Mixing Drums

What kind of compression do you guys use on cymbals?

My room is fairly decent for tracking drums, but I can never get my cymbals loud enough without being overbearing or too in your face!

Joey,

What the L1 trick that you've talked about with cymbals?
 
Ganks said:
What kind of compression do you guys use on cymbals?

My room is fairly decent for tracking drums, but I can never get my cymbals loud enough without being overbearing or too in your face!

Joey,

What the L1 trick that you've talked about with cymbals?
Click to expand...

Fix the problem while tracking, not while mixing. Use differents mics/positions. After recording the drums you should be able to just raise the fader and say : These drums sound good.
 
Ganks said:
What kind of compression do you guys use on cymbals?

My room is fairly decent for tracking drums, but I can never get my cymbals loud enough without being overbearing or too in your face!

Joey,

What the L1 trick that you've talked about with cymbals?
Click to expand...

The 'L1 trick' is best achieved by side-chaining the limiter or compressor on your overheads to your snare track. This way you ensure reduction every time that thing is hit, and at a minimal cost to your cymbals (you can get serious tearing/artifacts if you hammer them with a limiter).

But go easy on cymbal compression. They don't need much - if any. I just hit them up with an 1176 for some extra sizzle and movement. Beyond that it's just a high pass and mid-cut if it's making the snare and toms sound cardboard, and a high shelf to give as much air as needed.

And yeah, I love how many times Joey's repeated himself here. Waves Maxxbass is like a sub-harmonizer. It bumps low harmonics relevant to the source, so you can achieve clearer, fatter low-end than just using a low-shelf or the like. I've never done this myself, but I might experiment with it soon.
 
I just started putting MaxxBass on my tom busses (thanks to mr. Joey for that) and it's totally revamped their sound!
 
Really helpful stuff thanks man!


Ermz said:
If you're using the Avatar library then you have some fantastic snares, toms and rooms right off the bat. Fight the urge to over-process. That's your biggest enemy.

Ok here is your golden plug-in:

Waves SSL E-channel

The in-line EQ and compressor on this thing works great on drums. Start minimalistic, don't go overboard, just tweak the EQ, do some mid cuts, and some high and low boosts to give fidelity to the drums.

-Kick and snare work great if you turn the shelf into a bell boost. You get more definition and cut from the boosts. 300 to 500hz can be your problem areas if things are a little too muddy.
-Suck 600 to 800 and 200 to 300hz on the toms, crank the highs with a shelf, and bell boost the lows at like 70hz. Fast attack on the compressor, ratio maybe 3 or 4. Take off around 3 to 6dB, to taste. Instant fatness.
-Hit the overheads with fast attack compression, 4:1 ratio, but VERY LIGHTLY. I'm talking barely any movement at all. Just something to add a bit of excitement.
-With all of these settings, always have the compressor release at its fastest (100ms).
-Slam the living shit out of the room. Like 10 to 20dB, all buttons in on an 1176 style plug-in if you have one. This will effectively turn the room mics into reverb ambiance. Just a wash of awesomeness to fill out the back and add air. Use the mid and far field room mics too. Throw the snare into them - no need for anything else.
-Consider cutting the cymbals and hats from the room mics a fair bit. Also consider cutting the hats from OHs if you need. EQ to taste. Then slowly bring it up into the back of your drum mix. It will unify everything and virtually negate the need for a reverb.
-Kicks sometimes like a 50 or 60hz sinewave side-chain gated to them. Just enough to fill out the subs. If I'm not mistaken, Randy is still fond of this. It's a similar thing to using Joey's harmonic enhancement suggestion.

SD2.0 is almost there for you. All you're doing is tailoring work. Getting it that little bit more punchy and clear.
Click to expand...
 
Thanks for all these mixing tips everyone. I recently started re-recording drums for my band and I wanted some feedback on the new drums. We haven't recorded any new guitar, bass, or vocal tracks so far, but if you wouldn't mind checking out these mixes, I'd appreciate it.

New Mix (New Drums + Old guitars/vox): http://www.mediafire.com/?6tv1lesq1e74v5r
Old Mix (Old Everything): unfortunately I don't have access to the file itself, but it's the first track on here http://www.myspace.com/maddenstudios titled "The Fall of Laius (The Oedipus Complex).

Thanks Again.
 
CSMadden81243 said:
Thanks for all these mixing tips everyone. I recently started re-recording drums for my band and I wanted some feedback on the new drums. We haven't recorded any new guitar, bass, or vocal tracks so far, but if you wouldn't mind checking out these mixes, I'd appreciate it.

New Mix (New Drums + Old guitars/vox): http://www.mediafire.com/?6tv1lesq1e74v5r
Old Mix (Old Everything): unfortunately I don't have access to the file itself, but it's the first track on here http://www.myspace.com/maddenstudios titled "The Fall of Laius (The Oedipus Complex).

Thanks Again.
Click to expand...

Get dropbox mate... dropbox.com

Also, more people are likely to check it out if you post it in the rate my mix section!
 
This thread is pretty funny.

But good stuff ¯\(°_o)/¯

I never managed to make the SD2.0 kick sound good stock though? I'm blending the DFHS Sonor 22" kick with some of the samples from Erkan's library for the project I'm currently doing. Gotta try a subharmonic enhancer on the sample, as it's a bit thin currently.

By the way, how about using a transient shapers on toms? Do you have a bus going with it or do you even rely on it?

Also, guys who use delays on drums: just how exactly do you do it without it sounding like ass?
 
ze kink said:
I never managed to make the SD2.0 kick sound good stock though? I'm blending the DFHS Sonor 22" kick with some of the samples from Erkan's library for the project I'm currently doing. Gotta try a subharmonic enhancer on the sample, as it's a bit thin currently.
Click to expand...

I need to try out a subharmonic enhancer. I've only heard great things.

I eq the Avatar kick so that a lot of the sub frequencies are gone and I sculpt a hump between 60 and 80 hz. I don't boost any of the low end, the peak of the hump is around -5db. Then I boost around 3-6k with a high shelf so I can hear it in the mix. The kick is then sent to a drum bus, which is sent to an fx channel for parallel compression, where I boost 100hz by 6db or so. This boost makes up for a lot of the lows I subtracted on the kick track, but without the mud.

Ben Sharp of Cloudkicker does something similar if I'm not mistaken. Listen to "]]][[[" or "Beacons" to hear a nice and fat Avatar kick drum.
 
Maybe someone will find this useful

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClcguWhiCVw&feature=related[/ame]

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vr97ub3fZrM&feature=related[/ame]

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgvUP22Vhh8&feature=related[/ame]
 
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