Mixing Toms and Bass

[Ermz]

This is a fairly specific question.

Basically, whenever I have a strong, meaty bass guitar going in a modern rock or metal mix, I can't get the low-end of my toms to pop through. When I solo the individual tom tracks they are going totally off the hook with bass, yet when I listen to the drum mix with the bass guitar included, they sound rather thin. This makes me believe that there's a rather large amount of wasted bass energy going on.

What are your ways of having the toms come through the mix without compromising the strength of the bass guitar sound?

 

[smy1]

Different ways:

a) simply cut bass frequency on toms in tracks where they always play when the bass is playing. In modern metal, most of the tom tone is in the attack, especially when there is a lot of kick action going on
b) automate the bass frequency cut in cases where bass & toms are playing or when there is no bass playing with the toms (add bass then)
c) if you always decide to go with toms where you hear mainly the attack and you have a one off tom hit, you could go with a bass note under it (very well done on older Sepultura records like Chaos A.D. and Roots) - that bass note could be either a bass guitar or a sine tone
d) if you decide to leave a lot of bass frequencies in the toms, just sidechain the bass guitar with the floor toms being the key trigger
e) if you don't want to do any of the above, you can always do the old "cut the toms where you boost the bass guitar and vice versa" EQ method

There are probably more ways of doing that, but that's all I can think of now.

Hope it helps!

 

[evolutions_end]

ive found that if you make the toms a little extra 'punchy' when its just toms and bass playing, the bass takes care of the low end for both the bass and the toms. eg, if you automate an eq to add a little extra 'punch' in a bridge section or something, one doesnt really notice the lack (lack isnt the best word) of low end in your toms.

 

[BattleTits]

Toms and bass arent that tough for me ..usually because I boost the lows on my toms at around 300...which is where I pull out a lot of the boxy mids in the bass.

 

[Ermz]

You boost 300 on toms? Is there any chance I could hear any of those mixes?