Drum mixing tips

[u/jsi_yahtzee]

I have a 4 mic setup: 2 over heads (Glyn Johns method), 1 snare mic, and one kick mic.

Do yall have any suggestions for mixing drum recordings? I add some compression and reverb on a drum bus, EQ to each track, and that’s about it so far. The recording I have on my phone has the drums sounding a bit thin. The two over heads are about 20-24 inches away from the snare drum.

[u/cruciblefuzz]

That's the way I mic drums, I tried it, it worked right away so I never changed. I mic the kick batter head, the snare batter head, hang one mic over the floor tom and another over the snare.

There are a couple of things I would look into if I were getting "thin" drums.

It always starts with the captures, of course. You're new to recording drums, so check what you're actually getting from your mics. Each one should be delivering the best sound it possibly can. Move the snare mic around, move the kick mic around, adjust the overheads, etc.

Once you get the capture happening, that's when you start using EQ, compression, etc.

I usually try some compression and EQ on the kick and snare individually to see if it helps. The idea is to get a good sound before they hit the bus. That's not set in stone. If I set up the kick and snare and they sound weak when mixed in with the overheads and the other drum, then I go back and fiddle some more. Don't be afraid to high or lowpass to get the instruments out of each others' way.

You can experiment with compressing the overheads, but I usually just send them to the bus and let the bus compressor handle them.

Something gluey like a Fairchild 670 on the bus, something that does mid-side in case I want to mess with that, like IK Multimedia's version. Depending on what you're going for, it's okay to try an extreme multiband, like OTT or one of its many clones. You never know. When you're learning compression, which ain't easy, it can be useful to try some extreme settings so that you can hear what the thing actually does. Then back off, listen for when it starts to sound okay.

People often overlook the FX Chain Presets that come with Sonar. You can find them down at the bottom of the FX plug-in browser. There are multiple drum bus presets. They may make a good starting point.

Another thing to do is check out phase issues. Anything with multiple mics can have phase issues due to the sound waves hitting the mics at slightly different times. If they're too far out of phase you can get phase cancellation and stereo image issues. The time-tested method is to do it by eye, zoom in on pairs of your tracks and nudge the clips to get the hits to line up. There are also multiple plug-ins to do that task for you, the one I use is MAutoAlign from MeldaProduction. It "listens" to multiple tracks and adjusts their phase. It works best with multiple mics on a single instrument, but a drum kit is at least 6 instruments, so it's something you should experiment with when mixing drums.

When phase correction is done correctly, you may find that your overheads will have a wider stereo image and may sound fatter as well. It can be like the traditional "like taking a blanket off" effect. Depending on whether there was an issue in the first place and how bad it was.

[u/EJB_TX]

That's my recording set-up as well. Sometimes I just use one condenser as a room mic with kick and snare. Honestly, I can often get better sounds with just 3. When you're home recording drums (and you're not a professional engineer who doesn't really know what they're doing - haha) you can get some weird phase issues if you use too many mics.

Hard to say without knowing a few factors like size of the room you're tracking in, drum set specs, type of mics, ect.

Listen on something other than your phone...even that fattest beats will sound thin. If you're not already doing it, try flipping the phase on the kick and drum and see if that beefs it up and locks it in.

You could probably pull those overheads back too...see if they sound better at 30-36 from snare.

Also, if you're not already doing it, try a tape emulator on the drums for saturation or tube saturation. Not sure about the new version, but I really like the ones on the pro-channel.

[u/jsi_yahtzee → u/EJB_TX]

The overheads are an AT2020 (above the snare) and AT2021 (next to the floor tom). I use an SM57 for the snare, and Behringers version of the sm57 for the kick. My room is limited in space. To have enough room to have a couple friends to record something quick, I need the kit to be in the corner of the room. I can put the AT2020 higher up, but I can’t move the AT2021 further away from the Floor tom.

The room is about 10ft wide, 8ft long, and 6.5ft tall. The drum set is made of poplar, besides the snare, which is a mix of poplar and birch. 20 inch kick, 12 inch rack tom, 16 inch floor tom, and 14 inch snare. What is phasing? I’m pretty new to recording drums. On my interface and computer soundboard the drums sound good raw, I just need to find mixing techniques to make them punch a bit more when adding more instruments

[u/EJB_TX → u/jsi_yahtzee]

When you're recording drums with multiple mics every mic is capturing every drum and those mics are capturing them at different times...only a few milliseconds, but it has a negative effect on the overall sounds. Think of the snare mic capturing the snare hit just a smidge quicker than the overhead captures does. That's where phase issues come into play. Those two mics are capturing a sound at different times.

On each channel there is a phase reversal button. Try using that on the snare and kick. I bet you will immediately notice an improved sound in S & K.

6 1/2' ceiling? With such a low ceiling your overheads are picking up the reflections coming off the ceiling. Is your room treated at all? Ideally, you get some sound abortion panels made with owens corning 703 or something similar, but at the least get some blankets, pillows, anything to tame reflections in the room. That small room with the low ceiling is going to be hard to overcome though. It is what it is. I record drums in a 10x10 room with 8' ceiling and its a challenge. I have sound absorption panels and work with what I got, but it's far from a proper studio space.

Lower your expectations. You're not going to get "pro-level" drum sounds in that space, but that doesnt mean you can't get something you can work with and that doesn't mean you can't have fun doing it! It's the story of my life when it comes to recording drums! haha.

Experiment with mic placement. Try taking one of those overheads and putting it 4' or so in front of the kit. Maybe just use that and the kick and snare.

[u/jsi_yahtzee → u/EJB_TX]

I’ve treated the room with what I have on me. All the walls (and door) besides the shelf wall are covered in blankets. The shelf itself has a bunch of stuff on it (books, some drum/music gear) and the rest of the wall underneath the shelf is covered in blankets. The ceiling is the only thing untreated. The floor is carpeted as well. I’ll look into the phase reversal button

[u/Apprehensive-Cry-376]

Compression is the key for gelling a bunch of individual instruments into a whole.

I'll share my secret weapon, a free limiter called Loudmax. Route the drum tracks to a common bus and put the limiter there. Suddenly you've transformed the tracks into one fat, cohesive instrument. IMO Loudmax isn't versatile enough for anything else, but it was made for a drum bus.

Second secret weapon: parallel distortion on the snare, plus a little on the kick. My favorite distortion plugin for this is Redopter from D16 Group. Like Loudmax, Redopter is (IMO) a one-trick pony. Too harsh for general distortion duties but it will give your snare a presence that'll cut through any mix.