When you playback all these microphones at the same time, that small time difference between mics can make your overall drum mix sound audibly blurry and weak. When you hit the snare drum, the sound will reach the close mic first, followed by the overheads and finally the room mic. Imagine a drum kit with all its individual components close mic’d as well as a pair of overheads and a room mic further out. When this happens it’s called ‘destructive superposition’, which results in the waves effectively fighting each other (phase cancellation), making the sounds much quieter, thinner, and generally just bad! If waves are ‘out of phase’ it means that the soundwaves are out of sync. If soundwaves are ‘in-phase’, it means that the peaks and troughs of the wave signal are pretty much in the same place. Phase is the relationship of one sound wave to another. Read More > How Do You Mic Drums? (Ultimate Beginner's Guide!) Here’s a great guide, outlining the specifics of compression and how it’s used. Within every compressor, there are some controls that will shape the type of compression for your track. However, you have to be careful not to overcompress your tracks as this can lead to a harsh and dynamically lifeless sound. Essentially it’s a way of boosting the quieter signals and reducing the louder signals, meaning that fluctuations in the maximum levels are controlled as well as making quieter details more audible in the overall mix.Īdding compression to a snare drum, for example, will make it more consistent volume-wise in the overall mix, as well as allowing less of the finer ghost notes and expression to be lost. CompressionĬompression is the process of reducing the difference between the loudest and quietest parts of an audio signal. To boost or reduce certain frequencies, you just drag the node to the desired frequency area and raise it or lower it to either boost or reduce that frequency. Standard EQ plugins that come with your DAW, usually have a line with dots or ‘nodes’ running along it.Īt the bottom will be the frequency range, going from very low (30Hz) to incredibly high (20kHz). In drum mixing, EQ is also a great way to get rid of nasty overtones from toms and cymbals.
This will help remove any boxiness to the overall sound. EQ is essentially a way that you can modify the volume of specific frequencies within a recorded sound.įor example, if you have a bass drum that sounds a bit muddy and dull, you can boost the low frequencies to add punch, whilst removing some muddy midrange frequencies and boosting a little of the high frequencies for added clarity and attack.
Short for Equalization, EQ is an absolutely essential tool for any type of mixing. Panning is an essential tool in mixing as it allows you to create a wider mix that sounds more detailed and full.įor drum mixing, it also means that you can get a big sound that sounds just like you’re sitting behind the drums (or in the audience depending on your preference), by panning the individual mics as if you were sitting behind the kit (hi-hat to the left, floor tom to the right, etc). On every track you create in your DAW, there will be a pan ‘knob’ which allows you to send more of that track to the right or left, or keep it central to have that sound played equally between both speakers. This distribution of sounds between the left and right ‘ stereo field’ is called panning. For example, you may only hear a tambourine in your left ear, or the backing vocals are way off to the right side. When you listen to your favorite music on headphones, you’ll notice that some elements of the music are more prominent in one ear than another. Here are some key terms that you need to know before we move onto mixing your recorded drum tracks: Panning
#Best way to tame a snappy snare pro#
Whether you’re using Logic, Pro Tools, Ableton Live, or even free software such as Garageband or Cakewalk, they all have these essential plugins and features that you need to get familiar with to make your drums sound huge. Housed within every DAW, are a bunch of plugins that act as powerful tools for shaping and manipulating the sounds of your drums.
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