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Originally posted from and thanks to Mario Belter:
How to enhance your drumsounds
One of the best kept secrets that makes your demo sound like a professionally-recorded album is compress a stereo submix of your drums. No matter how great-sounding and "big" you make your drums in your original mix, they can always be improved with compression. The easiest way to do this is with a four or eight bus mixer that has inserts on the groups.
1. Insert a stereo compressor (like the Alesis 3630 or NanoCompressor) into a stereo group.
2. Bus all of your drums down to the stereo group, and assign the group to the L-R master. Depending on how much "punch" you want on the drums, you can vary the compression controls to tailor the drum sound for your application. To get you started, try using between a 2:1 to 8:1 compression Ratio. Set theThreshold to -10dB, set the Attack and Release controls to medium level, then adjust the output as needed.
3. Here's the secret: while the original (non-compressed) tracks are playing back, slowly bring up the level of the group (compressed drums) under the non-compressed drums.
Hear the difference? It's amazing! You'll end up using a combination of the original, "big" drum tracks along with the new compressed signal for your master mix. I never, ever do a project without this trick!
One more small tip on drum recording. Everybody wants a perfect kick drum, so try this: notch-out the 250Hz frequency down by about 5dB. After notching, add some lows around 100Hz (but not too much!), and some top-end around 4-6kHz. Amazing. Works on any kick, any time, for nearly any kind of music.
How to enhance your drumsounds
One of the best kept secrets that makes your demo sound like a professionally-recorded album is compress a stereo submix of your drums. No matter how great-sounding and "big" you make your drums in your original mix, they can always be improved with compression. The easiest way to do this is with a four or eight bus mixer that has inserts on the groups.
1. Insert a stereo compressor (like the Alesis 3630 or NanoCompressor) into a stereo group.
2. Bus all of your drums down to the stereo group, and assign the group to the L-R master. Depending on how much "punch" you want on the drums, you can vary the compression controls to tailor the drum sound for your application. To get you started, try using between a 2:1 to 8:1 compression Ratio. Set theThreshold to -10dB, set the Attack and Release controls to medium level, then adjust the output as needed.
3. Here's the secret: while the original (non-compressed) tracks are playing back, slowly bring up the level of the group (compressed drums) under the non-compressed drums.
Hear the difference? It's amazing! You'll end up using a combination of the original, "big" drum tracks along with the new compressed signal for your master mix. I never, ever do a project without this trick!
One more small tip on drum recording. Everybody wants a perfect kick drum, so try this: notch-out the 250Hz frequency down by about 5dB. After notching, add some lows around 100Hz (but not too much!), and some top-end around 4-6kHz. Amazing. Works on any kick, any time, for nearly any kind of music.
