Drums: EQ/Compression

[dtucker]

Is there anyone here who only uses EQ and compression on the drum bus and not on the individual tracks?

In the past, while mixing ITB, I would always use plug ins on everything (kik, snare, toms, etc) and then pump everything to a drum bus with yet another compression plug. These days, while still ITB, I'm using more outboard and less plug ins. I also have learned to enjoy the sound of the drums with more dynamics and less of the modern-pop-style compressed sound. Heavy on the room mics, too.

I just did some experimenting with just 550b's and a C2 on my drum bus and was pleasantly surprised. But I also had to be careful with how much compression I used.

Anyone doing this? If so, any tips?

[BJohnston]

I use eq on the ind. tracks for more control over each seperate drum, if needed. I also lightly compress tracks if needed, then I send them to the 2 buss comp. Depends on what you prefer. There is no rule of thumb. Also depends on the drummer, style of music and song. As far as eqing the 2 buss again it just depends.

B

[DirkB]

Most of the time I have a Distressor on the snare to shape it in the mix. I hardly ever like compression on the kick mics...
Sometimes I compress the overheads when there's a heavy peaking snare in there to tame it down a little.
Then I bus everything to a stereo drumsub which is left unprocessed and some of the tracks, mostly close kick, snare and toms and sometimes overheads if I need more sustain on the cymbals, go to another bus that is slammed with a compressor, fastest attack, fastest release, blend in to get the weight that is necessary.
I eq this bus often a little.

But all might change on the next session .

Good luck,
Dirk

[Jay Kahrs]

Every song and every session is different so I rarely fall into patterns where I treat everything the same way. If I catch myself falling into a cookie-cutter syndrome I'll make a point to change the methods of madness.

Generally speaking, if I use any parallel compression I'll start with that before I patch in channel compression, but it's not uncommon for me to have a compressed drum buss and compressors on the kick & snare. I always try to use the lowest ratios I can get away with to even out the dynamics a bit while retaining as much tone as possible. Sometimes I have a mono drum subgroup, sometimes it's stereo...sometimes I'll have the snare multed out to three or four places, other times it's one mult...occasionally I'll mult the toms to a gate, compressor and EQ and sometimes I won't.

It all depends on the song and what the desired sound is.

[Drumsound]

It depends on what's been overdubbed. If what I tracked doesn't get buried in 14 high-gain guitars, I might only use a drum parallel. If there's tones of dense frequency stuff the BD and SD will often see a compressor. EQ, usually on the BD. often on the SD. What I'm doing with the EQ varies greatly from song to song.

[proxy]

A factor when mixing ITB and on certain platforms can be phase shift from plugs on individual tracks. I'd rather have an in-phase set of mics through one bus comp than a bunch of plugged-up phasey hazy tracks.

Of course if you're using HD or Nuendo or Tape (or other) it doesn't matter as much and I find certain individual mics often benifit from some cut/boost.

- proxy