The tip at the end of the video IS priceless and highlights the concept of mixing as a whole. I never thought of balancing the room mics AGAINST the whole mix and not only to the rest of the kit. Gamechanger
CLA on the other hand boosts the top and low end on the room mics, saw it on one of his recent videos... Its a matter of taste and the style of music and the material i guess.
I *needed* this. I just haven't gotten my drums quite where I wanted them. If I brought up the room, it was getting too boomy - so I backed them off. Adding those eq cuts - then bringing the room up - helped a lot. Thank you.
Can we all just take a second to acknowledge how good these drum recordings are. I was working on a track recently where I wasn’t as blessed with quality and let me tell you it was so much harder to balance the room and kit mics 😂
Great tips and insights! Recording and mixing live drums is one of the hardest things to do well in engineering. The way you laid it out with your line of thinking is perfect
Great insights! Also love that you explained what‘s behind your eq moves & compression settings! Makes so much sense!! Excited to hear more content of you!
This was really helpful, thank you so much! I didn't have earlier basically any guideline or idea how to mix the room, but after testing tips from this video to my recent project, difference was massive.
Totally agree with you. Doing a lot of mixing in this period, the exact same conclusions come to mind especially for room and verbs volume relative to the all mix. Thank you!
Thanks for the clear tutorial. As a note, I have been having good luck Starting with the room mics and adding in the close drum mics. (just a thing to try...)
The only thing I didn’t already do on my rooms was the low pass filter. Not a bad idea. A low shelf could work too. I also time my release on my room comps to be a bit faster than the temp of the song’s fastest beat. So usually a 16th or 32nd note.
Thanks so much!!!. Really a great video. Step by step. Everything very well explained. I was asking myself if my rooms was the problem in my drums (especially the very low volume) 🥁Now I know that the answer is "yes". And how to fixed. Very good tips from the beginning to the end. Thanks again. Best from Spain.👍👌
The tricks with the EQ and compressor are excellent, and you can even take them a step further by applying it in combination with transient and sustain processing, such as the transient/sustain matrix in iZotope's Ozone 11 EQ. For example, you can use the EQ trick, targeting around 160Hz with Ozone 11's EQ, and reduce only the transients in that specific frequency range. You can also apply the high-cut filter trick to cut more of the transients rather than the sustain. Or, with the iZotope's Ozone 11 compressor, you can compress only the sustain while leaving the transients untouched.
Another useful way to deal with the high end but preserve character is to de-ess your rooms if you have a strong, customizable de-esser, like fab filter. 👌
Niiiiiiice !!!!!! In the mix cheatsheet there's a boost recommanded on room mics between 5k and 8k, so quite the opposite of what you're doing here. Is this decision relative to the size of the room ?
Great stuff! I really love the sound of drumrooms, and it seems to me that all "protips" are to have them low in the mix. So as a noob it's good to get some kind of validation to push them way up👊🏻👊🏻👊🏻
Always thought of the rooms (and overheads, to some degree) as the tracks that will create your drum "density" in the mix. How much sonic space they take. So I took to basically working with those tracks first and getting the "size" of the drums right and then working the directs in to get better readability and closeness.
Overall a pretty damn good video. I find your advice on low passing room mic quite dangerous. It actually depends on your room and the music style. Quite often I do exactly the opposite even high passing as high as 500 Hz !
Try to send them to a reverb bus with a room/chamber/plate verb and see if some of the same things apply! The only problem is, the signal will not have any extra details to pull out, like a real room mic Many drum programs include a room mic channel, I'm sure these things are already done to it, cleaned up
Most (if not all) good libraries have room mics at this point. If not, you can fake a room. Reverb is a way to do it, but there are some other things like UAD Sound City Studios you can try out.
I find that I lose so much definition in the snare and kick because of the fase. This makes me just cut the low-end making your great tip to shave of the high's not worth it anymore. There is nothing left.
Grab your free Mixing Cheatsheet to learn the go-to starting points for EQ and compression in heavy mixes: hardcoremusicstudio.com/mixcheatsheet
The tip at the end of the video IS priceless and highlights the concept of mixing as a whole. I never thought of balancing the room mics AGAINST the whole mix and not only to the rest of the kit.
Gamechanger
shaving the top end off was definitely an "aha" moment for me! thanks!
CLA on the other hand boosts the top and low end on the room mics, saw it on one of his recent videos... Its a matter of taste and the style of music and the material i guess.
I *needed* this. I just haven't gotten my drums quite where I wanted them. If I brought up the room, it was getting too boomy - so I backed them off. Adding those eq cuts - then bringing the room up - helped a lot.
Thank you.
Can we all just take a second to acknowledge how good these drum recordings are. I was working on a track recently where I wasn’t as blessed with quality and let me tell you it was so much harder to balance the room and kit mics 😂
Really great video and video and audio quality. It really lets Roelof's talent as a tutor, as well as a mixer come through. thank you!
Great tips and insights! Recording and mixing live drums is one of the hardest things to do well in engineering. The way you laid it out with your line of thinking is perfect
Great insights! Also love that you explained what‘s behind your eq moves & compression settings! Makes so much sense!! Excited to hear more content of you!
One of the most useful and practical videos I've seen on getting the best out of drum room mics. Thank you!
Excellent job explaining how high end brings things forward... and vice versa. Great content, thank you!
This was really helpful, thank you so much! I didn't have earlier basically any guideline or idea how to mix the room, but after testing tips from this video to my recent project, difference was massive.
Really well explained, Rolly.
Two big tricks the pro's use on room mics but rarely talk about are:
1. Saturation
2. DeEssing (highest frequency setting)
Hell yeah another D.J Roelof vid! 💪
So insightful and efficient explained. I’ve learned a lot from this video.
Totally agree with you. Doing a lot of mixing in this period, the exact same conclusions come to mind especially for room and verbs volume relative to the all mix. Thank you!
Thanks for the clear tutorial. As a note, I have been having good luck Starting with the room mics and adding in the close drum mics. (just a thing to try...)
Great video, Roelof!
What a brilliant insightful video, This is golden knowledge..thanks for sharing
great insight and technique, kudos
Pulsar 1178 is great for rooms. Nice saturation too.
The only thing I didn’t already do on my rooms was the low pass filter. Not a bad idea. A low shelf could work too. I also time my release on my room comps to be a bit faster than the temp of the song’s fastest beat. So usually a 16th or 32nd note.
Great to the point vid on improving mix with room mics thank you!
Thanks for this great video. This is really well explained, really loved the bonus tip !
Removing those ugly low-mids in the room mic really opened up the drum mix! Nice one 🔥
Sage advice as always, Roelof!!
Thanks so much!!!. Really a great video. Step by step. Everything very well explained. I was asking myself if my rooms was the problem in my drums (especially the very low volume) 🥁Now I know that the answer is "yes". And how to fixed. Very good tips from the beginning to the end. Thanks again.
Best from Spain.👍👌
The tricks with the EQ and compressor are excellent, and you can even take them a step further by applying it in combination with transient and sustain processing, such as the transient/sustain matrix in iZotope's Ozone 11 EQ. For example, you can use the EQ trick, targeting around 160Hz with Ozone 11's EQ, and reduce only the transients in that specific frequency range. You can also apply the high-cut filter trick to cut more of the transients rather than the sustain. Or, with the iZotope's Ozone 11 compressor, you can compress only the sustain while leaving the transients untouched.
loved it bro thanks, backward forward concept
Another useful way to deal with the high end but preserve character is to de-ess your rooms if you have a strong, customizable de-esser, like fab filter. 👌
Good tips. Just what i needed.
Great and useful video👍
Niiiiiiice !!!!!! In the mix cheatsheet there's a boost recommanded on room mics between 5k and 8k, so quite the opposite of what you're doing here. Is this decision relative to the size of the room ?
Great video brother
Can you do one on bringing in your overheads?
Roelof!🤟
Awesome tip!
Great stuff! I really love the sound of drumrooms, and it seems to me that all "protips" are to have them low in the mix. So as a noob it's good to get some kind of validation to push them way up👊🏻👊🏻👊🏻
Thank you so much. This is like skipping 10 years of trial and error in the space of a single video.
Always thought of the rooms (and overheads, to some degree) as the tracks that will create your drum "density" in the mix. How much sonic space they take. So I took to basically working with those tracks first and getting the "size" of the drums right and then working the directs in to get better readability and closeness.
What‘s your take on using some saturation or even distortion on room mic. I feel it adds some excitement.
I love that every time I think I've finished a mix, something like this happens. No wonder I can't finish anything 😂
Overall a pretty damn good video. I find your advice on low passing room mic quite dangerous. It actually depends on your room and the music style. Quite often I do exactly the opposite even high passing as high as 500 Hz !
Do you phase align your rooms with overheads? I found the rooms lose their effect when I do that wondering how you feel.
I think doing that completely defeats the purpose of room mics.
I wanted to know why you don't crank up the attack of the compressor to the fastest, since you only want the sustain material from the room mics? :D
The attack on the 1176 is already super quick on 5, so he doesn’t need to go any faster :).
thx
just use a transient designer,boost the sustain!😜
I've always used a HPF to clean up the kick below 100Hz. Is that a bad idea? I kinda use the room mics to focus on the snare, more than anything else.
What tips do you have to get that big spacious drum room sound when using digital drums?
Try to send them to a reverb bus with a room/chamber/plate verb and see if some of the same things apply! The only problem is, the signal will not have any extra details to pull out, like a real room mic
Many drum programs include a room mic channel, I'm sure these things are already done to it, cleaned up
Most (if not all) good libraries have room mics at this point. If not, you can fake a room. Reverb is a way to do it, but there are some other things like UAD Sound City Studios you can try out.
The symbol for mixing in solo is a snake eating it's own tail.
Footloose cover?
without The Lopéz-Filter :D topend gets very busy together with saturation and oversampling you get very harsh highs
I find that I lose so much definition in the snare and kick because of the fase. This makes me just cut the low-end making your great tip to shave of the high's not worth it anymore. There is nothing left.
Why would you want your drums to "compete" ? drums boxing match ? very strange idea. But nice video, very clear demonstration.
What do you mean-process the room mics?? 😅 j
Where's Jordan? has this guy taken over the channel? seems all videos are now this guy.
He sold his channel 😢
Show how you can do EZDrummer if you are such a smart man.
Multi-output your drum kit from ezdrummer and do the eq/compression moves he did in this video on your room track
nah bro where is the other guy ???? let him explain things
It looks like the original channel is hijacked ?????
This was brilliant, what you on about ?
Roelof works with Jordan and is just as talented as Jordan. Show some love.
Jordan I thought this was your channel brother..! Where you at?!
th-cam.com/video/fqhoCBU8JWE/w-d-xo.html