Panning the Drum Kit for Maximum Impact [Part 29 of 31]

As I teach classes about mixing, I’m continually surprised with the relatively small amount of knowledge people have about the pan potentiometers and how effective they can be at creating an exciting mix.  Drums are as exciting an instrument to mix as any, and something as simple as panning them appropriately can go a long way to helping you get big, clear, well-defined drum sounds.  So without further ado, here are 5 tips to help you get there with your drum kit mix.

You can pan your kit so that the listener perceives themselves as an audience member or the drummer.  In other words, if you’re listening to the kit from the audience, your high-hat and first tom are, likely, more to the right and your ride cymbal and floor tom are most likely to the left.  If you’re the drummer, it’s the other way around.  Decide this before moving any of your pan pots.

The overheads and the room mics contain the whole of the kit’s sound (as may a ‘trash’ mic, or some other mics, depending on how your mic’d your kit).  Begin by labeling them appropriately in your DAW.  Some people like to use ‘OH Left’ or ‘Room R,’ but I much prefer to label them as ‘OH hat,’ ‘OH ride,’ ‘room hat,’ & ‘room ride,’ as the hat and ride are on opposite sides of the kit.  Once this is done, pan those hard left and right, depending on the perspective you’ve chosen.  This isn’t the place to get pretty.  If you want a big sound, you have to go wide or go home.  If you have a mono trash mic, I would just keep that panned up the middle.

As a side note, you may find it helpful to highlight and grab both mono overhead regions and drag them to one stereo audio track, as now one fader controls both.  You can also do the same for the rooms.  I would only do this if you used matching mics to record with.  If they need to be treated differently, than don’t go there.

Once you’ve got your rooms and overheads panned wide, move on to your close mics.  It is extremely common (and wise) to pan the kick directly up the center.  It’s also quite common to pan the snare up the center, as well, no matter the genre.  However, I tend to differ there.  I find that I can get a punchier, more well-defined snare sound if I pan the snare to match the overheads.  This also helps make the kit sound like one instrument, rather than a bunch of individual parts.The snare isn’t found in the center of the kit when it’s physically set up.  It’s typically off-center to the drummer’s left as he’s playing (right-side from the audience’s perspective).  If you solo your overheads (already panned hard left and right) and your snare, begin slowly moving your snare’s pan pot the appropriate direction (depending on the perspective you chose) until you hear the snare gain clarity, going from a more blurred sound to a more focused sound.  If you go too far, it will begin to blur again.  This actually works well in mono (panning in mono…I know!  Go figure!), as you can readily hear when the snare begins to pop.  I would use this most often in jazzy or more folk-sy type kits, but I’ve used this technique in rock, as well, with great results.This only works if you’re using your overheads for more than just the cymbal information.  If that’s all you’re doing, leaving the snare up the center may very well be best. When I choose to use that technique with the snare, many times I’ll do the same with the toms, panning them to where they’re found in the overheads.  Doing this can help clarify phase issues between the overheads and close mics, so many times I’ll pan them this way before I check phase.Once that’s done, especially when mixing rock drums, I’ll usually pan the toms relatively wide, with the highest tom to one side and the lowest to the other.  However, there’s plenty of room for experimentation here as you don’t always need to pan them hard left and right to get the most out of them.  Sometimes having your highest and lowest toms at 3- or 4- o’clock, is all you’ll need to get a nice wide set of toms without them sounding too unnatural.

You don’t always have to do things the same way.  Mix things up.  If you panned to the audience’s perspective on the last album, try the drummer’s perspective on this one.  For a great example of some crazy drum panning, listen to what mix engineer David Bendeth did with Aaron Gillespie’s drums on Underoath’s song “Emergency Broadcast :: The End Is Near” off of their album, Lost In the Sound Of Separation.  (The crazy panning starts at about 1:52 for those not patient enough to listen to the whole song!)  The point is, there’s no right or wrong when mixing, so go out on a limb sometimes!

Hopefully these tips will provide you with a basis for getting great drum sounds in your mixes.  If you have other tips or ideas, let us know!  And if these tips were helpful, please contact me and let me know about it…I’d love to listen to what you came up with!

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