Mixing drums can be an overwhelming task. Getting them to sound punchy and exciting but warm and wide at the same time is always very challenging. Sonimus plug-ins like Britson, Burnley 73, and Satson CS are great tools to help with this tricky endeavor. 

To show what the combination of these plug-ins can do for your drum sound, we are going to mix a multi-miked drum track and compare the result with the same mix using stock plug-ins in Pro Tools.

Let’s dive in.

Preparing the tracks

The first step of the process was getting the tracks and session ready for mixing. 

When mixing multi-miked drums, it is always interesting to check the phase of all the microphones and the relation to each other. This way we make sure that we get the most out of the sound from recording without losing low end or getting any comb filtering. In this case we went the extra mile and also time aligned all the microphones to get a tight performance. This process finds a reference sound in the recording and adds different delays to the rest of the microphone signals to get all the transients hit at the same time.

For the session we grouped the drums and added a VCA to have more control over the levels and balance of the tracks. Then, we routed all the drum tracks to an Aux (Drum Bus) to sum all the signals together and be able to process them as a whole. We also created two busses, one for the snare and one for the bass drum, to sum the signal of the two microphones used on each drum.

Tip: Inserting tape emulation in your summing Bus can help adding cohesion providing some natural compression to the drum sound.

To add some extra flavour and get the feeling of the drums being recorded in a bigger space, we added some room emulation in an aux track and sent the snare and the overheads to it. We chose not to send the bass drum to the reverb since it can result in a less focus sound — but don’t hesitate to experiment with it in your own mixes.

Analog Console Emulation

Starting our mix we added Britson as our first insert on each track emulating the process of mixing in an analog console. This plugin allowed us to filter and properly gain stage our tracks in case some of them were recorded too hot. It is also great to add warmth and get a 3 dimensional sound out of each track thanks to its saturation and crosstalk. To continue with the analog emulation workflow we also added Britson Bus to our drum bus just like we were routing the signal to a group in an analog console.

Pro Tools offers its Harmonically Enhanced Algorithm Technology (aka HEAT) for its subscribers. Unfortunately this feature couldn’t be used for this demonstration. That’s why no analog console emulation was added to the stock plug-ins mix other than tape saturation using the Stock Lo-Fi plugin in the first insert of the drum bus.

EQ

For EQing the tracks we used Burnley 73. We focused on filtering each track to different degrees to remove rumble and focus the sound of each element of the drums. For example, the snare bottom microphone was filtered up to 300 Hz to clean the sound from the low end of the bass drum, providing more clarity for the snares.

Cutting some 360 Hz with the Mid Band on the Overheads helped us remove some of the boxiness of the overall drums, helping to achieve a rounder and punchier sound.

The Sub-kick signal was processed to remove most of its high and mid frequency information. On the other hand, the low band was pushed at 60 Hz, helping to support the body and sustain of the bass drum. 

In this recording we also had a heavily compressed Drum mic to add character and sustain to the performance. Since it was adding a lot of rumble, we wanted to clean the signal without losing the punch and drive that this microphone provided. For this we filtered at 160 Hz and tamed 220 Hz using Burnley’s low band.

For the Stock Mix we used the Pro Tools’ EQ7 equalizer, matching the EQ curves obtained with Burnley 73 as much as possible.

Compression

To get a tighter and punchier sound, compression was applied in the bass drum and snare busses, overhead track and drum bus. 

For the kick and the snare we used TuCo in compress-slow attack mode to retain their attack, and at the same time make the transients more consistent. By applying a medium to slow release we made sure that the sustain of both drums was under control. In the case of the snare drum the signal was slightly over-compressed and the mix knob dialed back to create some parallel compression. Since there is no Mix capabilities in Pro Tools stock compressor, we dialed a compression setting that was giving an equivalent sounding effect. 

For the overhead track we used Satson CS instead. We kept the gain staging and compressor modules and removed the EQ. We set the compressor at 10:1 ration, fast attack and medium release to control the dynamics of the overall drum transients and cymbals.

Finally, on the Drum bus we also used Satson CS. In a similar way, we removed the EQ module but instead, the compressor was set to a 2:1 ratio, slow attack and Auto release. The Amount was increased until the needle in the meter started showing a couple of dB of gain reduction. This just added enough glue to the drums to make all the tracks sound together. We also took advantage of the oversampling capabilities of the plug-in and filtered the sound above 20 kHz to avoid any artifact caused by aliasing.

Face Off

Now It is time to listen and compare both mixes:

Although the Stock mix sounded good and could work well in a mix, it feels a bit mid-rangy and even harsh at times. The Sonimus mix on the other hand felt rounder and with more depth and detail which would provide more weight to the rhythmic section of a song. 

What do you think? Can you hear the difference? Which one is your favourite? Let us know in the comments and tell us how you use Sonimus plug-ins when mixing drums.