How to mix drums by using effects etc.

Question

Hi,
After my first recording I am now into the mixing process.
What advice to mix the drums. I have the following tracks (all audio)
- kick (mono)
- snare/rimshot (mono)
- hihat (mono)
- toms (mono)
- crashes/ride/cup (stereo)
The genre is Smooth Jazz (so no old school! but more soul/funky).
I have to use the Logic Pro plugins (because no third party or external hardware).
Thanks!
iMac G5   Mac OS X (10.4.6)   Logic Pro 7.1.1

Answer 1

Hi,
After my first recording I am now into the mixing
process.
What advice to mix the drums. I have the following
tracks (all audio)
- kick (mono)
- snare/rimshot (mono)
- hihat (mono)
- toms (mono)
- crashes/ride/cup (stereo)
The genre is Smooth Jazz (so no old school! but more
soul/funky).
I have to use the Logic Pro plugins (because no third
party or external hardware).
Thanks!
iMac G5  
Mac OS X (10.4.6)   Logic Pro 7.1.1
There are a few decisions to make. First, do you want the kit to sound like what the audience hears (audience perspective) or what the player hears? If it is audience, then pan instruments where they would show up as if you were in the audience. Also, narrow the left to right soundstage - no hard left or hard right, the kit should be heading towards mono in it's width. For player's perspective, you can widen a bit and set the pans to approximate what the player hears.
Next, route all of the drums through a stereo bus. Put a stereo eq and a stereo compressor on the bus. This will be much easier and overall better than treating each track separately. Go easy on both. With drums that are hit softly, you can really compress and bring out the detail. If you need to later, you can add some plugs to any individual tracks that need some help. For example, you may want to remove a bunch of low end from the hat track.
Bring up your tracks, starting with either the kick and snare or the overheads. In jazz, the emphasis is often on the hat rather than the snare, but it should all be in the overheads unless they were miked very close to the cymbals. Do you see the point? You can either build the sound from the overheads and add individual tracks as needed, or you can start from the kick and snare.
Read all you can about compression and eq - way too much to cover here, and your learning will never stop - mine hasn't!
It also helps to be listening to great recordings from the same genre. A couple of direct comparisons will help.
Try sending the snare out to a dedicated reverb bus, then try returning it to your master bus so that it will be eq'd and compressed along with the rest of the kit. If that doesn't work as well as you like, return the snare verb to an appropriate output.
As you get deeper into this process, you will want to experiment with phase reversal. Start by putting a gain plug on the kick track. Solo the kick and the overheads together, mixed so they are about the same level. In the gain plug, reverse the phase of the kick. Whichever way gives more low end is the right setting. Repeat for the snare track.
When you want to go even deeper, experiment with the sample delay plug on the kick and snare tracks. The idea is that both the overheads and the individual mics are picking up the same sound, but the individual mics do it sooner since they are closer to the individual sound. By adding slight amounts of delay (20-80 samples) to the individual tracks, you can align them with the overhead track. As you change the delay setting, solo the overhead and the individual track and listen for the sound of the individual instrument to "bloom".
Good luck!
HL
G5 Dual 2.5   Mac OS X (10.3.8)