These drums were recorded in less than ideal circumstances, but I'm far too lazy to re-record them, so I've got to do the best I can with these tracks.

Honestly, I've never really mixed a kit and don't know where to begin. Any and all advice is greatly appreciated, no matter how superficial or in depth you'd like to get. I'd love ANY help I can get.

Overheads - Two mics, panned hard left and right.
Kick
Snare
Full Kit

As you can tell, it's a swingy/goseply thing, with piano as the main instrument.

Where do I begin?

There is loads of potential there, but I'd have to hear it in context. Any way of getting a rough mix?

I hate to post it cause it sounds pretty bad, but if a rough mix will give you a better idea, then by all means:

Rough Mix

I haven't done any mixing, actually - it's just the scratch tracks thrown together. Vocals, guitar and piano will all be retracked.

While you're listening - think I should throw some organ in there?

I'd probably duplicate the snare onto two different tracks. On one I would leave it fairly dry, with maybe a slight bit of compression and a high pass filter at about 100hz. One the second track, I'd compress it a decent amount(slow attack, moderate release), HP @ 100hz, bump at about 200hz for girth and LP at about 12khz or higher. The goal is too keep that natural sound you have there and add some girth and snap to it. I might use the same technique on the kick. I'd HP the OHs @ about 150hz or so and LP them at about 15k or so with about a 6db per octave slope. Add a nice plate reverb to the OHs and snare ...make it moderate and that might get you in the realm.

These are all starting points, YMMV. Hope this helps.

Sweet, man - thanks for such specific suggestions! I will definitely give all those a shot. I'll post new clips once I've messed with it a bit.

Lemme ask you this - I ran everything through a HP (75hz) on the way in... is throwing another HP on there a pretty standard thing? Just curious, as I have a few tunes on which the kit was miked similarly.

Thanks again man.

I'm not on a system with a sub at the moment, but I would imagine if you HP on the way in. you'll be alright, as long as it's on the snare and OH ...not the kick

quote:

Originally posted by BLueROom:
I'd probably duplicate the snare onto two different tracks. On one I would leave it fairly dry, with maybe a slight bit of compression and a high pass filter at about 100hz. One the second track, I'd compress it a decent amount(slow attack, moderate release), HP @ 100hz, bump at about 200hz for girth and LP at about 12khz or higher. The goal is too keep that natural sound you have there and add some girth and snap to it. I might use the same technique on the kick. I'd HP the OHs @ about 150hz or so and LP them at about 15k or so with about a 6db per octave slope. Add a nice plate reverb to the OHs and snare ...make it moderate and that might get you in the realm.

Sounds like nothing I would to do it

I find it's the best way to get the best of both worlds.

And dude, you can't say that and then offer nothing in return

ehhh, sorry, I'm too lazy to type as much as you did. You can ask Dot to ban me



What verb does Mr BLueROom use BTW?

sounds like the small untreated, proximate walls room effect to me. It's not bad so far, I expected worse I find it hard to dance with..but I like the length of the tune
hard to know what happens with some music put around it.
you got some leakage/phase things happening, and some washed out stereo imagery. But, I think you've got plenty to work with.


whoops, I saw the rough, just listened. You captured the toms with the OH mics? It's workable I think. You're going to have to balance the ohs between too much trashy cymbals(and that ride that sticks out) and Toms. The OHs are where the demoish room wash dominates the track. Splashy splasherson. Then you can get some snare up and fatten out the kick some. add verb and collect royalties

I feel like, within the context of the mix, you need to make that snare a lot louder. if i was approaching this, I would either ad a sample on top of that kick, or duplicate the track, and run a low pass filter at about 75hz to add a bit of 'girth'. Typically i don't compress more than 2db on individual drums, but I do sometimes run the 2 mix through a few different compressors. I'll often run one with very light compression, at about 2:1 with a slow attack and fast release, and then another with the attack between 10-30ms, at about 6:1 - 10:1, and play with the release to get the desired effect, then blend the two. If you are playing with extreme compression, you may want to run a low shelf or hi pass filter at about 60hz in front of the comp , to minimize 'softening'. just a thought, not necessarily right for every application. I sometimes find that my issues in a mix come a lot more from levels being off than eq or compression.

quote:

Originally posted by nbarts:
ehhh, sorry, I'm too lazy to type as much as you did. You can ask Dot to ban me



What verb does Mr BLueROom use BTW?

I use the UAD Plate 140 normally. On rare occasions I'll use Logic's Space Designer.