Eq'ing Drums

[Brother_Budro]

Alright so i'm a student in college and i use cooledit to record with

a year or so ago me and my friends recorded most of an ep (drums, bass, and guitar)

then we forgot about it

so now i'm trying to put it all back together and get it to sound as good as we can

i'm trying to eq the drums and i cna't get them quite right

I used some of the cool edit presets

i bossted the bass and it sounded good but then when i put it with the rest of the band you couldn't hear the symbols and most of the drums (except the snare)

any tips to make the drums sound more professional?

louder and still sit well in the mix?

thanks guys

 

Edit: i ment to say that all the drums were recorded on one track

so i can't seperate the drums and eq and mix them seperatly

[Jesse G]

 

Edit: i ment to say that all the drums were recorded on one track so i can't seperate the drums and eq and mix them seperatly

 

 

It's probably a lost cause, TBO.

[Majoria]

Yeah, all the drums on one track is about a lost cause.

 

Best way to do this is to mix the drums when listening to everything. All tracks will sound a bit wrong when solo'd as compared to how they fit into the mix. Frequent things for EQ include adding some at around 3-4 kHz, cutting around 300 Hz, maybe adding some around 6-10 kHz with a wider Q. Also may want to cut some around 90-120 Hz to separate the kick from the toms, maybe high pass everything around 40-60 Hz.

[Hulston Prickle]

I've dealt with this before, and while your efforts won't sound pro, here's a couple tips.

 

The most obvious is to put all the tracks up then sweep the eq points with a few dBs booted until you locate the key frequencies, then boost or cut to fit with the rest of the instruments.

 

If that fails I've had good results doing a wide open Q scoop on one track drums with the frequency set at the same presence point of the guitar. I scoop just a few decibels to clean up the mid range of the entire mix and give the guitar and bass room to breathe. I then boost the drum volume a little to make up for the cut if I need it, and boost a little anywhere from 9k to 15k for a little more "splash" and "sheen" to the cymbals.

[Phil O'Keefe]

It's going to be harder to EQ and compress them - and nearly impossible to balance them (in terms of the relative levels of the individual elements of the kit), but that doesn't mean it's always impossible to improve things.

 

I'd use a parallel compressor (so you have the compressor set up on an aux return and not "inline" on the main drum track), and for EQ, I'd try some broad and gentle EQ to shape the overall sound. You can also try some narrow EQ to fix any problem areas...

 

Try a slight cut in the 200-400 Hz range to reduce boxiness and mud. A bit of a boost in the 3-5 kHz range might help with note attacks. A shelving EQ at 8-10 kHz might help with the cymbals. A narrower peak in the 80 Hz region can help with the kick drum, and a high pass filter below say, 30-40 Hz can reduce room rumble.

 

Remember to EQ "in context" (while listening to how it sits in the mix, and not while the drums are soloed) so you hear how it's working with everything else as you make your adjustments...

[WRGKMC]

You may be dealing with several issues. I got pretty good at mixing drums this way. I did a lot of recording, like 10 years worth, running the drums through a mixer then recording to a stereo track then mixing in the box from there. of courde that stereo mix was very good and it consisted of 8 separate mics and finely tweaked mixer before recording but heres a few items that may help.

 

 

Step one - would be to remove noise and clean it up a bit with an EQ.

an Audio analizer plugin like span may help to even up weak frequency bands. You jaut want to even them up not crank frequencies that dont exist. i personally like Harbal for this but any decent EQ should work.

 

 

Step 2 would be to download a Multiband Compressor someplace like KVR. Use the multiband to beef up the frequencies that should be there paying attention to kick, Snare and cymbals. If you can get those sounding fairly realistic and not all washed out thats the best you can hope for. Tweak it for the most realistic sounding set possible, but dont worry too much how it sounds in the mix yet.

 

Step 3, put a limiter on it to crank the voltage up a bit. The sound can crack but dont overdo it. use less rather than more especially if you add limiting as a last step before burning a CD of the stereo mixdown. You can also add a littel hall or plate reverb to get the drums to spread out a littel. theres some other tricks like psuedo stereo where you use two comb filters to create a stereo illusion on drums, but having them mono in the mix isnt that bad either.

 

Step 4, MONO all other instruments and adjust them to fit with the drums. You may be able to get them sounding better than the drums but you will need to learn how to sacrifice some of the other instruments sound quality for the sake of the overall mix. after you get a good decent mono mix, then you can pan them out for a wider stereo mix.

 

Lastly you can mix it down and use the same EQ multiband and Limiter again on the whole mix, a combination of one or two, or none at all.

[TerrorStorm]

I have a question in the same vein... All I've got to record with is an Mbox2, which you all know has limited inputs. So I bought a mixer to run the drums through before going into the box. Will I end up with the same problem, with the drums being on just one track?

[WRGKMC]

If the Mbox is a stereo input you can mix in stereo, if the mixer has a stereo output. The thing you have going for you is you can mix the drums for a decent sound quality before they are recorded and fine tune them a littel more after they are recorded. I recorded drums live through a mixer for many years and got great results. Its also how it was done in the earley days before miltitracking so its a technique everyone should learn.

 

Just plug in some good isolation headphones, crank the volume on the headphones, then adjust the mics up for a good balance. Record a track and see how they play back and mix with other instruments. You can make small changes for each mic between takes to get the best mix possible. It may very well come out better than some multitrack recordings I've heard.