Mixing drums: tighten things up!
I was stem mastering this UK indie type song, and the drums track was something that I thought needed a whole lot of tightening.
"What you do have in your drum bus?" is something I'm often asked.
Now this video is one good answer, and in case you've missed it, I have another earlier post, "Best plugins for drums" about tools which I do genuinely use and recommend for drum bus.
Let's go thru some really good plugins for mixing drums and tighten up these badboys!
You will hear every plugin on/off and I'll explain why and how I've used them.
Gotta love good plugins and quality processing! 🎚️👌🏻🥰
PS: Check out my Mixing and mastering and also Breaks and Drums stuff collections for much much more in this vein!
Comments (10)
May I ask you about the settings of Pro MB's attack and release for the Low and Mid and High? How about the Ratio and Knee level you will start with? Different settings which will lead to different feelings of the drums. Thank you.
I don’t go for very fixed values, but for attack rarely below 10 ms on compression as it really pinches things and transients. Attack 10ms or longer, release 50-100 ms as starting values. Knee: I just wiggle it and see what works. Ratio 2:1 to 4:1 maybe.
Is there any reason you opt for pro mb instead of another instance of pro q 4 with dynamic bands? Or do you find them interchangeable
It’s a really good question. Both do same things TBH. In a way ProQ may be even more precise. MB has some extra features Q can’t do, but in this regard, very similar.
I remember back in the day when we used Alloy2 to clean them up. Now we have so many tools that sometimes i think it is too much. We always say less is more.
I kinda miss Alloy!
i love these vids man , learnng so mutch! I really like to se more drum videos of like tech house and stuffs or more song breakdown you mix, learning so mutch, thx for everything fanu!
My pleasure, glad you like! Will always do more 😎
Thank you Fanu. Some great things to practice implementing here
Glad you like it Ant! ✌🏻🙂