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About the Author
Thomas Hornig is a freelance Producer/Mixer/Session Player located in Studio City, CA. He is the owner of Tomcat On The Prowl Productions and focuses primarily on Singer/Songwriter Folk/Pop style music. Thomas has worked with Artists such as Dorian Holley, Jennifer Quiroz, Larry Dunn, Skye Stevenson, Deanna Pino, Tati Rabell, Josh Rich, and many more. Contact: http://tomcatontheprowl.com, studio@tomcatontheprowl.com or http://facebook.com/thomas.hornig
Engineer Notebook: How to Bring Life into Sampled Drums
Mixing Drums is most definitely one of the biggest challenges for a mixing engineer. In today’s world of home and project studios—not being able to record acoustic drums a lot of times, combined with the need to have a current sound—this is even more of a challenge.
Here is an approach that works for me and might work for you as well:
First, to note, drums played by a great drummer—sampled or not—will always sound better, so the first step is to try and find a great drummer for your project—it’s more than half the battle won.
Being a drummer myself I tend to play on most recording sessions that I end up mixing and since I can’t record acoustic drums in my project studio due to noise concerns, I invested in a Roland V-Drum Set because it’s the closest to a real drum set in regards to feel, but drum pads and even a keyboard can do the trick as well.
Ok, let’s get started: The overall philosophy here is to treat sampled drums just like acoustic drums—that means you need to get a bit creative.
Taylor Hawkins – Foo Fighters
Do not over quantize, the better the performer the less you should need and the more life-like it will feel, only correct what is absolutely needed, otherwise you will get a drum machine sound.
I record every instrument through a quality preamp, maybe a bit of EQ and some compression. If you don’t have enough pre’s, solo the instruments and record them separately—bass drum, snare, toms, etc.
Stay mono, at least for the snare, hi-hat, and bass drum. Toms and cymbals can be done in stereo, but you will have more room to play in mono when it comes to panning.