Practicing Consistency Behind the Drum Kit [Part 24 of 31]

About the author: When Kevin Ward is not mixing and producing in his Murfreesboro, TN studio, you can usually find him teaching guys to be better engineers at MixCoach.com

Try this test: Take an mp3 or wav file and put it in to your DAW. Put them side by side and make sure that one of them is about 2db louder than the other. Then call someone who has an average set of ears and ask them to decide which of those mixes sounds the best.

Nine times out of ten, your friend’s reliable ears are going to pick the loudest one. That’s the thing. Humans perceive louder as different… most of the time better.

When you are learning to mix, you can use this tidbit to your advantage. I will show you how to apply this “loudness rule” to improving your drum sound.

Drums vs. Orchestra – How being consistent gets you heard

I was mixing an orchestral piece a while back with a very experienced orchestrator. It was a huge ballad with strings, horns, woodwinds, brass, harp, piano, bass and drums. To that he added full choir and soloist. Every piece of space between the speakers is absolutely slammed with audible information.

I noticed that every time the 2nd chorus came around, one particular snare hit was louder than the rest. Now, to this arranger, the strings and other instruments “trumped” the drums. He kept saying, “let’s turn the snare down. It’s still too loud.”

We were about to sacrifice having all of the other snare hits being heard because ONE snare hit was too loud.

I was able to save the snare track by simply copying and pasting an adjacent snare over the loud one and the problem was solved.

My point is this. If you want your drums to sound great whether you are gigging live or you spend your days and nights in the studio, playing the drums consistently helps the engineer to dial in your sound. when you play one hit that is louder, he will adjust your sound to the loudest hits.

Notice how consistent Travis is on this song. If he were playing really light and then all of a sudden LOUDER when he gets to a fun part, it just wouldn’t sound as good as it does. Go Travis!

My favorite drummers are not just the ones with the best sounding kit and the best feel, but also have the most consistent strikes.

Tagged as: 31 Days to Better Sounding Drums