easy to overdo.

What are your thoughts on transient/envelope shapers?

  On 3/30/2020 at 3:38 PM, Nil said:

So I'd suggest to go backwards if you plan to use any kind of bus compression : set master buss comp first, then group comp, then sub group comp, then individual compressors. 

That's an odd method because you have to constantly readjust the thresholds that way, doesn't seem very convenient

I'd say it's akin to going from general to detail, macro to micro : you set your buss comp to emphasize the groove of the various instruments dancing around within your group / mix, then fine tune with individual compression.

I prefer to mix early on into the mix compressor though, toggling it on and off often to check how much the overall balance relies on the group compression. It's a different workflow really.

2 tips if I may. I've never dared to use (analogue) limiting nor soft-clipping. How foolish of me. 2 recent purchases have really changed my mind :

- https://korneffaudio.com/product/talkback-limiter/ : even if it's an emulation of the talkback circuit you'd find in an SSL desk, it's basically a barebone FET design, surprisingly reminiscent of what you'd find in a 1176, all buttons in. And man it sounds fucking amazing on drums (it can be also some of the finest distortion box I've heard ITB). Threshold is fixed at -24, ratio is 100:1, there's a hidden panel (click on the dev's logo) to expand the sound palette quite a bit, no attack nor release (but eh, doesn't matter at all here really). 2 possible workflows : push it and then use it parallel... or under-drive it (upcoming update will add a padding option) so that the signal is far from approaching the threshold, and it becomes a marvelous de-digitizer. Adds tons of weight and realism. Amazing set and forget tool.

- https://www.voxengo.com/product/ovc128/ glorious on the mixbus pre-dither (soft-clipping), glorious on the drum bus too (any hardness you desire). Hard-clipping is almost transparent, soft-clipping sounds super nice. Mega-clean aliasing-wise (it operates at ~ 5.2 megahertz eh)

I like to include drum ambience/slapback sends in the drum bus! I use a lot of dry electronic-based samples though, so I kind of treat those spatialization channels as if they're part of the "natural" drum sound rather than as special effects, so it makes sense to me to include those sends when processing the bus with broad tonal adjustments, dynamic shaping, or saturation.

I think in a lot of cases sidechaining is also super important when you're trying to incorporate the drums into the full mix. There's obviously the standard kick-drum-ducks-the-bass thing which can help clean up the bass and sub-bass frequencies. You don't always have to duck the full signal, either. If you have a dynamic eq that can do sidechaining (like pro-q 3) you could duck out just the lows of a bass if you want to preserve high frequency content like squelches. You could also side-chain the kick and snare to full-spectrum content like pads, supersaw chords and reverb to duck frequencies that interfere with the kick and snare. Basically it can be as subtle or as obvious as you want, but the idea is to retain punchiness when incorporating the drums into the full mix. It can also add some interesting motion.