My drum mixing mistake, and what you can learn from it

I just published a new video in the weekly video content inside the Playground Premium area(http://playground.crowdaudio.com).

It’s all about getting my drums to sound like this:

If you don’t want to join, no problem, I’ll still tell you my biggest mistakes when it came to that drum mix.

I mixed those drums twice.

Once in a vacuum of my own brilliance, thinking I was the man.

Then again, when I realized I wasn’t the man and I needed to get back to work if I wanted to make it sound anywhere near the quality of the other people’s mixes on the Playground.

I had two takeaways from the experience:

1. Don’t Be Afraid of Low-End

In comparison to other mixes, my drums sounded weak. They were “tight” but they weren’t “thick.”

When I went back through the mix I tweaked some of my filters and let some more low-end through in the overheads.

It instantly gave some much-needed weight to my drums.

It’s not always about taking the lows away from the overheads to make room for the kick-drum. The overheads can also give you some much needed thickness as well.

2. You Don’t Need Parallel Compression for Tight Drums

In the end the parallel compression settings were overly complicated and I felt that it was doing more harm than good.

A simple 1176 compressor on the overheads was all I needed to get a nice an punchy drum sound, without worrying about any potential parallel phase issues of any kind.

When in doubt, keep it simple I suppose!

If you want to take a look at the exact processing I did for the drums, including tips on getting tight toms, using saturation and short reverbs for thicker snares as well as an overall process for mixing your drum group, it’s all inside the Playground Premium membership area.

Start the 30-day free trial today:

http://playground.crowdaudio.com

Image by: rchris7702

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