Superior Metal Foundry, I also didnt reference this mix on many speakers just my home speakers and earbuds
I just used the "Metall" preset, re-eq'd a bit and put some limiting/comp on the snare/bass... I am still quite new with it and definatley would be happy to research any pointers? How do presets?
I agree that my drum sound is my weakest point, Ive been told a good option is to get Steven Slate Drums and buy some cymbal packs from a few studios... But in this economy? hahah
Dont worry no money needed. I too thought you had to spend spend spend. I have Steven Slates stuff but I use Superior Drummer, stock Avatar kit for most things.
Trick is there is so much to do you'll get lost but here is a few things to get right:
Balance of course,
Understanding compression. Try this. Setup you main mix bus with SSL compression. Dont hit this hard at all (1-4db max). I Waves c4 next but I would leave this out for a bit as its tricky to master if you are new with compression. To make it louder I use Sonnox inflator. Its a tube saturation thing that will make your stuff loud. Its the least damaging thing I use. I will always go into a limiter but only again for 1-2db reduction.
now thats your mix bus setup.
Next Get H-comp from waves or a compressor with a wet/dry mix You can do Parallel compression other ways but for me this is easy and nice. Route the out of the drums to another bus. Send all the drums to a reverb like D-verb or whatever, just anything will do. Route that reverb to the drum bus, so you have 1 bus with drums and reverb all going through. Put H-comp or whatever on it and learn how to squash the bitch. Push it with max treshold and listen. With the wet dry controlling the amount, and the release, make it fairly short to start with. And PAY VERY CLOSE ATTENTION to the attack. Mess about with it. Less attack and blending can = fatter (little slap fatter drum - nice but less defined but careful cos thats nice too) and more attack is really in your face.
And adjust reverb to hear how the reverb create a pumpy feel to the whole thing - pumpy is my word you may feel different.
Now this is just a great way to fuck about quick and get some good compression going, the EQ is another game. Theres tons on EQ on the net, just dont let SLAP on drums confuse you, I hear many (myself once included) EQ SLAP SLAP SLAP - the drums sound flappy and shitty cos its also the compression doing the work.
Get the 2 right and you will be away. But learn the H-comp thing first I think if you get it, youll understand compression. Learn to make the drums pop and go from there with taste. I think best way to learn is to hit someone, and then learn to defend in this game
