drum tips needed

[flip511]

i know there has been many posts about this subject but i cant find the thread that i was looking for so can anyone help me. my question is about EQ and compression on the drums. can anyone give me some tips on what frequencies to lower on my kicks and snares and maybe some compressions settings for the kick and snare also. i know everyone says what ever sounds good to you but i just want a little advice to see if im headed in the right direction. thanx

[where02190]

EQ is easy, remove wha tyou don't want.

compression, start easy, medium attack/release, and experiment from there.

[Plugs]

Where is right, remove as opposed to adding.

I find I start by sucking out mids on the kick and "F" with the Q, gain and freq after that. Then boost what I'm missing once I get the other instru's into the mix.

The snare I prefer to compress the mids then eq.

There are no rules and nothing works the same for every song. Mixes are like snowflakes I guess.

Oh, and kick the band outta the studio until your ready to let 'em hear it. Always seems the bass player can't hear his bass parts while your workin' on that great snare tone!! Imagin that!!

Ter

[Jorge442]

There are frequencies in the 400-550 range(aprox.) that might sound bad on the kiks (like boxy),so lower these. You might want to look for a low and a high freq to boost, such as 80-95hz and 2.5 or 5k....it all depends on your taste and what ¨colors¨ you´re shooting for.....

on the snare, try cleaning it as much as possible with a gate a de-esser or both. Also consider a hi-pass filter. Hi-hat and bass drum leakage can be nasty. There are ¨metal¨ type harmonics (ringing) in the 600hz range that you might want to consider(add or cut to taste), you´ll find the thickness or ¨meat¨ around 250hz, presence around 1k, and look for the high snap all the way up to the 3-10k(prolly 7K) range.....


I´ll have to add that I´m a fan of layering, focusing on one end of the spectrum at a time. For example I´ll eq a snare track to highlight the abovementioned ¨ringing¨, and another track to be dead(no ringing). I can then mix the two to taste. With the kik, I´ll do one concentrating on the ¨thump¨ and one on the ¨snap¨, since the two requiere different types of compression.

I also layer and/or replace tracks completely with samples (sssshhhhhhh!!! don´t tell the drummer hehehe)


gates and high-pass/low-pass filters can be your friends....use them!
I won´t even touch compression ´cause that´s a whole other topic, but it has been discussed here, so just search again my friend.

Oh, this isn´t by any means a guide on how to do it, just some of my backwards-assed ways.


cheers,


jorge