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YOUR ULTIMATE GUIDE FOR MIXING DRUMS!

GET A GREAT SOUND FROM YOUR ACOUSTIC DRUMS.

Your drum sound is one of the most important

aspects of your mix. Mixing drums is therefore

a number one priority for laying that solid

foundation to your tracks, guaranteeing you a

solid rhythm section.

Drums can be one of the most problematic

instruments to get right in a mix. The

complexity of recording drums  is equally

complex when it comes time to mix them.

If you find it easier to learn about recording

and mixing drums via video, check out the

ReThink Drums series here. 

If you did a great job recording the drum kit, then mixing your drums can only be a

pleasurable experience.

BUT WHERE TO START?

KICK DRUM SOUND

Mixing drums starts with the foundation of the kick drum. The sound of the kick drum,

along with the snare will be the defining factors of your drum sound. If you leave the

kick drum sounding bad, the whole foundation of the song will lose its footing. The kick

drum needs to be tight and punchy, with enough low end to fill up the bass range and

enough mids to cut through the mix.

EQ 

It's important to emphasize the low end of 

the kick with EQ.  If you feel there isn't

enough bass to your kick drum, a low

shelving boost around 80 – 100 Hz

normally does the trick.

A boomy kick drum can also cloud up the

clarity of your kick drum sound, so it's

normally a good idea to cut around 200 –

250 Hz if you feel there is too much

muddiness in your kick drum sound. A boxy

 

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around 1 Khz. Enhance the attack of the snare with a broad boost around 2 – 4 Khz and

search for the sizzle of the snares in the higher frequencies.

COMPRESSION

Like I do with the bass drum, I try to make the snare compress in time with the song. By

timing the attack and release I can get a nice steady snare sound that breathes with

each hit. I normally leave the attack at a medium to slow setting so that the snap of the

snare is unaffected, and time the release so that it stops compressing just in time for

the next hit.

I start with a ratio of 3:1, often going way higher as it depends on the genre how hard I

want the compressor to be pumping. You can adjust the threshold so that it is only

lightly compressing the peaks for a subtle sound, or you can push the threshold down

harder for a heavily compressed sound.

Snare compression is perhaps one of the most argued about subjects in audio

production. Every engineer has a certain method to mixing drums, and I think it's up to

you to experiment and get acquainted with the knobs and sliders on your audio

compressor so that you can create the sound that you want.

The World's Most Alternative Snare Drum Sounds!

REVERB

You can create a completely different snare sound by just applying an interesting reverb

to it. Whether that's a rock arena reverb, subdued room or even a spring reverb,

different reverbs can transform the sound of your snare drum.

Go through your reverbs and see what type of reverb sounds best with the song you're

mixing. Are you going to add a bright plate reverb to make it stand out, or will you be

mixing it into a specific room with a small room sound? If you are in a particularly

adventurous mood, you can try adding some gated reverb to your snare.

MIXING THE TOMS

EQING

If the toms are playing a big part in your drum

sound, mixing them so that they sound

punchy and powerful is crucial to a great drum

sound.

Get them punchy with EQ. The best way to EQ 

toms is to find the unflattering frequencies

with your equalizer. Normally, these are the

middle frequencies, from 300 – 800 Khz or

so.

Find the boxy and unwanted frequencies, cut

them out and then add low end power and

high end punch as needed.

When mixing drums like toms, sometimes you

need to finely cut a few adjacent frequencies

instead of scooping out a big portion of the

frequency spectrum.

COMPRESSING

By adding a generous amount of compression to your toms you can get a larger than

life sound out of them. You can fatten them up considerably with some tight

compression, and with the addition of a little reverb you can make them sound huge

and powerful. If that's what you want to go for. The same rule of subtle compression

applies as well to toms if you only want to control the peaks and lightly color their

signal.

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How To Get a Powerful Tom Sound in 3 Easy Steps

OVERHEADS

The overheads might be the most important microphones on the kit. The overheads are

the microphones that are supposed to pick up every drum and give a complete sound to

your drum kit. There are two ways of mixing drums with the overheads; you can either

use them as the primary sound, sculpting every drum around the overhead sound or

you can use them to primarily accent the cymbals and air around the kit.

By adding the overheads to the mix early on, you can get a better sense of the full

sound of the kit, making your drum mixing easier. Just notice how different a snare

drum microphone sounds compared to a snare that's coming from the overhead mics.

By adjusting the overheads with the rest of the close miked drums you can get a

different sound. By focusing on the overheads you can get a roomier sound, but if you

want a close in-your-face drum sound you would rather use the overheads as

complimentary to the rest of the drums, mainly using them to accent the cymbal

sounds.

THE HI-HAT

Mixing drums is a selective process, meaning that certain elements of the drum-kit only

need specific frequency ranges. You only need a specific frequency range from the hi-

hat. Considering that the hi-hat microphone is probably picking up a lot of bleed from

other drums, some heavy high-pass filtering is in order. Filter up to 250 Hz at least,

even higher if you feel that you aren't losing anything from the hi-hat sound with higher

filtering.

Now if you feel that there is something lacking from the hi-hat, or that you want to

bring out the gong sound, you can find it in the 200 Hz area. So if your hi-hat needs a

little more gong to it, you will have to sacrifice that aggressive filtering. Like everything

else, just filter until you start hearing the sound becoming compromised and then back

off a little bit.

Cutting at 1Khz can reduce the cheap jangly sound from the hi-hat, but you can

enhance and give it some sparkle with a boost from 7 Khz or so. Use a high shelving EQ 

if you want to enhance the high end with some air, but a parametric bell EQ if you just

want to accent a specific frequency area.

ROOM MICS

Room microphones give a different sound to the drum kit than the regular overhead

mics. Due to the distant miking technique most room mics are recorded with, we get a

full sound of the drum-kit as well as a great amount of the reverb of the room it was

recorded in. Which, depending on the sound of the room, can either sound amazing or

horrible.

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