Ideas For The Mix: Let There Be DRUMS - Pt 3

Thump, Snap, Attack, Sustain

When it comes to mixing drums, specifically multi-mic'd acoustic live drums, you can suddenly feel overwhelmed rather quickly. Presented with three Kick's, Two Snares, Hihat, Toms, Overhead and mono-stereo Room mic's, how on earth do you know where to even start. Well fear not whilst there are no rules to mixing, it's whatever fits the song material,  there are some definitive tried and tested methods to adhere to. To sum up drum mixing in four words, thump, snap, attack, sustain.

To sum up drum mixing in four words, thump, snap, attack, sustain.

Decisions, decisions, decisions

 First thing to lock down in any mix is to decide who is going to rule the low end, the kick drum or the bass guitar. There's so much low end information from both instruments somethings got to give.  Sometimes you can tell just by listening to the track. If the Bass guitarist is playing mostly high up the neck then that decision has been made for you, the kick can provide the low end energy for example. In certain genre's there are specific ideas applied. In EDM it's generally the Kick drum that rules the roost as that's what provides the beat and drives the song along getting people up to dance. In thrash metal there's a different approach as the Kick and Bass guitar have to be locked in sync to provide a tight rhythm section for the heavy guitars. In reggae you'll mostly want bass to take the low end.
 Everything from setting up a trigger on a gate to duck the bass guitar down when a kick drum hits to what you boost on your kick you duck down on your bass and vice versa with an EQ, can be methods adopted to get the two instruments to stay out of each others way in the mix.

decide who is going to rule the low end

Getting Technical

Your next job, albeit an unexciting one, is to check for phase and latency. Put more than one mic on any sound source and relative to distance between mic and source you can now have phase and time delay issues.

 Phase and latency come about from mic's not being equidistant from the centre of the sound source and room reflections. So for example it's common when setting your over head mic's, left & right, to measure from the centre of the Snare drum to each mic and have them the exact same distance away to minimise these problems. It can get quite complex when dealing with phase and latency but fortunately there are simple methods to help correct it. 

 In Studio One we have the 'Mix Tool' a simple trim fader with a polarity change button. Place that as an insert on a track and check if the sound lost it's bass and body by turning the polarity on/off. For latency, time delay, you can check my previous topic on it here; Dealing with Phase and Latency

Dealing With 'Bleed'

Of course as with all drum parts a gate can be used to cut out bleed but it doesn't necessarily give a natural sound and setting up a gate can be quite tricky and intensive requiring some skill to get it just right. Fortunately there are some very interesting plugins that take all the hard work out this task, most notably Drumleveller and Drumatom.

 The decision to cut out the bleed from other parts of the kit will depend on whether your going to compress that kit part (kick, snare, toms all close mic'd) as that will not only raise the level of the kick/snare/toms but all of the bleed from hihat, cymbals and room (distant mic's) as well. 

 On the other hand the overhead and room mic's is where you do want all of the bleed of the full kit coming through.

Bonzo's late Ludwig 26x14inch Bass Drum

Thump

When you think of thump it conjures up an image of very large speaker cones visibly pushing in and out as the kick drum hit's you in the chest knocking you off your feet, we'll especially if the neighbours are away on holiday. There is nothing like it. But before you reach for one of the many low end frequency booster plugins, Rbass, Lowender etc, don't forget about basic tools of the trade that have just as much power, in this case Eq.
 Boosting frequencies, especially adding a nice resonant musical bump around the 35-80hz region with a low shelf using an Eq can instantly add more thump, the secret is to keep a natural sound. You most certainly don't want to introduce sounds that aren't there, that aren't part of the original Kick. But if things still need more help down there then you could add some low end harmonics, that will have more of a natural tone than excessive Eq boosts with things like Waves Rbass, or reFuse Lowender plugins and many others to choose from. Solid and natural is the key.

 Next for an Eq move is to bring out the point of the Kick drum or the beater. That's the sound that can push it through the mix usually found between 2-4Khz but can depend on the Eq used. How to define that sound? It's the sound of the beater hitting of the drum head, almost a click, that adds the instant attack of the Kick.

 Now generally you can get the sound you want from just using the Kick 'In' mic using the methods mentioned above. Adding in a Kick 'Out' (mic placed further back from the kit) or a resonator (designed for sub bass information)  has the unwanted effect of adding more bleed (picking up the sound of the rest of the kit) that using these can be more problematic than being beneficial. So don't be afraid to mute those tracks if you find there just adding stuff that doesn't sound good or adding phase issues (mic's placed various differences from the sound and the time it takes that sound to reach that mic presenting delay and latency). A good way to decide is if the presence of the Kick is very much to the forefront and bleed is more controlled (As in a Drum resonator mic where sometimes a blanket can be placed over it to cut down the bleed from the rest of the drum kit). 

Ludwig Supralite Snare Drum  14 x 6.5 in.

Snap

Yes we are talking about the all important Snare. It's possibly the most important part of the kit and matching the sound and tone and blending in just the right amount of reverb can have the most profound effect. But listing settings when there are so many variables is pretty much pointless but in saying that on a Neve 1073 Eq adding a nice smiley face Eq curve by high passing 50hz, adding some 220hz and boosting some 7.2khz and 12k shelf can give you a snappy snare but with a nice round bottom end, a favourite of Mr Andrew Scheps, can't but help. But what might work for his mix may be the total opposite to yours. For instance his drums, you can guarantee, where not recorded in a bedroom or basement but more like a special acoustically treated room with thousands of dollars of outboard gear and mic's. The point being you need to get the best sound out of what you've been presented with and that might be the most ridiculous Eq and Compression settings you ever had to use.
 Adding just a pinch 0.5dB of distortion to a snare can make it sound like the drummer is hitting the snare harder and help it cut through more if you find it's still note quite there in the mix.

Classic UAD 1176 compressor

Attack

When it comes to defining attack on drums the first thing comes to mind for most is compression. But is that the best way to go?
 Setting the attack time on a compressor is how quickly the compressor kicks in on the initial hit of the drum. Setting a fast attack, the compressor kicks in immediately grabbing the volume level of that initial hit and bringing it down, if it's too loud in relation to where you set your threshold level (At what volume do you want the compressor to start working) or the opposite of bringing it up. Setting a slow attack allows the hit to go through before the compressor kicks in and if you spend enough time getting it just right you can enhance the hit rather than taking it away. After all a compressor is just an automatic volume control. You tell it where you want your volume to be (threshold) and it highers or lowers, in relation to your setting, the sound going through it.

 But wait! What about the natural sound of the drum hit? If we over use compression as a direct insert on a snare or kick we are in danger of killing the dynamics (changes in volume) altogether. The strike of the drummer hitting down on a snare can be levelled of and now the compression is more detrimental than beneficial. Sometimes it's better to accentuate that hit with a simple Eq boost that will not change the volume levels but make that instant drum strike more apparent if that's what's needed to cut through your mix. That is where the power of parallel compression comes in. You can leave the natural transients alone, be as aggressive as you want with your setting on the parallel track and subtly blend those in, the best of both world so to speak.

 So attack may seem about compression but it's about keeping those lively transients in, let the aggressive natural strike of the drummer breathe and chose to enhance them in non-detrimental ways (harmonics, distortion, saturation, parallel compression) that don't take away, but add to the overall sound.

Sustain

Sustain or maybe better described as decay (how long the sound lasts after the initial strike) can be controlled by a few things in the mix the most obvious is the release time on a compressor, although delay or reverb can be used subtly too. Setting the release time is all important for maximum sustain if that's what your after. Think of it this way when a drummer hits the snare you want the initial hit to have impact and be up front the as that sound dies away you want it to last just until the next drum strike. That's how you decide where to set your release time. The easiest way to do this is to your threshold set, close to final attack set and then set your release time by watching a level meter. Solo the snare track watch the level meter for the initial strike. Then as you set your release time the level meter should show the volume drop almost to zero before the next snare hit. That is a perfect release time. Of course you may want certain effects that your going for so things would differ but that is a great foundation and basis to work from.

 That's why for anyone, in the early stages of learning about compression, drums are the best place to start and understand exactly what effect they have on sound. 

 On a lesser note using delay or reverb can obviously make a sound sustain for longer and works well on both snare and toms. But sometimes just adding in the room mic's and overheads can give you all the sustain you want as they capture reflections of the room your kit is set up in.

Too Trigger Happy

 When it comes to drums not having the quality sound we're looking for drum replacement has found an ever popular niche. Now when a Kick, Snare or any other drum part isn't cutting it, it can simply be replaced or have a replacement blended in with the original. Whilst this has become more and more of the norm in music production nowadays it's still maintains a level of controversy for some. If we think back to those classic recordings and performances of our percussion heroes ask yourself how would they have reacted to their sound being replaced. What was it about Bonham, Moon, Paice, Rudd, Collins and so many others that made them so special. It was how they hit those pigskins and how they poured there own personality into the art of keeping the beat and providing the all important rhythm section that made it so special.

 On top of that you had the engineer with not only years of experience but ears of experience who had it down to a fine art selecting the right mic and placement for optimal sound quality. Maybe if we spent more time on gaining the skill that these Guy's had, replacement would be null and void.

Slate Trigger

 It would seem we've almost gone full circle after complaining that drum machines and drum programs had no life, no soul, dare I say they were to perfect and lacked the human touch? However I feel about drum replacement it's here and it's likely here to stay. The best of these programs are most notably Slate Trigger and XLN Addictive Trigger which make the whole process as simple or as complex as you want it to be.

Starting Level

Coming from the analogue world and now mixing in the box this presented somewhat problematic to me. I was so used to watching VU meters I had to find a way to replicate that in the digital realm. Thankfully a friend pointed me to Klanghelm VU meter It has seriously changed my ability to operate and brought back a familiarity that I love to mixing.

 Jacquire King has a method he uses of having the VU meter calibration set at -18dB (OdB on the VU meter). He then aims his solo'ed kick drum to be hitting -3dB  on the meter at it's loudest section in the song. Then when he adds in his Bass guitar it should average around 0dB and he build the track around that whilst maintaining these levels.
Benny Faccone likes to have his Kick at -5dB and then with the Bass guitar added in the VU level hit -3dB. Whatever you decide mixing in the box is a different animal than analogue you can't mix the same way, things including levels are completely different. But a simple rule of thumb is to be around the 0db level on the VU meter with Kick and Bass solo'ed and playing back together.

 In the analogue world you could have your VU meters slamming on the needle and that would not have proved detrimental to your mix, sometimes it was even preferential when hitting tape and wanting more effect and saturation. But in the digital world, level meters, which confusingly differ so much from Daw to Daw, if they were allowed to peak the same way would prove catastrophic to your mix. Anyone who has heard digital distortion can verify that.

Summary

 In conclusion it's plain to see that recording and mixing drums is one of the greatest challenges you'll encounter when you pull up the faders for the first time. But take a deep breath, remain calm, get your kick sounding how you want it, then the snare, toms, all your close mic'd pieces of the drumkit, blend in your Overhead and Room mic's and your done. Of course as you mix the rest of your song you may have to revisit some settings but they'll be minor tweaks just to make something sit a little better or duck down if it's sticking up to much. 

Watch the video as I go over some of the highlights of what's been talked about here.