I'm aware it's a huge subject and you could probably talk for hours on it but do you have any little tips on mixing drums? Maybe a little trick or two to get a lovely sounding snare etc. (I'm also assuming you are knowledgeable on the subject in the first place!) Just to give you an overview of how I recorded them - I close miked each drum, used a couple of 414s as overheads, close miked the ride and hats just incase and used an mid-side stereo setup with a neumann tlm103 and 414 to mic the room. So I've got plenty to play with!

There as many ways to mix drums as there are ways to set up a kit? which is to say, nearly infinite? and so much depends on what the goals of the project are, or the client, or the end user, etc.

Having said all of that, I?m generally less a fan of close-micing drums and prefer to give them a little room to breathe and speak. I adore mid-side mic setups for overheads and room mics, as they offer so much flexibility with the width stereo field until the very final stages of production.

My favorite snares have usually been saturated quite a lot at some point in the signal chain (favorite comps are the Distressor, the dbx 160X, the SpectraSonics 610, and the Inward Connections TSL-3), and utilizing software saturation is becoming a decent alternative to analog tape (though tape still reigns supreme, the convenience factor of plugins is not a small thing). Favorite plugins off the top of my head are the Studer A800 from UAD, McDSP?s Analog Channel, and the Crane Song Phoenix (which is, sadly, TDM only, but their HEDD convertor is sublime on kit).

Parallel processing on drums is a huge help in getting those ?lovely? sounds, and the new Devil-Loc plugin from Sound Toys is crazy cool for subtle, tucked-just-behind-the-mix, pumping life-breathing vibe into your drums. Here?s a really cool video on that plug.

When first recording snare the tuning and damping of the snare itself is such a huge part of being able to dial it in later at mix? the amount of overtone and ring present at the tracking stage is so critical, it really behooves you to take some time and make sure you?re heading down the right path there? thinking about things like 1) are you planning on replacing all the drums with samples, 2) is this a minimal and live-souding everyone-in-a-room style recording or a multi-layered pop production (which is my biggest criteria for weighing how much ring to leave in the drums, usually), 3) what does the room sound like, 4) how solid and pro and adaptable is the drummer, and on and on and on.

I also really like using moon gel on the top head, or a partial old drum head (we keep several at Burst HQ cut to different diameters), and I tend to aim snare mics across the drum head as opposed to straight down into the surface (but that is often dependent on what the final sonic goal might be).

Did this help? I had fun thinking about all of it, so thanks for the question. Getting drum sounds at the start of any recording session is one of my very favorite things to do. :)

Source: http://blog.danielholter.com/post/4666168567

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