Need Drum Mixing Help

[ADRSean]

How do mix and compress drum ¯\(°_o)/¯?

Seriously now.

Anyway I got a nice solid drum track going here. The drummer in this band quit and we were forced to do a different rout. We had midi'd the drums in guitar pro, made a solid track and imported the midi to EZDrummer DKFH. Then because I have got shit programs and PC, I ripped the song each layer. Recorded just EZdrummers kick, snare top and bottom, overhead, toms, room layer. Anyway. After that I did some massive sampling. Changed the snare, kick and toms. Redid the hi-hat and overheads. Made the sounds more....what it should be.

But I have no idea how to compress drums. I use adobe audition, and the compression effects suck on that and i can't afford to BUY any VSTs. and i'm not sure about how to do compression. This is my first serious project and i'm just learning about attack/release and all that jazz.

So my question is, what do you suggest for a good hard rock drums? What kind of compression, and do you guys know any good compression VSTs or EQ ones or reverb? Any help would be great.

¯\(°_o)/¯

 

[Joematthews]

A switch from audition to reaper would be my first move.

Blockfish is a good free compressor but I don't usually use if for drums.

The best way to learn about compresion is to put the threshold stupidly low so it compresses the shit out of the signal (do this on drums to learn about it). Change the atack time more and less and you will understand what the controls do. Longer atack time means the compressor takes longer to start compressing. You would have an attack time of about 20-30 milliseconds to add attacky body to a drum, about 10-20 to add punch/click and anything less than that for general smoothing out, or for really fast transient rich sources like snare and bass drum to get a bit more click.

The release time is the time it takes the compressor to stop compressing after the signal exceeds the threshold level. Long times are good for sources with large spaces between transients and short times are better for faster hits and faster songs. If you want to smooth the whole lot put a very long release time, but don't crush the life out of everything obviously.

Does that help?

Joe

 

[Unavailable]

You would have an attack time of about 20-30 milliseconds to add attacky body to a drum

Fixed, lol.

 

[Joematthews]

HAHA major fail

Joe

 

[HandsOfDespair]

About drums bus compression, is 6 GR, 30 attack and 1 release a good starting point? I know 1 release is pretty low lol but each time I try to compress it seems the best number of ms to give.

 

[zvish]

install Addictive Drums, download any good preset from this forum, and you will have some good starting points how to EQ, compress, reverb snare toms etc

 

[Joematthews]

About drums bus compression, is 6 GR, 30 attack and 1 release a good starting point? I know 1 release is pretty low lol but each time I try to compress it seems the best number of ms to give.

30 ms is sort of like body area, it gives more punch and attack while keeping the character. It depends what you need. Also, I find 1 ms of release sounds distorted to me, try anything above about 15 IMHO

Joe

(oh yeah, just work out gain reduction by ear, don't go to a default setting, its not the most difficult thing to get right)

 

[Neil_Mad]

There are various post about ecualization compression etc on the forum I use EZ Drumer and then replace all that I learned was here I use samplers I replace EVERYTHING and I use sampler that already have compression etc sometimes I extract the sampler from a song that a like and I use it hope you that help jeje cheers.