Help with mixing drums?

[celebritymusic]

Hi

I'm trying to mix some drums that I got from a custom drum track recording service.

I haven't had much experience doing this, and am struggling to get a sound happening.

The drum service sent a stereo mix of the drums as well as the nine individual drum tracks, and for practice, I am trying to match the sound of their mix.

I have made two mp3 snippets of the drums - Mix A is their mix, and MIx B is mine. The takes are actually slightly different, but the sounds should be the same (same session, same mics etc).

Can you please offer your advice as how I can get my mix to sound more like theirs? Any specific info would help i.e. boost kick by 3db at 80hz, cut at 380 by 3db etc.


Here are the links - the files are 192kb, but less than 150k each in size:

http://people.aapt.net.au/~celebritymusic/mixA.mp3 (http://people.aapt.net.au/~celebritymusic/mixA.mp3)

http://people.aapt.net.au/~celebritymusic/mixB.mp3 (http://people.aapt.net.au/~celebritymusic/mixB.mp3)


Also, if anyone near Sydney Australia would be willing to let me sit in on a few mixing sessions, especially when mixing drums, I'd would really appreciate it (I make a mean coffee!!!).

Thanks!

best regards

Shaun Thomson
www.gilbert.net.au (http://www.gilbert.net.au/)

[Arco]

a quick listen:

Mix B--dryer than A, less bottom end. maybe like a little drum room verb might get you a step closer to the mix A sound..but I should say that you may want to see what your mix sounds like in context.

sounds good..

[UpTilDawn]

Sounds good to me too.
less bottom end as arco pointed out. a little brighter also, but sounds good any way.

Do you have the Freq. Analyzer? I would solo each mix to compare overall curves to see how they differ visually...... could help.
dant

[mikebuzz]

Shaun I wouldnt even worry about it untill you have the rest of the tracks together , they way the drums sound by themselfs is really not important ( well it is but you know you have ggod raw tracks so !! )

Mixing them as an excercize is a good idea just for the practice and ability to COPY the stereo mix , but everything has to have it's own place in a complete mix of a song.

I would suggest trying to make them sound totally different than what was provided as well just as an excercize in mixing .

As far as what they provided it's pretty wet IMO it will take up alot of space in a mix also I really dont like the sound of the kik drum I would scoop out some mids on it to allow the bass track ( whatever it is ) to have a space to sit in .


LAter
Buzz

[Ollie]

Just listening to the two drum mixes, I prefer A. What music gets wrapped around this?
The stereo mix that you created: was that using the individual drum tracks?
Was it done with no eq?
Was it done wiht no reverbs etc?

Drum tracks out of the context of the mix do not have alot of bearing. That being said, if you used straight tracks, then the difference appears to be eq on the different drums and overheads.

[Jay Q]

Do you have the Freq. Analyzer? I would solo each mix to compare overall curves to see how they differ visually...... could help.Dan's right. If you're not sure which freqs to adjust, a visual aid will help immensely. And if you can't or don't want to dish out for the Freq Analyzer, there're a number of free tools. Google on something like "free plugin frequency (and/or spectrum) analyzer". There're some free VSTs like C-FFT, Inspector, and Voxengo SPAN (but these don't really compare to the SAW Freq Analyzer) which do real-time analysis which is what you want when trying to identify what you need to change on a particular instrument in a mix, e.g., snare. Also, check out Hitsquad's spectrum analyzers (http://www.hitsquad.com/smm/cat/SPECTRUM_ANALYZERS/) for some free/shareware analyzers (and lots of other useful audio stuff).

But get the SAW FA if you can.

Jay

[andykern]

The kick, snare and tom mics are louder on the first example.
Andy