Old 06-03-2020, 05:37 PM   #1
thejericho13
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Default Drum Mixing Advice

Hey everyone! Not sure if I'm in the right place for this question, so feel free to redirect me if I'm not, but I have a question about mixing drums.

My drummer can be a hard-hitter, and even though we have his recording setup and gain structure pretty nicely dialed in and levels are all even and clean, I've noticed I'm having an occasional issue with his snare.

It's not every hit, but there are times where - From what I can gather and guess - He's hitting the snare a little harder or in a slightly different spot, and it causes what sounds like clipping.

The wav peaks don't actually clip, they all look fairly even. But if you zoom in on them you can see that they are wider/thicker than the rest of the hits. I've got his kit EQ'd and mixed just where I want it, but these random snare hits that pop up in songs are a pain and I don't want to undo all the mixing work I've done on them and lose the tone just trying to fix these sporadic hits. I've been trying to wrangle them one-by-one by splitting them out from the track and adjusting the take volume, and I've tried compressing the hell out of them but it just makes the rest of the snare track lose a lot of pop and punch.

I've attached a screenshot of the snare track from a song I'm currently mixing and highlighted the hits that are causing the issue.

Any advice on this? Would love to get some feedback from you all!
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File Type: jpg Drum-Wav.jpg (17.0 KB, 181 views)
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Old 06-03-2020, 11:01 PM   #2
martmix
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Quote:
Originally Posted by thejericho13 View Post
Hey everyone! Not sure if I'm in the right place for this question, so feel free to redirect me if I'm not, but I have a question about mixing drums.

My drummer can be a hard-hitter, and even though we have his recording setup and gain structure pretty nicely dialed in and levels are all even and clean, I've noticed I'm having an occasional issue with his snare.

It's not every hit, but there are times where - From what I can gather and guess - He's hitting the snare a little harder or in a slightly different spot, and it causes what sounds like clipping.

The wav peaks don't actually clip, they all look fairly even. But if you zoom in on them you can see that they are wider/thicker than the rest of the hits. I've got his kit EQ'd and mixed just where I want it, but these random snare hits that pop up in songs are a pain and I don't want to undo all the mixing work I've done on them and lose the tone just trying to fix these sporadic hits. I've been trying to wrangle them one-by-one by splitting them out from the track and adjusting the take volume, and I've tried compressing the hell out of them but it just makes the rest of the snare track lose a lot of pop and punch.

I've attached a screenshot of the snare track from a song I'm currently mixing and highlighted the hits that are causing the issue.

Any advice on this? Would love to get some feedback from you all!


hello jericho

alot of works but you can replace those hit,by the right one..on the item



cheer
martin
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Old 06-04-2020, 02:21 AM   #3
Allybye
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There is not a lot of resolution given the time scale covefed by the graphic.
Could you zoom in to single 'good' and 'bad' hits at all to see more detail?

From the waveform presented there is not a significant difference in amplitude when in digital form.

Obviously your ears tell us there is an unwanted difference. Could it be that the (analogue) level early in the recording chain is so high that you are running into a saturation type of distortion prior to clipping, perhaps some inability of the mic or preamps to cope with the a very high level of the higher frequencies.

Holding back the gain in the early gain stages might help alleviate. Or if it is the mic a slightly further distance to the snare (or adding in an attenuator if there is one on the mic).
The level balance can be made up again in the mix relative to the rest of the drums.

Assumption here is that the snare hits actually do not sound like you hear!

Perhaps posting a high quality ( .wav file or similar) link to the audio snare track might help posters to hear the difference too, just as a suggestion.....

....or ^^^ the hard work suggested above to use existing tracks!
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Old 06-04-2020, 02:26 AM   #4
Judders
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Could be that he's overloading the microphone.

Like martmix said, you can replace those bad hits with better sounding ones. Good ol' cut n' paste!
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Old 06-04-2020, 08:44 AM   #5
thejericho13
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Thank you, guys!

Allybye - I'm attaching a link to a short sample from the song: Right around the 8-second mark is what is sticking out to me. Let me know if I'm just nuts or if you can pick out that clipping-like tone that comes through:

https://soundcloud.com/user-65723032.../s-IE95uMSYrTF

If I have to cut and paste some of the clean hits over these spots, it's not the end of the world, it doesn't happen too often in the songs so I can just pour an extra cup of coffee and do that haha.

Also going to talk to him about the mic setup and gain structuring, see if there is any issue there as well.
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Old 06-04-2020, 08:55 AM   #6
martmix
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Quote:
Originally Posted by thejericho13 View Post
Thank you, guys!

Allybye - I'm attaching a link to a short sample from the song: Right around the 8-second mark is what is sticking out to me. Let me know if I'm just nuts or if you can pick out that clipping-like tone that comes through:

https://soundcloud.com/user-65723032.../s-IE95uMSYrTF

If I have to cut and paste some of the clean hits over these spots, it's not the end of the world, it doesn't happen too often in the songs so I can just pour an extra cup of coffee and do that haha.

Also going to talk to him about the mic setup and gain structuring, see if there is any issue there as well.
is it possible for you to post just the snare-audio,so we can hear really the sound..
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Old 06-04-2020, 09:09 AM   #7
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With the low resolution image you provided, there does not seem to be any clipping. The level is about the same as the other hits. I think there's a flam (double hit). It can be seen in the waveform too: two close peaks. This could account for the difference in timbre.

As someone else said, there could be saturation going on before the signal hits the converters- that is, at the mic/pre level. Does your mic have a -10dB pad? If so, try to engage it and add a corrresponding gain in your audio card. If the mic is a rugged dynamic without a pad (like a 57), I'd guess the saturation is either in the pre or just not there.
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