Lesson Info
28. Mixing Drums Intro
Summary (Generated from Transcript)
In this lesson, the instructors discuss the importance of drums in adding character to a rock or metal song and how different producers have their own distinct drum sound. They also mention the evolution of their drum recording and mixing techniques, highlighting the development of a system that allows them to achieve the desired drum sound. The instructors then proceed to play a sample of the recorded drums, showcasing the dynamics and intricacies of the performance. They emphasize the importance of maintaining variations in tone and dynamics, even when using techniques to enhance consistency. The instructors then focus on the kick drum sound and mention that the snare drum is usually the main focus when mixing drums. They explain that they will be using a top-down mixing chain and will bypass certain plugins to achieve a drier drum sound.
Q&A:
What is the importance of drums in rock and metal music?
Drums add character and can distinguish different producers.
How has the instructor's drum recording and mixing techniques evolved?
They have developed a system through trial and error that allows them to achieve desired drum sounds.
What is the difference between triggered drums and natural drums?
Triggered drums lack variation in tone and dynamics, while natural drums maintain variations in sound.
What is the main focus when mixing drums?
The snare drum is usually the main focus.
Lessons
Class Introduction
02:08 2Learning Drum Tone
08:10 3Drum Head and Shell Selection
10:07 4Matt's Signature Snare
04:37 5Tuning a Snare Drum
31:44 6Tuning Toms
18:56 7Tuning Drums Q&A
13:00 8Drum Feel and Cymbal Selection
06:58Micing intro & Kick Mic Techniques
11:58 10Snare Micing Techniques
07:10 11Shell Micing Q&A
09:43 12Tom Micing Techniques
07:51 13Microphone Placement - Overheads and Room Mics
19:55 14Soundchecking the Drum Tones
33:45 15Drum Micing Q&A
11:55 16Working With Tempo
17:42 17How Drum Parts Evolve
09:48 18Preparing for Recording as a Drummer
12:49 19Writing Drum Parts
17:02 20Recording Drum Samples
13:53 21Tracking Drum Takes
19:31 22Comping Takes and Q&A
16:37 23Mix Session Intro
06:56 24Mix Session Organization
06:35 25Top Down Mixing Approach
28:51 26Mix Bus Compression & Saturation
21:11 27Mix Bus Q&A
14:32 28Mixing Drums Intro
06:59 29Mixing Kick Drum
35:00 30Mixing Snare Drum
20:53 31Mixing Toms
09:14 32Mixing Cymbal & Overhead Mics
15:39 33Mixing Room Mics
25:22 34Mixing Bass Guitar
35:57 35Mixing Rhythm Guitars
13:33 36Mixing Lead Guitars
22:57 37Mixing Synths, Pads & Samples
06:30 38Mixing Vocals
31:56 39Wrap Up Q&A & Final Thoughts
10:13 40BONUS VIDEO: Micing Guitar Cab
06:20Lesson Info
Mixing Drums Intro
To me drums, are really one of the aspects which you can put so much character into and, if you listen to a lot of different producers, you can pretty much tell them apart by listening to their drum sound. Sometimes, that's for a reason that I don't like which is that they might use the same kind of set of drum samples on everything and you kind of hear the same sound on every record. Perhaps not what I mean though but... What I'm getting at really is that there's often like a certain character to the way the drums are presented within rock and metal that can be very distinctive in particular to a producer. And, funny enough, we've been talking a lot about "Juggernaut" the song, the record that this song came from and we tracked that over a year ago. Probably like 13 or 14 months ago that we did the drums for that song and in that time, I really learned a huge amount as in since we finished "Juggernaut," I really learned a huge amount by continuing to work with Matt and by working what...
with clients and really just going head-first into developing techniques and skills as far as recording and tuning drums. What we have now is kind of the fruits of that labor and, to me, even as quickly as we put it together yesterday, these drums are kind of what I was always hoping the drum sound on "Juggernaut" would have been. I'm still happy with how it sounds, but it was a different process in terms of mixing. It wasn't done in the same way that I'm about to show you and there was a lot more trial and error, a lot more heartache, a lot more kind of taking mixes away from the studio and sitting on it for several days and then being really unhappy or making one member of the band happy and then someone else brings in like a fresh, good criticism which needs to be fixed. That whole process really led me to develop this system for recording drums, but especially for mixing drums. And that's not to say that it turns out exactly the same drum sounds every time. But it's a system that allows me to get close to sounds that I like. And it is derived from trial and error and kind of turned into a more formal technique. So, I think maybe what I'll do first is just revisit the sound of the drums and I'm gonna solo them just so you can hear. Again, there's no samples used on these drums, this is just exactly what we recorded yesterday. And perhaps leaning a little bit more heavily on the artificial reverb than I normally do just because the room sounds great, but it wasn't like a really long reverb tail. But apart from that, this is very much kinda how I would mix any drums that get sent to me. At least using these core techniques. So, we'll just take a little listen and I guess I'll start. Somewhere back here. (upbeat drum solo) (guitar solo over drums) Perhaps I'll just give it a little blast of the part when that, unlike what he played on the album, we did like a, way less tasteful part to demonstrate-- Way less tasteful (laughs) Way less tasteful just to demonstrate, for me particularly like, the sound of the drums and they're played in a faster and more dynamic manner is just utilizing a lot of the drumming skills that Matt is known for the kind of more gospel-style. Decorative... decorative? What am I saying decorative for? (laughs) Just like very intricate work on the high hats. Lots of use of ghost notes, loads of toms in there as well And that stuff really tests a drum mix and that's where sample drums can really fall apart because the dynamics are very frequently completely wrong or completely non-existent. So I'll just hit play and we'll listen to a short segment of that. (upbeat drum solo) Cool, yeah. I'm really pleased with how these drums have come out. I kinda wanna draw attention to the fact that while there is a lot of consistency, and the sound is really powerful, it lacks, to me, the whole marks of trademark of really triggered-sounding drums which is that there's real variation from hit to hit and, even though I've taken steps and I'll show you how to even out the consistency of the bass drum playing even though, in fact you can see it's really consistent just by looking at the waveforms. You can still hear the change in tone of the drum as you're getting like a lighter hit especially on the doubles that Matt's executing with one foot where, typically, one hit is always gonna be a little bit softer than the other. And that's actually part of the sound of the double and if I were just to straight up trigger that, it would kind of lose that feel. It wouldn't sound as flowing. And secondly, the ghost notes are really articulate. They don't just sound like super-triggered snares, much quieter, like they have real dynamic character to them. You can also see visually the dynamics within the toms You've got some really hard hits in here. You've got some much softer hits over here. I feel like that's really coming across in the playing. So, with that kind of just general overview, let's maybe get stuck into the kick-drum sound. That's kind of where I start normally. But I will say that the snare is really the fun bit for me. The snare is always the kind of focus of the drum sound and getting the snare right is something that's taken me a really long time. But we'll start with the kick. So what I'll do, we're gonna always monitor through the top-down mixing chain that we discussed in the first segment. Well I guess the fifth segment. And I'm gonna turn off certain things. We've got some parallel compression and we have the reverb sound and I'm gonna mute both of those so we're just hearing a much drier version of the drums. I also have a couple of plug-ins which I'll explain on the drum pass. I'm gonna bypass those for now.
Class Materials
Bonus Materials with Purchase
Ratings and Reviews
Connor Smith
I haven't even finished the course and already my mixes have improved dramatically. Night and day difference. I haven't watched the portions with Matt as I'm using drum samples (GGD specifically), but I have no doubt it's great. Matt is always incredibly helpful and is a brilliant drummer. I thoroughly enjoy listening to Nolly, he's very articulate and his approach to audio engineering is flat out brilliant. I'm so happy I purchased this course. Before my mixes were good (balance and things of that nature) but lacked life and energy. I just wasn't getting the professional level sound I was searching for. Now, I am proud of my mixes and actually think they're getting to the point where they sound professional and don't sound like they were produced by a dude in his bedroom with about half of year of recording and audio engineering experience. The metal genre is difficult to mix as there's a lot going on and the "current metal sound" is very crisp and clear while still being very heavy and punchy. It isn't 80s dad metal where guitars are hissy and flubby. lol I am a huge Periphery fan and it's a privilege to watch Nolly share his knowledge. I really enjoy his approach as its very simple but very effective. He doesn't have insane mixing strategies, he just does what works and it's applicable to any DAW and is helpful for almost any genre of music. Brilliant course!
a Creativelive Student
This was an amazing course! I loved hearing from both Matt and Nolly on their thought process behind drums in general. I love the point they drove home about getting a great source tone. That seems to be forgotten in a lot of recordings and they try to fix it in the mix. Jolly did a fantastic job of making it look "easy" to take already great sounding source tones and making them really shine! Cant wait to put these concepts into practice in my own projects. What a great source of knowledge here. Thanks for this great class!
Adrian Gougov
Best course and overall learning experience I've had in a long long while. Nolly and Matt are superb. Nolly is an astonishing mixing and recording engineer and a great teacher. Not only does he explains his methods carefully and in detail, but also lays down key concepts in an understandable language. Definitely worth the investment if you wanna learn how to mix modern heavy music. Definitely worth the investment if you wanna learn how to track drums properly. Definitely worth the investment if you wanna see one of modern metal's best drummers track a whole song from start to finish. Props to Creative Live for bringing this material to us.