Mixing Midi Drums: 3 Tips For Gluing Your Drum Mix Together
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 7 พ.ค. 2023
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Don't you hate it when your midi drums sound all over the place and not even remotely close to a unified instrument within your mixes?
It's even more frustrating when mixing midi drums because this issue tends to make drums sound even more artificial and fake than they did before mixing them in the first place!
Certain drums are either too loud or not loud enough and no matter what mixing hack you try...you always end up back at square one. Believe me, I know the struggle.
In this simple and straight-to-the-point tutorial, I reveal the top 3 (unexpected) mixing techniques that I use to glue my midi drums together in a natural-sounding way.
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Pros: print their midi drums to audio so that they aren’t tempted into going back and tweaking the sound endlessly
Also pros: reamp their guitars so that they can go back and tweak the sound endlessly
Which is true also because:
Pros: This must be finished today, otherwise I'm out of budget and I'll do the rest for free and deliver it with a delay :D
@@ChristianIceYou know, sometimes I wonder whether tight deadlines
a) help artists/producers learn to work more efficiently or
b) suppress their overall creativity
Bobby, your content is always great. These tips will help me 2 fold. I am a student of two of your courses and they both have helped me immensely. Keep up the great work and thanks for helping us little guys. 🤘🏻
I used to compress everything, snare, kick and bus, it took me a long time to understand I didn't need to do a lot. Cool video!
This is so true!!!! I never use compression or EQ on midi drums. I figured out the room mic technique a year ago and increasing the volume on the room mics make the drums sound so much bigger!
Great tips as always! Saturation and roommics are the biggest help in blending the drums into a whole unit. "really makes the room come together"
Dude, thanks for this! I've been struggling with a demo mix for the past year and after watching this I removed all of the SSL plugins I had on my midi drum channels (but kept it on the snare and a Pultec eq on the kick), and deleted my parallel compression channel, and it clarified my mix big time! Everything sounds clear and sits perfectly now!
Great video Bobby Totally agree with printing drum midi tracks to audio - the only way to go. I follow the same principle for guitar tracks by committing amp sims to the track. Only way to go - no more endless tweaking and can get back to mixing the song.
This channel must be the must transoarent out there. Loving it!
😊
That Melody the guitar is playing is awesome! The choice of Notes is spectacular!
Somethimes I wished I could subscribe a second time - your channel is a goldmine! As for "real dry drumsoftware samples": I am willing to say that BFG3 is the real deal when it comes to unprocessed drums: turn off any FX and it sounds like the drum kit in your basement :) It was my first drumsoftware and I tend to say it helped me a lot to learn about real drums. But at the time it was also a pain in the a** because I just sucked :)
Damn, how did you get so educated on this? I’m totally blown away with your skills!
Spot on!!! These tips helped me 10 fold
I love your videos, Bobby! 🤘Most of you guys probably already have it - but if you don´t, you really should get his "Crisp & Clear Heavy Mix Formula". My mixes are still far away from how I wish they would sound but this really helped me a lot on getting one big step closer to my goal.
I just found this video after several searches for this exact topic. I've made every mistake you talked about. I use the free version of Steve Slate drums, which is incredible. So many ways to tweak the kits That it gets mine boggling. Using the rings makes perfect sense. And sense I have Waves ultimate subscription, I have Kramer tape so I can follow along. Thanks for the tips. You're awesome
I tried the Melda Production Saturator on my drums for a while, but for the time being, I find the stock Logic Pro VCA compressor with distortion on “Soft” does the job better. So I’ve technically reverted to compression on the drum bus, even though the main feature I’m using here is the distortion.
Great stuff as always. I’d like to see more content on high frequency management. 🤘🏻
Great tips Bobby. Room mics are a great way to add realism to the midi tracks, they often work better than reverb
I'm using logic pro and ggd. I didnt even know that was something you can do and I honestly don't know how to do it
Pure gold always bro ty bobby!
Great video and tips! Question tho, do you start of with a preset and change it to your liking or do you start of with the Original Mix or Basic preset, print all stems and then process them? And did you ever work with Superior Drummer? Although they are almost always recorded through and desk and outboard gear, they're as raw as they get right?
Fuckin money!!! Crazy cuz I’ve been triggering and running drum samples for years. Now I’m doing my own thing and for some stupid reason this has been kicking my ass! Bring on tape saturation! Thank you!
Thank you sm! This is what i wanted to see
new subscriber many thanks for confirming that pro tools is very good. I will follow your advice now. See you soon Tony from Paris
I have Ezdrummer and superior drummer every time I try to mix I end up butchering the mix and hate the results, I tried using the mix settings in Ezdrummer but the kick and snare don't sound that great to my ears as they are and I feel like i need to EQ them a bit , I guess it's just more practice , I'll try these tips out thanks!
I do pretty much what you said here. I also separate the shells from the metals on the kit as one thing that ALWAYS sounds janky is the hi-hat and cymbals! I find I need to work on those separately otherwise they stand out a mile in my mix and no amount of eq-ing fixes it. One thing I hear others doing is burying the cymbals in the mix so you can just about hear them, and I think thats a concerted effort to make them sound less janky
I do compress my shells but try to avoid that on the rest of the kit, including the ambient mics. you can make a snare pop nicely in the mix by having decently processed overheads and room mics. I tend to not like midi drums in recordings however because I'm constantly fighting the metals to make them "fit" and this is the one biggest complaints I have with midi kits. I have had better results since moving over to Ugritone drums as they are really simplified and I find that works better for me than Toontrack's products. GGD is ok sound wise and needs very little doing to the samples to get a good sound, but unless you have the full version of Kontakt, prepare for a world of hurt with it crashing randomly! I just wont spend £500 on buying it for one job when I can pay a drummer on Fiverr to record proper drums in a studio for the same price.
Thanks Bobby 💥
So yeah was struggling with my drum track last night and had turned way down the room mics....duh
But about adding rooms in the plugin itself, I sometimes lose sight of. Thanks!
Question about EZDrummer and Printing the MIDI to audio. Do you do any Volume Leveling in EZD before printing them or do you leave them at their default levels and do everything after printing?
Thanks.
Thanks!!
Are you using the "Original Mix" when using EZD or are you using any of the other custom settings?
Is using an ambient/room convolution reverb a good alternative to the built in room mics on the drum software? Or do you think there is a noticable difference in the realism and space?
If you have the actual room samples, use those.
If you want to simulate a bigger room, use the delay trick shown in the video, and if that's not enough put the FX on the room samples rather than the close mic ones.
Rookie mistakes I find most commons are:
- Too high velocities, expecially on fast parts. Drummers cannot play kickdrums at a fast speed with 127 ( or even over 100) velocity on every hit :D
- Quantized drum hits and too constant of velocities. Drummers are humans, not robots.
- Overhead and cymbals too low in volume. This sounds immediatly fake because a real drum with all the spills can't have the cymbals too low, and in reality that kind of separation is impossible to achieve.
As for the compression on the room sound, i respectfully disagree.
The compressed room is a trick to make the drum breathe, regardless if it's midi or acoustic.
The point is having a different dynamic range that crosses with the close mics, filling the air when the drum is slower and be tamed when the drum is fast. It doesn't just add to it.
Cool video anyway, nice of you to share!
I just realized I've been making a mistake without knowing it. When I print my midi drums to separate audio tracks, I never turn off the effects I have in the MIDI drum track I had been using to make them a bit louder just for tracking. When I start programming a drum part, it's a little quiet, especially when I track the other instruments on top of it. I don't print to media until all the parts are recorded, for some reason. From now on, I'll print the MIDI drums immediately, but first I'll bypass the effect on my MIDI track, and I think that may yield something a little closer to what you're talking about.
How did you solve the drums being so weak
@@alexanarchy1442 not sure i can give the best answer, cus I'm still not quite certain I'm doing things in the "best" way. I do get meticulous with the velocities on each part and section, it almost never pays to have the velocities maxed out. I'm still experimenting with basic effects chains, and i try something different every time. I generally start with a compressor, minimal EQ, distortion, reverb, maybe a limiter. I just try not to overdo it on any of these effects, because those drum samples are already processed, as Mr. Torres always reminds us.
Again, I'm not the best giver of advice on this, I'm still very much figuring it out myself haha but i have developed a procedure that gets me results I'm okay with for now.
Thanks for the helpful video, Bobby. I have a question, though.
How do you not get phase issues when high passing the room track?
I love EZDrummer, I've been using it in all of my songs so far. I've been using the room track from the start but I always got phase issues when low cutting the kick and the room tracks. I can feel how the kick doesn't hit me in the stomach as hard when I enable the room track and how it comes back when I mute the room.
I didn't understand what was going on for a long time until I learnt that something like phase exists and there can be issues with it. Now I always get rid of the native EZDrummer room track as one of the first things when preparing a drum track for a new song. I guess if I would start using a new drum lib with the knowledge I have today, I would play around with the phase flip feature or with the filter slope or frequency before getting rid of the room track. But it's not really fun to fight with issues like that and it keeps me from making quick and creative decisions.
I'm really starting to wonder if that's only me. I see a lot of similar drum tutorials but the issue is never adressed.
My way around the issue now is, I process my individual drums first, then I route them to a virtual room. If I still think the drums need a low cut, I cut on the drum bus.
I have a feeling that what you're hearing has nothing to do with phase...especially if you're mixing EZdrummer. These drums were recorded immaculately at the source and there's very little you have to do to them.
High-passing the rooms. (even with a steep filter) should not produce any noticeable phase artifacts, most of that is info way overblown on the internet. I have a feeling what you're hearing is simply less low-end which is making you think that you have a phase issue.
@@FrightboxRecording Thanks for your reply, Bobby! I will definitely give the room tracks another try some time soon.
I have a question. I’m using EZDrummer 3 & the Metal Machine kit. When you export the individual drum tracks & then import the audio files into your DAW (I’m using Logic), do the tracks retain the panning for each drum & file that is set up in the EZDrummer mixer? Or do you have to pan each drum channel in your DAW so it’s correct for the kit? Or can you leave each track set on center pan?
I export all of the individual drums as mono files and then pan them in my DAW. I don't use the Toontrack mixer at all.
I have to figure out how to access room mics on Logics drum kits.
I wish drum plugins would have real 100% raw samples that don't sound too good. Many complains about drum plugins they don't sound good enough. The truth is the opposite. They use too high velocity and set and forget. It's their knowledge that's lacking and like you said and so many before: you can't treat them the same as real live drums.
Check out Glenn frickers extinction level drums. Uses the Kontakt player but you can turn all processing off. There is realistic bleed on all the drums and you have to gate them and mix them like real drums. I'm digging them so far.
Ugritone drums. Very unprocessed and pretty affordable.
EZdrummer has a preset without processing in each drumkit
@@HonoraryBreathTaker All Toontracks drums are at least lite processed. They claim they're raw but the aren't.
@@zomielastaroth4956 I agree...I've yet to come across drum software that utilizes 100% raw samples. If it exists, I haven't come across it yet.
Before printing your midi drums, do you individually adjust velocities?
Yes sir!
Is tip 3, printing to audiotracks, just for workflow (and cpu I guess) benefits, or does it affect the audio directly? Like would a plugin like the tape-saturatior sound differently used on midi- vs audio tracks?
Not really, it's all about cpu usage
It does affect audio in a way. Every time you play your DAW with the drum software "live" on a track, it's pulling form random samples to sound more natural. This means your mix is slightly different every time it's played back...which isn't great in my opinion. Printing your drums down allows you to mix just as if you were mixing live drums.
@@FrightboxRecording Ah, I didn't know that - makes sense! Thank you for replying, and another great video!
So when you mix them down do you bypass all of their EQ and compression settings?
Correct!
I've started leaving a small amount of tom bleed in the prints from SD3. Seems to add that little bit of life to what can otherwise be a dull/sterile sound.
Great vid as usual 🤘🤘
Ha, I also use Kramer tape on drums.
-I didn't really like the bass drum sample in this 😬 It sounded "too" natural, as in a raw recording from a basic kit. In metal such acoustic sample doesn't work. Has too be more fatter, punchier, snappier.
-I don't think the drums sounded particularly fake before the room mics, they just sounded super dry. With the room mics they become more alive. The main fake thing in these drums is the kick, which sounds like a one-shot sample, too unified.
-I thought u were talking about the drum track EQ at 3:50 and I was gonna comment that it's quite drastic to lowcut 130Hz and highcut 5kHz! 😱 But upon 2nd skimmage, I realized u were actually referring to the room mic EQ only 🔎
Thank you for the tips Bobby!
Unrelated question but how would you go about producing/mixing a song like this th-cam.com/video/LTg91rKUHXA/w-d-xo.html ? Very washed out but it still sounds good. Also I highly recommend the rest of his music.
I’m sorry are we supposed to care about midi drums and simply IGNORE THE NEW LONG HAIR?
I feel clickbaited. This video is clearly about the hair.
🤣
@@FrightboxRecording I guess that makes this a…hair metal channel?
*crickets*
Thanks!