Just that adding them all to a bus group with a just a little compression can help keep the entire drum mix under control and glued together. There’s the option of using a limiter on the sub mix buss as well, with a threshold setting around 6 or so dB could help to add punch. Threshold setting is adjusted by using your ears and discretion to see what sound good, and how much your compressor should be working. Here’s an interesting fact…. The drums is one of the most complicated instruments to work with for a sound engineer, and as a home studio owner, you’ll probably quickly find out why…. This means that some the links on our site are affiliate links. The kick is what drives the music. For rack toms, you can use a similar setting. Toms can add variety to a drum groove, and mixing them can be a challenge at times. And there is all the EQ you need also. But you can’t ignore the flip of that click or crunch from the sound of the hammer smashing your drum–it’s part of what actually gives character to your kick sound. There are your variables to think about when improving hi.hat sound. What you want to do is get rid of that muddy sound that you can get from kick drums sometimes, especially if you’re not using dedicated kick mics. For instance, a closed hi-hat, tambourine or shaker will work well with a … Between 2 to 3:1 should be good to keep things under control. Read: Best Mics for Drums After the overheads, then comes miking the kick drum. To add more presence or brightness where needed, give a slight boost to the 3 to 5 Hz frequencies as needed. But since we’re talking about recording an actual drum set with a live player, then you’d need to be able get a good sound first by using good quality drum mics, before doing any sort of EQ or anything else. Required fields are marked *. Something like 4 to 5:1 should do the trick on floor toms, while rack toms can get a ratio of 6:1. Your email address will not be published. This may seem like a fairly easy instrument to EQ. – Features and Specs. MusicProductionNerds.com is a participant in a variety of affiliate programs, such as Amazon Associates and Loopmasters Affiliate Program. Just add 2 or 3 dB to 80 Hz. With two overhead microphones, you get a sense of the sound of your drums before you start mixing each drum individually. Use a low setting like 2:1 or 4:1 ratio and fast attack and automatic (or moderately fast) release. But with a little bit of know-how, you’ve equipped yourself with the basic fundamentals of sort of setting you should be using on each drum. Try these two transient shaping tricks for added flair or clarity. They come in high toms (we’ll refer to them as “rack toms”) and low toms (“floor toms.”) These will add some nice character to your mix, so you want to make sure that the “melodic” component of your drummer’s playing is represented well in your mix. But if you’ve miked your snare correctly, you’re able to add lots of “meat” to the beat. With this method you can EQ them better in the mix. Then we come to the part of the drum set that really turns the drum into a musical instrument capable of a rather melodic performance… the toms. Below are some of the suggestions on how to make them sound better in the mix. To prevent that muddy build-up in the low-mid frequency range, between 100 Hz to 200 Hz, attenuate about 3 to 5 dB to keep everything sounding nice and flat. Not too much compression, but just enough to keep things under control. I’ve picked out a few gems here that I’m going to apply to my mixes, particularly about where to make frequency cuts and boosts with each sound. Audio Mixing Suggestions for … A properly EQ’d hi-hat can bring sparkle & energy to any mix. Your overhead microphones are perhaps the most important in your recording setup. Then comes the snare, which are quite probably the most audible instrument in the drum set. Hi-hats are actually very simply to deal with in a mix. Since the main purpose of the overheads is to capture the sounds of the cymbals as well as the overall drum set in the room, you want to get rid of some frequencies that aren’t going to play nice. In this case, you’re better off with getting the right samples so you don’t have to be be doing anything else. Honest Gear Suggestions for Home Studio Owners and Music Producers. There are no rules for envelope shaping but you need to create settings that work well with the other sounds in the mix. The drum set consists of, fundamentally, five principal audio sources that you have to work with. You can set the release to about 11 ms. And for threshold, use your ears to see how it sounds in your overall drum mix. Especially if you’re working with a particularly heavy handed drummer…, Then we have the hi-hats. Try aiming for about 8 to 10 ms as general guideline. Now that we’ve gotten our overheads sounding nice and clean, we need to bring the dynamics within nice controllable range. In recording production of drums, you need to know that there are actually 4 parts of cymbals and hi hats used. They also provide for picking up your cymbals as well since they are sometimes left out of individual miking. Hi, Geno thanks for stopping by. Start by adding a modest ratio. Lots of valuable information there. Adjust your threshold to see how it sits with the mix once you have everything together. Let’s start by setting our ratio to 3:1. Getting the right sound for the overheads is crucial. Copyright © 2020 MusicProductionNerds.com, What’s New in Ableton Live 10? You want to be able to get the overall roundness of the kick boom that’s not lost in the initial attack, but you also don’t want to crunch out the kick’s attack either, because that’s what’s going to give your music its punch. The snare is arguably the most audible thing in the drum set, besides maybe the cymbals. Make a drastic cut at 600 Hz, while boosting the 2 kHz range by 6 or so dB. This gives you some control over the toms so that they don’t overwhelm your mix, particularly with a heavy-handed drummer during a solo. They need to stand out on their own, when used, as well as preserve the sound so that your drums sound musical when the toms are being used. You can buss everything together into one buss group, but be careful when compressing that buss track. In this post we’ll take a look at some of the best EQ and compression techniques for drums when mixing your music. Set a slow attack of about 100 ms, so that the transient slaps will be able to come right through, and a slightly faster release of around 70 ms. Overall, you are even able to get a louder mix since every instrument is playing in their correct frequency ranges (remember this principle when EQing any instrument or vocalist as well). Getting a good kick sound that doesn’t overwhelm but can still drive through in your mix, cutting through the other frequencies and dynamics, can really bring life to your sounds. After the overheads, then comes miking the kick drum. To add some bite, add about 4 to 7 dB to the 3 kHz range. It can make things sound a little harsh if you overdo it. Go with the energy of the music and see what works best. The drummer would do this by tapping his left foot. Depending on what type of music you and mixing for, if it is aggressive or soft, you can use the threshold to determine the overall compression that will be required for your snare drum. The 80 Hz section of your EQ adds some depth to year snare, give it a little more power and preventing it from being too thin. Match the hi-hat levels appropriately. You want just a little of the transient, enough to sit well in your mix, without overwhelming the instruments on your mix. They also provide for picking up your cymbals as well since they are sometimes left out of individual miking. Depending on the quality of microphones, and how much brightness you may need, compare boosting the 5 kHz range by 1 to 3 dB. The 10 Best FREE VST Synths to Use – Forgive Me Lord, For I Have Synth! The best way to do this is to set a fairly quick attack time, fast enough to compress the transient, but not so fast that you lose the initial punch. Set your compressor’s ratio to attenuate the audio signal modestly. After the overheads, the next essential instrument in the drum set that you need to mix is the kick. That’s because toms can be tuned differently, and depending on the drummer, will be used differently as well. Not to worry though, we’ll break down the essential EQing and compression techniques you can use in your DAW. Forgot to mention that if you’re bussing everything together, that’s not a replacement for individually compressing each drum, when needed. Overwall, the overheads will act as the “glue” making all your drums gel together right. EQ is so, so important. After that, you want to make sure your snares don’t sound too “boxy,” so cut about 2 dB from the 350 – 450 Hz range. A setting of about 10 to 12 ms for release should be good (just a hair slower than the attack). The hi-hat is a very important component that adds to the groove of most music. If your style of music is, say, country, rock, roots reggae, or anything like that, you know you first need to get some good sounds first before you decide to EQ or compress anything. Too fast (or rather instantaneous attack) would get rid of the initial slap and cause the snare to lose its bite. Even though you’ll see it done, generally you’re not going to be need any compression in your hi-hats. Kicks are supposed to have a nice round boomy sound. So let’s talk about at the five major parts of the drums you need to mix record and then mix. And as the drum set is such an extreme dynamic multi-instrument, you need to get your miking done right before you even decide to start thinking about mixing techniques. A thin and uninspiring snare sound can totally redefine the feel of an entire track. These transients are one of the reasons why you want to make sure you are able to get good quality hi-hat sounds in your DAW for mixing. The Hi-hat sound is a sum of how hard the drummer hits it, the make of the hi.hat, your overhead, hi.hat and snare miking, and your room mics. No more that 3 dB should be sufficient. Then set the release to fast so that you get the roundness of the kick after the initial transient, as well as make the compressor ready for any rapid style kicks. Do you advise grouping and sending all percussive and drums sounds to one bus and then doing compression and eq on that channel as a way to glue everything together or is there another technique you’d recommend to make all the sounds groove together? In terms of release time, on floor toms, use a medium release time of about 90 ms, while using a fast release time of 25 ms on rack toms. Adjust the threshold as you like once you’ve started adding other individual drums to the mix. If you want to learn more about our affiliate partners, click here. It’s responsible for blending all of your drum sounds together, as well as capturing the sound of your drum in the room. Take in mind that the set needs to be recorded properly. Learn how your comment data is processed. How to EQ Hi-Hats. It’s very noticeable, maybe even more than the kick. Your email address will not be published. There is no such thing as “fix it in the mix,” if your audio source is bad, there is nothing that you can do in the mix to fix with EQ or compression. Start by dropping out the sub-bass kicks in your EQ by using a low-cut filter, cutting or rolling off anything below the 40 kHz range. Any sort of “fixing” may result in a damaged and processed sound. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Let’s look at how to get a good snare sound. By follow the guidelines, using your ears, and making sure you have the right tools for the job, you will be mixing perfect drums in no time. If you want a little more air on the hi-hats, try giving them a couple dB boost around 6K to 8 kHz. In EQing the hi-hats, you want to cut out anything from about 200 Hz and under. 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