Basic Approaches to Mixing Drums [Part 25 of 31]

Welcome to Day 25 of 31 Days to Better Sounding Drums. There are a pile of recording tips out there on the web these days. Whether it’s an e-book, blog or magazine – most of these resources dedicate the majority of the tips on mixing. While this is a wonderful thing, sometimes we can get overwhelmed and easily distracted. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Get it right at the source. Before jumping too far into mixing a drum kit, make sure they sound great in the room. Once you’ve placed mics around the kit and they’re sounding good to your ears, mixing will be become a million times easier.

As a drummer, I love mixing drums. When it’s your instrument, mixing what you know the best is simply more fun. When I first starting mixing drums, however, I remember staring into the computer screen like a deer in a headlight. Again, there is no right or wrong here. However, after some trial and (a lot of error), here are a few basic ways that I like to approach mixing the drum kit:

Snare and Overheads on Solo

When you are sound checking and getting those levels dialed in before recording, make sure you’re not recording too hot. Nothing will frustrate you more than trying to mix really hot tracks. Once all of my drum tracks ARE recorded, I always start with the snare drum (top) and overheads on solo. There are two primary reasons for this:

• First, the snare drum and overheads are the most important aspect of a great sounding drum mix. When I listen to the two blended together before anything else, this gives me an accurate picture of what the entire kit should sound like. Soloing the two will also help you determine whether or not the phase of the mics are ok. This is where I’ll flip the polarity or phase to make sure things aren’t sounding too weak and thin because of phase. (This is a really good practice will all of the mics)

• Second, when these two tracks are playing back, it allows me to set my monitor levels correctly. If your monitor levels are too low, a common mistake is to start throwing gain, compression, etc on the tracks. When in reality, you just needed to turn your speakers or headphones up!

Treat all Drums Tracks as One

Once the monitor levels are up and you have a nice sounding drum kit with just the overheads and snare mic – un-solo these two and listen to the entire drum kit as one instrument. A lot of times it’s very tempting to hit the solo button for the kick, then the toms and so on and mix the crap out of these things until they sound awesome. Trust me, this type of mixing practice is a waste of time. Instead of soloing each instrument, I like to just sit back and listen. As I’m listening (with all levels at a zero starting position), I’m simply adjusting the remaining track levels to blend nicely with each other.

No Plug-ins… YET!

The first mistake I made early on when mixing drums was to throw EQ, Compression and Reverb on the tracks right away. Without even listening back yet, I just thought you had to do these things. Remember the saying “Less is More?” That is exactly how you should approach mixing the drums. When drum tracks are manipulated in such a way that takes away the natural, acoustic elements of great sounding drums, it defeats the purpose. All of that tuning, head choice and careful mic placement was a complete waste of time if you start throwing plug-ins on the tracks without listening first.

When in Doubt, Listen

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not opposed to using these tools. Mixing and editing drums is an art form that can absolutely help improve the sound. What I’m saying is take more time listening to the drums first. Listen to what kind of nuances and musicality the drummer was shooting for during the performance. Think about how the drum tracks are supposed to fit in with the rest of the instruments. If you’re ever in doubt on the next step to take, just listen. In my opinion, the RAW drum tracks straight from your microphones to your workstation should already sound awesome! If they DO, then why mess with it? Adding some EQ and other plug-ins and techniques is great. Just make sure the point is to improve the sounds of the entire kit and not make things worse.

What about you? Do you have a tried and true approach?

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