Troubleshooting drums in particular - I'm Alright

[nubbins]

Hey All,

I'm pretty new to doing a proper mix, and I've been having troubles with the drums in this song, particularly getting them to come forward and sit properly in the mix (also have this problem with drums to a lesser extent). I've tried a few things - this mix has very low compression (~-1DB GR) on the snare, going to a Drum bus (also sending pre-fader to a parallel compression bus, which I'm not using a lot of at the moment). EQ is up a few DB around 300HZ and 2KHZ. I just can't seem to get the volume and the right sense of space for the drums, and the snare particularly, to sit closer. And, of course, this affects the rest of the mix too because I can't build around the drums.

What am I doing wrong, and how can I go about fixing it? Even a step by step guide following what others have done mixing the drums would be helpful at this point, so I can at least see how it's supposed to word.

Thank you for any help!

[thedon]

Check to see if the overheads and snare ,top and bottom are in phase !
I found this !

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0at8xuPKfU

Cheers

[nubbins]

I don't think it's a phase issue, though I'm not 100% certain.

I've currently got the snare (there's only one snare mic) on reverse polarity to the other pieces of kit. I did actually gate some of the snare out of the OH as a possible solution, as well, so there's no longer so much bleed that it should make that much of a difference, I should think. Soloing the snare against the non drum tracks doesn't noticeably change the sound.

[thedon]

You May Have already have tried this ,if not try Copying the snare to it's own track bypassing the drum buss in case there is a problem in the routing if the snare to the drum buss.

Good Luck

[jerze]

Hello nubbins.

I'm sure u checked this ,but check your routing ,Also Not sure what daw u r using ?

Second thing is to mute everything except the drums and see what kind of level u r getting on the master /2 buss track. (also mute nyc buss).I't seems that u r getting only the nyc channel going out the master track... and maybe some verb.

[nubbins]

I'm using Sonar x3. Routing snare from the output to a Drums bus, with a pre-fade send to Parallel Comp. I'll check the solo level on the snare coming out of the busses, but I'm pretty sure I tried routing from the snare track directly to the master fader (without parallel compression) and didn't notice a discernible difference. I'll try and post up a detailed routing plan, with screens, later this evening.

What do you mean by nyc channel?

[nubbins]

I think I'm solved at least most of the problem - I balanced without leaving myself enough head room, and I'd built too much stuff on top to notice. This version's a lot better, though I'm still not sure I've got it right just yet. See my opening post in this thread for version 2.

Any general feedback is welcome at this point!