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bass man · 6th June 2009

Hi
I do mostly acoustic jazz and this is how i deal with the drums .

-First check the phase between the tracks ( also in mono ) to be sure everything is OK
After i get the picture i am only moving my pan and volume faders till i get the drums as tight as possible , no comps no eq for now .
About the panning :
Starting point is wide left and right OH tracks and center position for the BD and Snare . If the toms and the hi hat are close miced then ill just try to find where are they coming from my OH's and place them in the same place .
Remember this is only strating point or/and suggestion .I may redo it later with other instruments .

Once i am happy with the sound ( no plugins or hardware is on ) i send the drums track to one stereo group . From there i listen if anything needs to be high passed ( to filter out low freq. acoumulated by proximity eff. of the near micing ) I usually filter out some of the low freq. of the bass drum ( but not in solo mode , always with the whole set and bass guitar / upright track playing together) . When i am done and the Bd and bass are one person i proceed with checking out the snare track. Usually there are some freq that needs to be filtered around 200 hz , but again , this is only a suggestion .
If the tracks are good recorded ,thats about all of the processing i do to the tracks . then i usually apply a faster comp to the drums group with no more then 1- 3 db of gain reduction ( if any at all ) fast attact and not so fast realease .
It should kick ass by now check with other instruments/tracks and make adjustments if you need to .
Reverb/hall/delay or whatever comes ( for me ) at the very end when the mix is as done as possible . This is the most creative part of mixing the song and creating music and it is pretty individual metter of taste and skills so i cant comment on that exept; try things out , sometimes its a plate on the whole set or just some fast hall on your snare that work , or nothing at all or mybe little reverb on the drums bleed in from the sax mic ... you name it .
Hope this helps

6th June 2009	#6
bass man Banned Joined: Oct 2007 Location: europe Posts: 1,548	Hi I do mostly acoustic jazz and this is how i deal with the drums . -First check the phase between the tracks ( also in mono ) to be sure everything is OK After i get the picture i am only moving my pan and volume faders till i get the drums as tight as possible , no comps no eq for now . About the panning : Starting point is wide left and right OH tracks and center position for the BD and Snare . If the toms and the hi hat are close miced then ill just try to find where are they coming from my OH's and place them in the same place . Remember this is only strating point or/and suggestion .I may redo it later with other instruments . Once i am happy with the sound ( no plugins or hardware is on ) i send the drums track to one stereo group . From there i listen if anything needs to be high passed ( to filter out low freq. acoumulated by proximity eff. of the near micing ) I usually filter out some of the low freq. of the bass drum ( but not in solo mode , always with the whole set and bass guitar / upright track playing together) . When i am done and the Bd and bass are one person i proceed with checking out the snare track. Usually there are some freq that needs to be filtered around 200 hz , but again , this is only a suggestion . If the tracks are good recorded ,thats about all of the processing i do to the tracks . then i usually apply a faster comp to the drums group with no more then 1- 3 db of gain reduction ( if any at all ) fast attact and not so fast realease . It should kick ass by now check with other instruments/tracks and make adjustments if you need to . Reverb/hall/delay or whatever comes ( for me ) at the very end when the mix is as done as possible . This is the most creative part of mixing the song and creating music and it is pretty individual metter of taste and skills so i cant comment on that exept; try things out , sometimes its a plate on the whole set or just some fast hall on your snare that work , or nothing at all or mybe little reverb on the drums bleed in from the sax mic ... you name it . Hope this helps