Old 05-12-2022, 09:36 AM   #1
ringing phone
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Default Mixing drums/ ezdrummer

Hi, I'm trying to work out why I suck at mixing in general and mixing ezdrummer drums in particular. I notice that all my songs have these large spikes in the waveform on the snare. The body of the track is narrow. Overall RMS say around -14lufs so the volume is fine. But the mix is bad.

In ezdrummer all the sound seems to be in the overheads. I can mix ezdrummer down to audio...and turning the snare channel fader down virtually does nothing to the sound or volume of the snare in the drum bus. Ditto with the kick. I've spent years putting plugins on snare channels and kick channels thinking I'm doing something. But I'm doing nothing because ALL the sound of the snares and kicks are in the Overheads.

So I end up with very spikey waveforms. I'm not saying that's a crime...but I think it's not optimum. I compare to pro songs and their waveforms are cohesive, unified and nicely uniform. Mine look like a barbershop comb.

I need to get a drum bus that does not have these outrageous peaks...and mixing ezdrummer stuff ALL the sound seems to be in the overheads...so it's hard to go in there and "compress the snare"...when the snare in in the OH track with the cymbals, the kick, the hihat...all the kit is in there. I could try to use multiband but I think this will end in a vortext of poo.

I can't afford to keep putting hours and hours into writing songs, arranging drum tracks etc only to have these outrageous snare and or kick peaks in the mixdown. These insane peaks mean that any mixbus compression I use to try to "gel" or "glue" the track is doing nothing because all it's reacting to are the snare peaks.

Does anyone else find this is ezdrummer? I've never mixed real drums, so I don't know if it's normal.

The ezdrummer drum mixes sound great...but the snare peak madly. If I try to compress the drums I lose the tone.

I have no idea what I'm doing. But I AM doing it wrong.

Any experience with this?

Pic attached shows a song mixdown.

Thanks
Attached Images
File Type: jpg Peaks (3).jpg (107.9 KB, 116 views)
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Old 05-12-2022, 10:25 AM   #2
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I think you have answered you own question. The problem is the Overheads. So work on them. Either turn them down as far as possible or compress the OH Channel separately. Make the snare step back in the OH channel and push it a bit in the direct snare channel. Do the same with the kick when necessary. This should even things out.
The Overheads do not have to sound even and nice on their own. Some mixers do not even use the Overheads. Always depending on the genre and the drum sound you are after.

Hope that helps.
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Old 05-12-2022, 05:06 PM   #3
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That helps yes, thanks.

I suppose it's relative to how drums are recorded for real...but is this common to actual drum recordings? I mean, in the case of ezDrummer why bother even having a snare channel or a kick channel when no amount of shaping/ plugins are going to do anything to control/ tame or shape the sound? As I said...the absolute bulk of the snare and kick seem to be in the ezDrummer overheads.

The ezDrummer mix sounds great...but the spikes/ peaks of the snare and or kick in a stereo mixdown are out of control.
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Old 05-13-2022, 02:27 AM   #4
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Are you breaking the MIDI out into channels, or just taking it from the mains? When EZ sets up as a new instrument, go into the EZ mixer and change the MIDI channel for each "mic." Reaper will pick that up on each track and you should be able to treat it on its own.

Also, why you suck at mixing in general...

Get into the forum history for a thread called "Why Do Your Recordings Sound Like Ass." It is epic, and educational. If you don't walk away with it with at least three new tools in your box, read it again.
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Old 05-13-2022, 09:27 AM   #5
ringing phone
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jerome_oneil View Post
Are you breaking the MIDI out into channels, or just taking it from the mains? When EZ sets up as a new instrument, go into the EZ mixer and change the MIDI channel for each "mic." Reaper will pick that up on each track and you should be able to treat it on its own.

Also, why you suck at mixing in general...

Get into the forum history for a thread called "Why Do Your Recordings Sound Like Ass." It is epic, and educational. If you don't walk away with it with at least three new tools in your box, read it again.
Yeah I break out EZD into multitracks and convert to audio once I have the midi set how I want it.

As for that thread...I have it in printed PDF form. A great thread. I even posted in it way back in the day. I'm just getting back into music recently and never was much of a mixer to begin with.
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Old 06-22-2022, 09:11 PM   #6
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Dan Worral on his youtube channel said that to get a beginner in the ballpark for mixing...it's not a bad idea to start with drums and have the short term LUFS of the drum bus about -23.

So, as a noob mixer I do this but notice that while I've set the drum mix level so that the short term LUFS is -23...the peaks are almost up to 0 on the digital scale.

I thought in mixing we want to give ourselves headroom...so since drums are so dynamic with lots of transients...how do we get a decent short term LUFS of around -23...but stop the transients spiking up to nearly 0?

Thanks
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Old 06-23-2022, 02:12 AM   #7
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ringing phone View Post
Dan Worral on his youtube channel said that to get a beginner in the ballpark for mixing...it's not a bad idea to start with drums and have the short term LUFS of the drum bus about -23.

So, as a noob mixer I do this but notice that while I've set the drum mix level so that the short term LUFS is -23...the peaks are almost up to 0 on the digital scale.

I thought in mixing we want to give ourselves headroom...so since drums are so dynamic with lots of transients...how do we get a decent short term LUFS of around -23...but stop the transients spiking up to nearly 0?

Thanks
Maybe compression? 😀
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Old 06-23-2022, 04:06 AM   #8
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Quote:
I thought in mixing we want to give ourselves headroom...so since drums are so dynamic with lots of transients...how do we get a decent short term LUFS of around -23...but stop the transients spiking up to nearly 0?
Hey- well if you want more rms/lufs overall 1 need learn the fine art of crushing/smashing and re_levelling.
When you actually compare a real drum kit playing next to a human voice for eg..a human voice can also be very dynamic with short,loud transients.
A drummer can play quietly..as a human can modulate the vocal level the same way.
Turn 1 down,the other,up,to achieve balance?
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