drum in the mix

[dj3nk]

SOmeone knows a good book are tutorial about electronic drum mastering, eqing, etc.? I wanna get that rollin feel what makes the drums melt together.

[stryd_one]

Good programming of both the kit an the patterns is a must, as is compression, used right... Not really a mastering thing tho.

Let's put it like this... Real drummers don't need any EQ or compression to do it, nor should you :)

[kris]

have you ever played a real drum

this can be a good starting point to understanding rythm

especially construction of rythm patterns if your playing with other people

  i know this not the answer that you  wanted but just an idea

kris

[stryd_one]

Bongo's are really handy for this, or a single snare, marching band style...

[moxi]

here is sme source of info about how to mix acoustics drums, but it's in french (that won't be a problem as for each instrument you will be abble to read which frequencies are important:

http://xboxfrenchplay.free.fr/index.php?file=Sections&op=article&artid=9

http://xboxfrenchplay.free.fr/index.php?file=Sections&op=article&artid=7

http://xboxfrenchplay.free.fr/index.php?file=Sections&op=article&artid=6

http://xboxfrenchplay.free.fr/index.php?file=Sections&op=article&artid=5

If you want to play with electronic drums, rather than spending time tweaking compressor and Eqs, I think it's best to spend time to choose your drums and tweak them first on the synth source.

A simple advice is to choose them so their respective frequencies don't overlap each other (eg choose a Snare where the "clack" attack freq is different from the "clack" attack freq of the Kick drum, do the same for the body of the sound. What I do is to use a scope frequency analyser when my ears are unsure..)

for example, if you want to clearly ear your Kick drum, look for the low freq where it sound nice, push up a bit this freq (eg 250Hz), then push down this same freq on your bass sound. Then choose for your bass a freq that sound great (eg 400Hz), push it a bit up, then lower this same freq on your kick drum..

The purpose of a mix is to give to each part its own place in the freq range...Here is a tab where all important freq for each instrument and voice are listed:

http://www.ziggysono.com/htm_effets/index.php?art=table_frequence&titre=Frequences

in french too...If you're too borring reading french, I will do a quick translation...

If you work with samples, most of the time they are already Eq an compressed, so here too it's best to spend time to choose them.

hope that will help..

[moxi]

Real drummers don't need any EQ or compression to do it, nor should you

I think most of the time on acoustic drum there is Eq and dynamics applied, in live situation it's most often the case...dry take are possible only when the drummer is a "beast" playing on an high quality drum kit , recorded with high level mics...but that thrue that most of the Jazzmen want only ear the recorded drums exactly as it's sound in real...Modern music most of time use a big amount of dynamics...

about this link

http://www.ziggysono.com/htm_effets/index.php?art=table_frequence&titre=Frequences

"passe-bas" mean "low cut"

" FONDAMENTALE" mean the freq where is the body of the sound, it's the freq that have to be "alone" and clearly differenciated one from each other

" FREQ SENSIBLE" are the important frequencies that you will have to push down if they are problematik, or to push up when you want to add some personnality to the sound, that for example where sound the attack of a snare..

" HARMONIQUES" are the harmonics freqs, usefull to make the sound "bigger" and "larger"

it will be more clear this way ;)

[stryd_one]

Yeh I think what I'm trying to say is, Garbage In, Garbage Out... I just didn't want to say it like that ;)

Point is, your breaks should roll all by themselves, the mixing/mastering/fx/etc should be secondary..

[dj3nk]

hmm, sounds all good and helpful.

thank you guys !!!

[moxi]

I aggree! mostly for the mastering. I've spend a lot of time trying to do "mastering", in fact there is nothing so boring and keeping you way from the Music, it's something now I've decided to let to people that is the job. And when you think you have to do different mastering for CDs, for vinyl, for dvd... :-\

The best surely is to do great music, one time that is done, you will probably found some producer that will do all the boring work for you... 8)...

but mixing is something that can be realy part of the music, and you have to do it if you want to do self-producted CDs...

[smashtv]

A big part of "melting" the drum sound into the rest of your mix is careful attention to where each drum sits in the stereo field.  Kits with sounds panned to positions way different than common setups just don't sound right.

Depending on the sound/genre I usually prefer panning out to the drummers position vs. the crowd's position, since this lets me keep the hihat leaning left (helps retain clarity on junk playback equipment) and allows for keeping things tight during a roll/fill down to the larger toms (so you can spend the low that this eats more in the right side).

Garbage in Garbage out is absolutely right, and even a lot of good drummers don't know how to tune a kit.  I have done discs with only four mics on a rock style acoustic kit, and I have done them with sixteen live mics on a similar kit.  It's easy to see the difference at tracking time between a good drummer and a bad one, but If I do it right and raid the mic box the consumer will never -hear- the difference.  ;)

There are a ton of studio and live tricks to fatten things up (like ducking your kick out of your bass guitar, mic modelling to fake proximity effect, etc.) but if you have too much fighting for the same range(s) it will never sound tight.

Best

SmashTV

[moogah]

;D ;D

Most of what I would say has been said here.

I would add one tip, kinda a complementary angle to Smash's tip about using the stereo field:

Do some drum mixes in mono first and really pay attention to the overall levels.  Which instruments overlap and in particular which instruments create dissonace when they overlap and work out the tonal balance this way.  Then start breaking things out into the stereo field one instrument at a time.  This will help in developing both a sense of tonal balance and how to use the stereo field to increase the space you have available. 

Compression is an area where you are guaranteed to overuse it at first... and it tends to ruin your sense of balance if you overuse it.  I would defiantly recommend not using compression at all until you've really spent some time studying the tonal areas and then start using *small* amounts of compression here and there and comparing it to uncompressed signal.. on a variety of speakers (listen in your car!).

As far as "fluid" sounding drums I think that may have a lot to do with the programming as well.  Remember to pay attention to when rythems hit in sync with other elements in the music and when there is a back and forth between them.. or for that matter the back and forth between instruments in the drum kit (simplest example is the boom-click-boom-click-boom-click-boom-click 909 beat).  I tend to think of this in terms of "foils" which is a pair of sounds that complement each other well and tend to create suspense if you hear one and not the other, something at the heart of early Jungle programming.. actually Inner City Life is a really good example of this, the hat/snare rolls on that track are what first got me thinking about programming like this and kick and snare (which are just about always the foils for each other) on that track make a wonderful use of syncopation and foiling to create tension and energy. Same with using two different snare sounds, each one complements the other and prepares the ear to hear the next one again and the total effect of kick foiling snare and snare foiling hat etc makes for a drum track that feels like it belongs together.. kind of like a back and forth conversation where each element adds in a piece and counterpoints the other elements. 

[th0mas]

If you're doing very electronic sounding music such as house, a big tip is to tweak your kit CONSTANTLY, albeit slightly.  Listen to Daft Punk's Homework as inspiration.  They can play the same 909 groove for 10 minutes but it still kicks because they're tweaking the sounds in every bar.

That's what I try to apply to my music I've been working on lately: take the time to tweak the parts throughout the track, even if it's the same pattern being played repeatedly.  Your brain will thank you and not get as bored :).

Other than that, again this is in reference to electronic drums: you can do a whole lot with compression/eq/filtering.  Take Reason for example - all the samples that come with it sound like shit, but you can take any of the weak bass drums, compress it, add a bit of distortion and then feed it into an LFO and you have a monster kick at your disposal.

[stryd_one]

They can play the same 909 groove for 10 minutes but it still kicks because they're tweaking the sounds in every bar.

I tooootally disagree. I hear that and just go "what, did you run out of ideas, and reach for a knob?"

I think that one of the biggest problems in electronic music is the growing tendency to use patch/fx modulation as a substitute for melodic or rhythmic variations. Again, it's a case of garbage in, garbage out. The drums should already have a good feel to them before you add filtersweeps or whatever.

Nothing bores me more than hearing the same thing looped 4 times, add an instrument, loop, add,loop,add, all the while sweeping filters.... that was done and dusted (Rave-y drug pun not intended heheh) almost twenty years ago, it's time for some new ideas :)

Just my personal opinion, no offense intended... Music is different for everyone :)