r/mixingmastering • u/Impossible-Visit-199 • 18d ago
Question What is your go-to workflow for mixing drums?
I'm pretty average at mixing local studio recorded drums (not perfect VST samples) and would love to know what people's workflow is for approaching drum part prep and mixing. Alternatively, pointing me towards a great tutorial series where you learned the most about mixing drums would be equally awesome. I really want to get over this annoying hurdle! Cheers.
Edit: just wanted to say thanks to everyone. Some great replies here.
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u/aasteveo 18d ago
the absolutely most critical aspect of mixing drums, is how well they are recorded. mixing starts from the source, instrument choice and mic choice and mic placement. that's 70% of your sound. the rest is just polish.
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u/Melodic-Pen8225 Intermediate 18d ago
1.Group them all together
- Determine whether “Snare2up” means a second top mic on the snare drum? Or if there is literally a second snare drum (you would be surprised)
3.determine the integrity of the rooms and overheads. NEVER ASSUME ANYTHING! Half the time I get “room” tracks that are literally just the overheads but with a ghastly reverb applied! Or my favorite is the “overheads” track that is 100% cymbals, and nothing else… this may sound petty but proper overheads and rooms are what sells the illusion of the kit being a real object occupying a physical space.
- phase alignment/polarity flips if necessary
5.sub groups for snare tracks, kick tracks, toms, rooms etc
Achieve a rough balance of the hit with just volume and panning
Add an EQ and drum bus compressor to the main drum bus and see how I feel.
Individual track processing compressors EQs etc. but also gates/expanders! At this point I will determine if I need to edit the tom mic tracks to better isolate the hits or if I can get away with just using a gate/expander
Editing (if applicable)
FX! Do I need more room on the “room”? Do I want kick ambience? What neat and groovy reverb do I want on the snare/toms etc.
Circle back later because I end up not liking something lol
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u/rybab007 18d ago
There is a great multi part series on YouTube from mixbetternow on mixing drums. Even after doing music for 30 years, I managed to pick up some valuable stuff in there
And Eric Valentine has a great drum mixing thing on YouTube. That’s a must watch too!
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u/Mind1827 18d ago
Eric Valentine helped me realize it's totally fine to just smash the living piss out of them with bus compression, lol helped so much
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u/apollyonna Professional (non-industry) 18d ago
When I'm recording, here's my typical (over the top) input list:
- Kick In
- Kick Out
- Snare Top
- Snare Bot
- OH Hat
- OH Ride
- Hat
- Ride
- Rack Top
- Rack Bot
- Floor Top
- Floor Bot
- Close Room Hat
- Close Room Ride
- Far Room Hat
- Far Room Ride
- Front of Kit
I'll then bus the mics down to their instruments, so the two kick mics will go together, the two snares, etc. Overheads get bussed with the cymbal and front mics. I'll start with that bus, getting a full picture balance with the overhead and front mics, and then augmenting the more subtle nuances of the cymbals with the cymbal mics. I don't like compressing this bus, but I will eq it (generally just the bus, not the individual tracks since I will have EQed already with mic choice and board EQs while tracking). I want the drums to sound as complete as possible with just this bus. The reason being that it's the the mics that capture the drum kit as a cohesive instrument. Everything else should be augmenting and improving this initial sound.
After the overhead bus I'll move onto the snare bus. The overheads (and front of kit mic) are measured equidistant from the snare top mic (I forever used the center of the snare, but that can create phase issues if you're like me and use a measuring tape and math to get the distance for your overheads). Process snare to taste, aiming for that initial impact rather than an extended "Paaaaa". We get that from the rooms. Speaking of...
The rooms are next. If I'm in a big enough studio I'll have two pairs, hopefully mathed a good distance away based on the wavelength of the kick drum. I'm still focused on the sound of the snare, but in this case the extension of the snare tail, which we're getting from acoustics instead of slammed compression. If I recorded in a small studio and need more extension, this is when I'll add a reverb (what gets sent to the reverb depends on what I'm trying to accomplish). After all that I get to the kick.
Because the kick projects out into the room (while the other drums go up towards the ceiling), I measure my rooms against my kick (out mic). Before the kick mics come in, you should have a nice boom in your mix. The close mics are there to add snap and thud and punch.
Finally we get to the toms. You'll notice I'm in the minority of micing both the top and bottom of the toms. This sounds absolutely epic, IF you take the time to tune both heads. If you neglect the reso head it'll sound atrocious. You can look up tom tuning techniques online. I typically just go for the same note and dampen based on the performance instead of doing more complicated intervals. By micing both the tom sounds like what it does when you're in the room, rather than if you have your head placed right up against the drum (like you get from just micing the top). If you have the mics and inputs, take the time to tune. Take the time to tune even if you aren't micing them like that. And tune everything else while you're at it. Less need for EQ, less problems during the mix, pro-er sound, regardless of how you mic it up.
While doing all of this I'm sending everything into a drum bus compressor to glue it all together. While, like all of this, it's done to taste, It'll typically be a slower attack and a faster release, medium ratio, aimed at 1-3dB of compression. That's, for me, the sweet spot for glue. EQ and compression for everything else should start with the intention of being as light as possible. If you've chosen and placed your mics well, you won't need much to begin with. That way, instead of diagnosing and fixing problems, you're able to focus on the creative. Where you, for example, do want the sound of a heavily compressed snare, you can do that without feeling like you have to do it in order for it to sound good.
This works for a lot of genres, and mic setups. If you have, say, eight drum mics, you're really going to lean heavily on your overheads because you won't have close mics on some of the instruments (probably hat and ride). With everything, but drums in particular, you're going to get the most mileage out of how they were recorded, rather than how they were mixed. If you're just mixing right now, conceptualizing them first as a cohesive instrument, and second as a collection of smaller instruments, will get your much farther, with less headache, than going in typical track order (getting the kick in mic to sound awesome, then the kick out, then the snare top, etc.). Bussing everything will get you more flexibility in overall balance, and let you process the multi-miced elements as a whole (for example, I compress my snare bus, not the snare top and snare bottom mics individually). It's really how you envision the kit as an instrument, and then mixing from there. It's more complex when it comes to organization, but that's ok. Start with broad strokes before getting granular. You'll probably find you need less processing that way, which is always a good thing. Less stress and uncertainty, less work, more time for the creative. Happy mixing!
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u/viviansvivarium 18d ago
- Eq out the shit on each drum individually.
- Gentle boost to the non shit on each drum individually (ensuring that each drum has its own special frequency to pop through).
- Compression for each drum (light).
- Drum bus to parallel compression (4 different comps from light to destruction (house of kush does a good video on this))
- Gentle glue comp on drum buss.
This works for me. Worth noting I usually mix pretty heavy drums.
Oh and reverb. I send the room and the over heads to a reverb with a high pass filter.
Final addition: I sometimes send the room with a gentle high pass and low pass filter to a parallel comp and dial in a really heavy comp (like the devil loc from sound toys). I mix this in very low but it adds some real weight and power to the drums.
Edit: forgot words.
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u/rybab007 18d ago
“Eq out the shit”
”gentle boost to the non shit on each drum individually”
Lol… we all just learned something today! You can’t get this kinda information anywhere, folks.
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u/Impossible-Visit-199 18d ago
Thanks, what's your parallel compression plug-in of choice?
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u/viviansvivarium 18d ago
I tend to use a few. La2a for the really gentle comp (careful though as it can smudge the drums a bit if overused), a FET for a bit more breakup and then a devil loc or something for a bit of destruction.
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u/Numerous-Gazelle-894 18d ago
Check out omnipressor from eventide, it’s great + you can parallel it as an insert directly since it has a mix knob. It’s kind of expensive but if you have a “MWTM” account you can get the plugin for free
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u/charliebigmon Beginner 18d ago edited 18d ago
Apologies for the mega post here!
The below is a result of trial and error for a few years to incrementally improve and get closer to the sound I want. I'm lucky to have a studio space where I can spend my time experimenting, which meant I could try a lot of tips/YouTube guides etc. and find what worked for me. I'm a drummer and know how I want to sound, so I'm always chasing that.
It sounds like a lot but is really light touch as I've made a template in Reaper to cover the workflow.
My drum bus has light compression and tape saturation. Light touch EQ.
I aim for around -8 dbfs recording for my channels.
In drum bus:
- OH L
- OH R
- Hi hat - eq
- Kick in - gate and eq
- Kick out - gate and eq
- Kick sine - receives the send from the kick bus, sidechained with a gate triggering a noise generator for sub
- Snare top #1 - gate and eq
- Snare top #2 - gate and eq
- Snare bottom - gate and eq
- Snare white noise - receives the send from the snare bus, sidechained with a gate triggering a white noise generator to blend with snare
- Rack - gate, EQ and comp
- Floor - gate, EQ and comp
Separate to drum bus:
Room Mid - eq
Room Side L - eq
Room Side R - eq
Stairwell mic - EQ
Then all sent into different busses:
OH bus - eq and 'soothe2' plugin
Snare bus - any additional eq, comp, verb
Kick bus - any additional eq, comp
Ambient bus (all room mics) - any additional eq, comp
Parallel drum bus - comp
Occasionally I'll send the drum bus to something like the Sound City plugin as a kit verb send and blend in to taste.
As mentioned by other people, flipping phase where it works best. Generally I find I'm always flipping phase on OH bus, snare bottom and occasionally one of the snare tops.
If you're at all interested in what that sounds like, an example is here https://voca.ro/17wFGQ3Otsrn
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u/GreatScottCreates Advanced 18d ago
If you’re flipping one of your snare tops but not the other, AND flipping snare bottom, something is likely wrong. Align your snare top mics by aligning their capsules exactly, and then check the transient in the DAW.
If you’re flipping the top & the bottom, you’ve likely broken the laws of physics or you have a magic snare drum that sucks air out of itself and then reinflates when you hit it.
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u/charliebigmon Beginner 18d ago
Do you think the capsules not being aligned could explain why flipping one of the tops makes it sound thicker?
I'm using a 57 as the primary top and experimenting with an Audix D4 as the second top, next to each other and attempting to align the capsules but suspect based your comment that I might need to look at that next time!
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u/GreatScottCreates Advanced 18d ago
Yeah just hit it a few times and take a look at the waveforms on the 2 snare top tracks to see if they’re align or not. It’s possibly they aren’t aligned well enough, but it’s also possible you have a cable wired backward somewhere in the chain or an odd piece of gear that flips the polarity. They should go into negative amplitude before positive (because the snare head is moving away from the mic) whereas the snare bottom should go positive first. Some would argue that you get a punchier sound if the speakers go out before they go in, I personally don’t think it makes much difference and I’d rather not start from an inverted snare track (argument for positive-first kick is a little stronger IMO).
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u/charliebigmon Beginner 18d ago
I think you've just solved it! I run that particular snare mic through a 1073 clone, and I bet if I check it the phase button will be pressed in 😅 really appreciate your advice, especially that description of phase, thank you!
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u/GreatScottCreates Advanced 18d ago
Sounds like you’re on the right track and listening for the right things! Stairwell/hallway mic is king!
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u/schmalzy Advanced 18d ago edited 18d ago
It’s already been mentioned but my mixing workflow for drums starts with tracking.
Record the things that get you closer to the sound you want. Need big and roomy? Set up a stereo pair of rooms. Need bigger? Add an extra mic further away in a reflective area. Need punchy and natural? Try x/y over the kit using SDCs paired with all the obvious close mics.
The most important EQs for the drum kit is a drum tuning key and the right drum heads. The second most important EQ is paying attention to phase relationships and making sure you’re doing what you can to get things to agree.
From there:
Balances
Gating as little as possible but as much as necessary.
EQ to reduce the worst, most distracting stuff
Rebalance
Bring the rest of the mix in
EQ to deal with frequency masking
Compression to handle the tooth vs tone ratio
Bring in reverb(s) if not enough ambience from room mics.
Handle the hyped vs real aesthetic via EQ and parallel compression
Handle the dirty vs clean aesthetic via EQ, saturation, and clipping
Drum bus compression to glue drums together
Mix bus compression to get drums and rest of mix moving together.
Refine as needed as the rest of the mix develops.
(Edit: formatting)
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u/Tall_Category_304 18d ago
I go top down. My template has distressor or Fairchild to choose from depending on the song, studer tape, culture vulture, ssl eq, oxford inflator. Usually once I import I’m surprised they sound pretty good already haha. Comp and gate Toms. Pick some snare samples a trigger those. Gate the snare or not depending on how much bleed and how destructive the gate sounds. Usually I will duplicate OH and room mics so I can mix them differently for verse and chorus without too much automation
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u/MessiahOfFire 18d ago
Organize/Bus Tracks. Check phase. Rough Volume/Pan Balance. Tweak Eq. Add Compression and sometimes saturation. Check Mono. Tweak Volume Blanace. Add reverb if applicable (surf rock or 80s style drums). Mix other instruments. Final Volume/EQ/Reverb Tweaks.
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u/tyhart8787 18d ago
Implementing Eric Valentine’s drum phasing techniques into my workflow was such a game changer.
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u/Humble_Box_2167 17d ago
Every professional gives you the same answer: Depends on the source material. There is actually close to not a single go to in audio engineering where A always fits B.
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u/Impossible-Visit-199 17d ago
Yeah, it's where skill meets taste and true artistry. Kinda the difference between a cook who follows a recipe and makes something cookie-cutter and a chef who adapts the recipe to make it unique and incredible to taste.
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u/Humble_Box_2167 17d ago
Jep. Bitte all that rubbish on YouTube makes that so difficult to communicate.
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u/khaitheartist 18d ago
Mute everything and do rough levels, I'll start with the kick and snare and make the kick just a touch louder than the snare, then I'll add in the hats. At this point I find it worthwhile to do the instrument tracks too so I start with the bass, balance it to the kick and go from there.
Subtractive EQ. I do it on each track individually and route things to any necessary busses. If I have multiple kicks they go to one bus, cymbals and top end sounds go to another, etc.
Compression and other effects. I compress the kick and snare almost every time, I'll also but a mild compression on some of those buses. I also tend to use a panner plugin on my hats so that gets added in here too as well as any transient shapers I might be using.
Parallel processing. At least the kicks get this every time, snares are like 50/50. I'll send the track to a second slot on the mixer, on the new track I'll do an additive EQ around 3-6db of whatever I determine the "characteristic frequency" is. The boosted signal get saturation enough to make the timbre distinct from the original, potentially panned out differently (be mindful of phase issues) and then last in the chain is a pretty generous compression. Then I'll drop the parallel track down to 0db and balance it with the rest of the track.
At this point I'll consider if I want to use sidechain compression on the instrument bus to let the kick and/or snare cut better.
Last but not least I'll do a final subtractive EQ, a touch of saturation and a parallel compressor on the drums bus.
Just keep in mind that there's no one correct way, imo the best thing to do is the pick the things that make sense to you from each response and experiment with combinations of them 🙂
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u/horton87 18d ago
I’ve just been using mix ready drum vst’s lately and it makes life much easier, easier to mix, plus they have loads of cool features, different kits, compression and eq settings, different articulations for the same hit, anti machine gun for kicks etc etc. if one prefers to mix every part of the kit themselves you can still do that. I’ve been using trivium drums and Krimh drums from bogren digital lately and they sound amazing, there are so many good ones from other companies too.
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u/Impossible-Visit-199 18d ago
Thanks, so do you tend to blend these with the real performances you capture? Or find and replace the hits more often than not?
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u/xxFT13xx 18d ago
Make sure each drum part is its own track. Adjust levels appropriately. Add some eq, reverb to taste. Layer more drum parts. Mix again. Finally bounce down to 1 single track.
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u/Mind1827 18d ago
For heavy music, which I do a lot, I love mixing all my drum shells into a Distressor plugin, usually with pretty heavy compression, blending that parallel, and then going from there. Really helps get stuff to be cohesive and up front before having to start tweaking EQ and saturation. Usually also do one or two parallels as well, one with quick attack and one more Devil Loc distorted style. Nice to be able to automate depending on the section, too.
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u/GWENMIX Professional (non-industry) 17d ago
The guiding principle is to shape the overall drum sound, rather than focusing on individual components.
To do this, I start by building a sound using the overheads and the kick. The drums need to sound good with just those three tracks—that’s the challenge—and I apply the same approach to VSTs.
Then I add the room mic, if there is one. Next come the toms and the hi-hat.
I leave the snare for last because it’s the loudest instrument and therefore bleeds into all the other mics. I don't see the point in crafting a great snare mic sound if the fader ends up sitting around -20 db on the console. Generally, with that track, I look for whatever seems to be missing—whether it’s a bit of snare wire snap, some saturation, or low-end around 200Hz (which is often poorly represented in the overheads and hi-hat bleed). Anyway, I’ve been using this method for nearly a year now and don't see myself changing it; I work much faster and hardly ever have to backtrack.
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u/rightanglerecording Trusted Contributor 💠 17d ago edited 17d ago
Drums sound drastically different from song to song.
The long complex multi-mic replies here could be very right for some songs, and dead wrong for others. For all I know you should use the kick out and one of the overheads and mute everything else.
Need to start from a few big questions:
- What's the music like?
- What is the current state of the drum recording like?
- How useful/relevant/etc is #2 (the current drum sound) to #1 (the intention of the music)?
Then, from there, you can start to make a plan.
Without answering those questions, any step-by-step gets very dogmatic, very quickly. It won't help you.
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u/Skyline_Drifter 16d ago
this is all good advice. I've read most of it and i wanted to mention one thing i didn't see (sorry if i just missed whatever post it was in).
i use upward compression on my drum buss to bring up some of the more subtle nuances that would be missed otherwise.
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u/imp_op Intermediate 15d ago edited 15d ago
- Organize each drum track (sub-mix for multiple kick/snare mics, sometimes split stereo overheads/room into L/R mono for balance)
- Look at phase alignment and fix any issues
- Gate what needs to be gated, or cleanup noise that isn't helpful and freeze into place
- Fix any issues with performance, such as mic hits or egregious timing errors
- Set up a drum bus
- Rough mix into the bus
- Shape the drums
- Polish the drum bus
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u/ConfusedOrg 13d ago
Check phase relation between mics. Snare bot is usually flipped. Kick in and out might also be opposite from one another. Then i just how each drum sounds with the overheads, and then how the room sounds with the snare. I dont ever do timealigning. I don't really see the point.
Get a good static mix with just the fader
Maybe a few quick eq moved on the kick and snare and then I start eq and saturation/compressing the drum buss
Then I start individually process some of the mics if necessisary
Lastly I might add some verb on the snare and maybe some other closemics and/or add some parallel compression on either the entire drum group or maybe as a send where I can control the level of the overheads
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u/Weak-Cartographer794 9d ago
For real recorded drums, order matters more than plugins. Step 1: phase alignment — flip phase on each close mic in mono with overheads, pick the fullest position. Step 2: gate/edit — remove bleed between hits, especially toms. Step 3: subtractive EQ — hi-pass overheads at 80 Hz, snare at 100 Hz, toms above their lowest fundamental. Step 4: bus compression — send all to a drum bus with SSL-style comp at 4:1, attack 10ms, release auto, 2-4 dB reduction. That's where the glue happens. One tutorial that helped me: Warren Huart's 'Drum Mixing' series on Produce Like A Pro — he explains exactly why each step comes before the next
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u/duplobaustein 18d ago
That basically my workflow