Tips for drumbus ?

[Williamn]

Hello !

I was wondering how people handle their drums, specially how they apply their compression.

Do you compress on the drum bus (overheads not included.. atleast in mine) or do you only do parallel compression ?.

What kind of comps do you like and roughly what settings you tend to prefer ?

I have already searched alot on the forums, but most of the info is a bit old and I know a few people have changed preference since then.

 

[AEL89]

I'm using bus compression more than compressing each separate drum these days. Its easy to feel like you have to throw an 1176 on a snare track just on principle but I'm doing that only if/when it needs compression.

I'll bus together my snare mics with any samples. On each separate track I'll use tape saturation (Massey Tapehead) and EQ if it needs it. On the bus I'll saturate a little more and maybe use an 1176 or Massey CT4. I'll use the same sort of chain for kick and toms. By the time I hit the drum bus everything is getting compressed only slightly (overall 3-5dB gain reduction). On the drum bus I knock off another 3 or 4 dB with whatever compressor suits the vibe (sometimes even an 1176 on the main bus) and some more tape saturation. I'm using a tiny bit of parallel compression on the entire bus but I'll send the snare bus directly to it as well.

I used to compress the shit out of everything at every stage but now I rely more on tape saturation to smear the transients.

 

[Ermz]

If you're after a clean modern metal mix, sometimes you're best off with nothing on the drum bus. The bus is where you usually go for smearing/pumping/density related effects. You're essentially stating that you want to sacrifice purity and transparency for a bigger/more glued sound. Which is to say... I slam the shit out of the drums here in parallel all the time, and usually use some kind of saturation, whether it be tape, Decapitator, or whatever.

 

[AboutBlank]

+1
I just don't like how the compression affects the overall sound on the drum-bus.

I have just VCC and a very very little notch EQ on the bus.

 

[darthjujuu]

i'm all about the parallel/aux bus, leave the main drum bus aloneee. tweak the individual tracks if necessary, "glue-ing" all the shells together does nothing at all for me. bus em together, send to an aux, slam that aux til doesn't even sound like drums anymore, adjust send level. that's what works for me, as always, ymmv

 

[TonyS.]

i'm all about the parallel/aux bus, leave the main drum bus aloneee. tweak the individual tracks if necessary, "glue-ing" all the shells together does nothing at all for me. bus em together, send to an aux, slam that aux til doesn't even sound like drums anymore, adjust send level. that's what works for me, as always, ymmv

+1, but sending the track seperatly to the bus, for better control.

 

[Williamn]

Interesting, really looking forward to trying out the suggestions
Thank you so much all for answering.

Much love to this forum <3

 

[bryan_kilco]

Guys, I don't want to get off topic here, but can someone explain the differences between a 'bus' and 'aux'?

A bus is basically an empty track that has FX on it, that, in this case, all the drums get sent to it? I thought I had this figured out but I may still be confused here.

Newb.

 

[Ermz]

On a mixing desk a group is essentially a channel that you can route other channels to. So for instance a stereo 'Guitar' fader with both your mono rhythm guitar tracks to go to.

An auxiliary is essentially a send that goes out from the desk, is wired to various outboard FX, and then comes back on channels called FX returns.

Many DAWs circumvent this process and simply use the words 'group' and 'aux' interchangeably. In juju's case, he seems to be referring to the aux as an FX track which he sends to.

 

[bryan_kilco]

Thanks Ermz. So basically, a group or bus is like internal routing inside the DAW, and an aux is more like external routing through the outboard gear? Sorry for the newbish question. Just want to get my head around this because I'm starting to try to group drums and I'm not sure if I'm doing it "right".

 

[Vinny]

Bryan- Auxs aren't limited to outboard. Auxs are used for mixing completely ITB aswell.

But +1 I never knew the difference between the two either. Logic Pro 9 treats them interchangeably it seems, and it has never affected any of the sound, so I'm not really focused on being politically correct on that topic

But for OP. Compress your snare track and your sampled snare together. Same for kick and other sampled instruments. I try to EQ them together too, but only if it works.

And a question of my own- How do you guys get the attack on cymbals to be controlled? Like for replacing a China or something, and trying to get it to mix with the rest of the cymbals. There is just far too much attack on sampled cymbals, so I need to blend/smear it together with the original OH track. Any suggestions?

 

[darthjujuu]

thanks ermz, to clarify what i meant ... i have my main drum group, or drum "bus", and i'll route a send from that bus and send it to a separate FX track (or aux, as i put it), and will then put one stereo compressor on that aux track and crush it... thus achieving parallel compression of the whole drum bus (or shells-only bus in most cases, actually) with one instance of a stereo compressor. the point i was making was i like to blend this separate bus in with the main drum bus which i prefer to leave for the most part untouched.

 

[arv_foh]

Thanks Ermz. So basically, a group or bus is like internal routing inside the DAW, and an aux is more like external routing through the outboard gear? Sorry for the newbish question. Just want to get my head around this because I'm starting to try to group drums and I'm not sure if I'm doing it "right".

I think you're getting confused now that he mentioned outboard.

Groups - Channels/faders that are "grouped" together so when you make an adjustment it is made to all the faders in the group.

Bus - You use sends get the signals you want to a bus, which is a single fader that you can send multiple signals to. You can send the output of a bus to your master bus (keeping it ITB), or you could also choose a separate output (on your interface) to send it to outboard gear. Busses can be stereo or mono.

Aux Send - What you use to send signal to a bus.

Basically it's all signal flow and routing, and a lot of it has to do with how you would mix if you were using an actual console.

 

[timislegend]

2track ADC clipping and mild parallel compression for drums... as well as full stereo compression "tickling" the entire drum layback.

i think all the terminology depends on what you are doing. sometimes i will refer to auxes as vca faders because that is what i am using them for... other times i will say sends/fx/aux etc.

"bus" is just a routing term... (i thought) as in "everybody on the bus". i don't think i have ever called a "track" a bus. but i do believe i have referred to several tracks being routed as "bus'd" tracks. i have referred to a master as a bus because there is no output routing. a "master bus" is a final destination per se.

some engineers i have worked with just say "group" ...even though it's not really a group... (i guess). =\

 

[Jarkko Mattheiszen]

My personal workflow goes as follows:

- All drum tracks are sent to Drums bus and Drums Paracomp bus.
- Drums Paracomp is mutilated with a compressor and sent to Drums bus.
- Room tracks (and OH's if needed) are also sent to Room Paracomp bus and smashed to hell and back, preferably with a 1176 variant, and then sent to Drums bus.
- Snare and toms (and kick if needed) are also sent to Drums Reverb bus, processed with a nice plate or room verb and sent to Drums bus.
- Apply some mild compression on the Drums buss, slow attack, fast release, just 1 or 2 dB GR.
- Mix and match. Leave the smashed buses on minimum (or out) if you want a clean sound, bring up the Room Paracomp and Drums Paracomp to give things some dirty mojo.

Hope I got it right, I never wrote it down before

EDIT: Oh, and you most likely want to cut out some highs from the Drums Paracomp bus or things will get messy and the attack of the drumkit gets fucked up.

 

[acappa]

Oh, and you most likely want to cut out some highs from the Drums Paracomp bus or things will get messy and the attack of the drumkit gets fucked up

Hey Jarkko, around which fr you use to cut??? some hi hights 8-10k??

You send you drum reverb bus to the main drum bus???

 

[Jarkko Mattheiszen]

Hey Jarkko, around which fr you use to cut??? some hi hights 8-10k??

You send you drum reverb bus to the main drum bus???

Depends completely on the sound, but usually I end up with a shelf starting from the high mids. Experiment, the difference is easy to notice

If I want to glue the kit together, I often send the drum verb to the main drum bus. It works just great the other way around, too, so it's just a matter of trying which suits the song the best. If you want to get that really pumping, compressed kit sound, sending the reverb to the main drum bus and hitting the bus compressor a bit harder can produce a cool effect.

It's easy to go way overboard with this, so be careful. It's better to do it in a really subtle way than ruin the whole kit

 

[AudioGeekZine]

I compress the drum bus a few db and sometimes boost the highs a bit. I mix into this in addition to my mix bus comp. I often use Smack for the comp but I've used a dozen others.
I also compress the shells and room mics in parallel.

 

[punkorama]

SSL Stereo Comp on the drum bus...you'll never look back

 

[acappa]

SSL Stereo Comp on the drum bus...you'll never look back

+1