06-03-2019, 04:19 PM
If someone is interested, here are some tech info about my mix...
Trying to keep it simple, skipping the boring stuff like 1-2 dB eq tweaks or gates etc but if someone thinks I omitted something please ask any questions.
Drums:
Had a tough time getting the drums to sound the way I wanted for this mix. I remember especially with the snare drum was hard (side-stick not so much but had to pay attention fitting it with the kick since they play at the same time. ) I was getting an interesting snare tone using the room and OHs but the cymbals were always a problem so I had to settle for a good compromise between a good snare sound and not so loud cymbals... these said, there already was a great deal of dynamic-eq and notching to try to control that.
Of course all drum tracks were touched in terms of time-phase, nudging them very slightly, trying the polarity invert, anything to get maximum punch and definition before mixing.
I look for dynamics/punch/tightness more when I'm doing phase alignment rather than tone since tone is usually easier to dial with eq and compression.
I have a couple of send and parallel tracks for the drums, will detail as I go through the drum tracks.
Kick: I have a kick group, much of the sound comes from it rather than the individual kick mics. I have a 1073 EQ for the low punch mainly boosting some very lows and cutting some low mids, then I have an eq cutting some more mainly in the 400-500Hz area, SSL E-Channel compressor for dyn control and attack shape doing 2-3 dB of compression and then a Pultec EQP1 which is the 2nd big part of the tone shaping especially the lows.
I have a parallel on the kick blended in which has a great deal of EQ to cut the lows and bring in the click/brightness, compressing hard 11-14 dB GR. which goes into a transient designer for a bit more attack. This track helps the kick punch through especially in the more crowded parts of the mix and helps shape the kick dyn and tone.
Snare: On the individual tracks I have a bit of eq and comp to shape and tone but the snare group brings them together.. color eq using a 1073 (+5.5 dB @ 110Hz, small cut at 700Hz and a faint touch of the high-shelf as it can get aggressive pretty quickly) ... then an eq and dyn-eq mainly to control tone, low resonances from the room and/or snare or kit bleed. these were at about 76Hz and 146Hz, SSL E-chan comp doing about 2 dB GR then a hard limiter doing a large 6-8 dB of GR, the snare always had a weird snappy point in the mix so I had to tame that...
To help the tone and length of the snare, I've layered another snare blended at lower volume during the choruses and where else the snare played rather than the side-stick.
Hi-hat... blended that in at lower volume until the hat in room and OH mics felt more defined.
Pretty drastic eq on the hi-hat (every time I filter or heavily eq elements in a kit or similar/layer tracks I use linear-phase EQ. So, HP set around 200Hz and many notches in the high-mids mostly in the 2-5K area. When I say notches I don't mean using a notch filter, rather a very narrow bell Q doing exactly how much cut I need, in this case the notches are around -6dB . At 5k there is a dyn eq taming the hat when it opens and when the cymbals are picked up to give a less hashy result. Then, the SSL E-chan comp doing about 5dB GR on the louder parts. Remember, this track is blended in at lower volume, it acts a bit as a parallel comp. track for the hats in the OHs and room mics.
I grouped the OHs and Room mics together.
OHs have an eq -4dB @ 300Hz to tame the snare tone mainly and boosting around 2-3k for snare tone while dynamically taming the cymbals, then I have some small notches around 3-4 Hz, I guess they are cymbal or mic resonances... then at 6900Hz I have a gentle 6dB/oct filter on the sides only... I reduced the OHs image for more focus but they asked for more reduction somehow, so it turned out that the highs were giving the impression of extra width. After that, I have a bit of overall compression to get a bit of 'room' out of those OHs also.
Similar eq, dyn-eq for the room but the low-mid cuts are around 400-500Hz and the comp is a bit harder.
Both together on a bus: Multi-band comp taming the low "bump" from the kick mainly and the high-mids to highs (this part is doing up to 6dB GR when the cymbals hit), then I have an eq and dyn-eq notching some high-mid cymbal resonances around 3-4k and a broader dyn-control around the same area... those cymbals were always tending to be harshy...
DRUMS bus:
a bit of eq, dyn-eq for the lows-kick and around 3k area, a bit of compression, tons! (6dB GR) of limiting as the drums/snare were always peaky in a weird way.. then, most of the tone comes from Pultec EQP1, then multi-band comp taming some parts prior to tape and finally Tape to smooth things out
Drums bus has a parallel aux doing loads of compression+limiting blended in at lower level around -16dB
Some elements from the kit have a few sends to reverbs and transient designers but the Snare has many sends to different 'general' send-return effects like pitch shifters (for extra weight and impact, gotta watch that phase relationship though) , reverbs, slap-echoes etc... basically those sends are for extra image and depth giving the snare better blend, more presence without the need to make too louder in volume.
...getting a bit long, will continue in the next post
Trying to keep it simple, skipping the boring stuff like 1-2 dB eq tweaks or gates etc but if someone thinks I omitted something please ask any questions.
Drums:
Had a tough time getting the drums to sound the way I wanted for this mix. I remember especially with the snare drum was hard (side-stick not so much but had to pay attention fitting it with the kick since they play at the same time. ) I was getting an interesting snare tone using the room and OHs but the cymbals were always a problem so I had to settle for a good compromise between a good snare sound and not so loud cymbals... these said, there already was a great deal of dynamic-eq and notching to try to control that.
Of course all drum tracks were touched in terms of time-phase, nudging them very slightly, trying the polarity invert, anything to get maximum punch and definition before mixing.
I look for dynamics/punch/tightness more when I'm doing phase alignment rather than tone since tone is usually easier to dial with eq and compression.
I have a couple of send and parallel tracks for the drums, will detail as I go through the drum tracks.
Kick: I have a kick group, much of the sound comes from it rather than the individual kick mics. I have a 1073 EQ for the low punch mainly boosting some very lows and cutting some low mids, then I have an eq cutting some more mainly in the 400-500Hz area, SSL E-Channel compressor for dyn control and attack shape doing 2-3 dB of compression and then a Pultec EQP1 which is the 2nd big part of the tone shaping especially the lows.
I have a parallel on the kick blended in which has a great deal of EQ to cut the lows and bring in the click/brightness, compressing hard 11-14 dB GR. which goes into a transient designer for a bit more attack. This track helps the kick punch through especially in the more crowded parts of the mix and helps shape the kick dyn and tone.
Snare: On the individual tracks I have a bit of eq and comp to shape and tone but the snare group brings them together.. color eq using a 1073 (+5.5 dB @ 110Hz, small cut at 700Hz and a faint touch of the high-shelf as it can get aggressive pretty quickly) ... then an eq and dyn-eq mainly to control tone, low resonances from the room and/or snare or kit bleed. these were at about 76Hz and 146Hz, SSL E-chan comp doing about 2 dB GR then a hard limiter doing a large 6-8 dB of GR, the snare always had a weird snappy point in the mix so I had to tame that...
To help the tone and length of the snare, I've layered another snare blended at lower volume during the choruses and where else the snare played rather than the side-stick.
Hi-hat... blended that in at lower volume until the hat in room and OH mics felt more defined.
Pretty drastic eq on the hi-hat (every time I filter or heavily eq elements in a kit or similar/layer tracks I use linear-phase EQ. So, HP set around 200Hz and many notches in the high-mids mostly in the 2-5K area. When I say notches I don't mean using a notch filter, rather a very narrow bell Q doing exactly how much cut I need, in this case the notches are around -6dB . At 5k there is a dyn eq taming the hat when it opens and when the cymbals are picked up to give a less hashy result. Then, the SSL E-chan comp doing about 5dB GR on the louder parts. Remember, this track is blended in at lower volume, it acts a bit as a parallel comp. track for the hats in the OHs and room mics.
I grouped the OHs and Room mics together.
OHs have an eq -4dB @ 300Hz to tame the snare tone mainly and boosting around 2-3k for snare tone while dynamically taming the cymbals, then I have some small notches around 3-4 Hz, I guess they are cymbal or mic resonances... then at 6900Hz I have a gentle 6dB/oct filter on the sides only... I reduced the OHs image for more focus but they asked for more reduction somehow, so it turned out that the highs were giving the impression of extra width. After that, I have a bit of overall compression to get a bit of 'room' out of those OHs also.
Similar eq, dyn-eq for the room but the low-mid cuts are around 400-500Hz and the comp is a bit harder.
Both together on a bus: Multi-band comp taming the low "bump" from the kick mainly and the high-mids to highs (this part is doing up to 6dB GR when the cymbals hit), then I have an eq and dyn-eq notching some high-mid cymbal resonances around 3-4k and a broader dyn-control around the same area... those cymbals were always tending to be harshy...
DRUMS bus:
a bit of eq, dyn-eq for the lows-kick and around 3k area, a bit of compression, tons! (6dB GR) of limiting as the drums/snare were always peaky in a weird way.. then, most of the tone comes from Pultec EQP1, then multi-band comp taming some parts prior to tape and finally Tape to smooth things out
Drums bus has a parallel aux doing loads of compression+limiting blended in at lower level around -16dB
Some elements from the kit have a few sends to reverbs and transient designers but the Snare has many sends to different 'general' send-return effects like pitch shifters (for extra weight and impact, gotta watch that phase relationship though) , reverbs, slap-echoes etc... basically those sends are for extra image and depth giving the snare better blend, more presence without the need to make too louder in volume.
...getting a bit long, will continue in the next post