207: How To Make The Kick Drum Work In Your Mix - Pt. I

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Episode show notes:

You're not mixing kick drums, you're mixing songs. And the kick drum sound has to serve the song. Here's how to get this right in your mix.

We go through our kick drum chains and show you the tools we use, why we use them and how we use them in the context of the mix.

It's not just about EQ moves or compression techniques. It's about how it all works together to create the sound you want for your song.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Everything affects everything, sort of. So the way we might gate the kick drum changes the way we compress it, and the way we compress it changes how we would EQ it, and we want to help you get an understanding for that and not view the individual plugins or parts of the chain as sort of individual things to do. But it all goes together and what you're doing at the end of the day is you're creating a kick drum sound that works in the context of the mix, has the energy you want, serves the song and there's multiple things that you can do to achieve that and they all kind of go together. This is the Self Recording Band Podcast, the show where we help you make exciting records on your own wherever you are DIY style. Let's go.

Speaker 1: 0:45

Hello and welcome to the Self Recording Band Podcast. I am your host, benedict Hein. If you are new to the show, welcome. So glad to have you. If you're already a listener, welcome back. So stoked that you're still with us and joining us for this. What is it? Episode 207, kind of crazy. So thank you for being a loyal listener Today.

Speaker 1: 1:03

We've got something prepared for you that's going to be a two-parter probably, so we're going to be in depth on one specific topic which some of you have appreciated us doing before, and so we do it again. It's about mixing kick drums, or like processing kick drums in a mix. I should say I never like really saying mixing kick drums, because we mix songs right. So we're going to talk about how to process a kick drum in a mix, what we do to make it work, to make the low end work, to make the kick drum work in the context of the music, and this is available on all podcast apps, as always, but it's also on YouTube and video version if you want to watch it. And, as always, I'm here with my friend and co-host, malcolm Owen Flutt. Hello, malcolm, how are you? Hey, benny, I'm great man. It's great to see you. How are you doing? I'm doing good as well. Thank you. Preparing for the.

Speaker 1: 1:48

US trip right now. I'm going to leave tomorrow, so by the time you hear this episode I'm already over there. Lots to plan and pack and whatever. Like a three week trip. It's always tricky with what to take and what to leave at home and stuff. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 2:03

Yeah, that's exciting though Are you? You can tell the listeners what you're doing over there right.

Speaker 1: 2:07

Yeah, I'm going to go to NAMM first of all. So I'm going to have like one or two, two or three off days, I think, in LA. Then I'm going to go to NAMM over the weekend, hopefully well rested and not jet-licked anymore. There's going to be a ton of people to meet, and so I've got a full schedule already with people that I want to hang out with and that have invited me to hang out with them. It's going to be awesome. It's going to be at NAMM, so looking forward to that.

Speaker 1: 2:28

And then, after NAMM, again two days or so to decompress and maybe have lunch with a few people to talk about that, all the things that happened. And then I'm going to fly to Arkansas Rogers, arkansas, a town in the sort of middle of the US, sort of and I'm going to produce a record there, which is really, really exciting. Have I done that in a while? At least? Not a full record. I've done parts of records, and the last full production I did is like two years, three years ago at this point, but this time we're doing it all session musicians, the artists recording themselves, of course, then there's a whole team and all the things that happen, and I will do my best to document it all.

Speaker 1: 3:08

I will obviously be focused on the session more than anything, but whenever there's breaks or after the session, or whenever I can do it without being distracted, I will try and capture as much of it as possible and share those insights with you, because it's going to be really amazing. I'm looking forward to it. I'm bringing a little bit of gear, which makes the whole planning challenging as well, as I'm bringing like a small interface and a preamp and a bunch of microphones, and yeah, it's going to be really cool and then I fly back to LA and then back home in three weeks.

Speaker 2: 3:35

That's awesome. Yeah, very exciting trip. I am sad that I don't get to see you this time Me too that you're coming over here, but next time.

Speaker 1: 3:42

Next time, man, it will happen again, at the latest in Hamburg and fall, I guess.

Speaker 2: 3:48

So yeah, hopefully before that confidence something will come up. Yes, yeah, one of the main companies that I use. Well, it's sure everybody knows the company. Sure, actually, I guess in the music industry. But I use them for my wireless stuff and TV work and they've like teased an announcement at NAMM on the 24th.

Speaker 1: 4:07

And I'm like.

Speaker 2: 4:08

I think I know what it is and I really want it, so I'm super excited.

Speaker 1: 4:12

But is it like TV sound, specific or remote?

Speaker 2: 4:16

Yeah, I mean well, no, actually that's not true. Bands could use it too in live situations. They would told to use it. So we'll circle back to this. It's a teaser, All right, All right.

Speaker 1: 4:26

Well, I don't even know how much of it I can really check out over there, because it's just so much. It's impossible to beat all the booths at all times, for all the events and announcements. Like planning the strip is really crazy. But yeah, I'll do my best and then give you all the updates.

Speaker 2: 4:42

You don't have to swing by there, buddy. No, no, so they'll email me.

Speaker 1: 4:45

Yeah, I definitely won't check out any of that stuff if it's not really relevant for us. But anything I can, you know, anything I can hear, I'm sure there's going to be a lot of like, as always. There's going to be lots of announcements and cool things.

Speaker 2: 4:57

Yeah, you're going to find some cool gear that is relevant to our audience for sure. Well, you're so much cool stuff gets announced over there.

Speaker 1: 5:03

Absolutely, and everyone's going to be there. That's so cool too. It's just so cool to be in the entire industry except for Malcolm. Very cool, Good, All right. So yeah, other than that, like Malcolm, what is your? You know spring and everything look like TV stuff or oh yeah, yeah, there's lots of TV.

Speaker 2: 5:23

I mean there's two shows that I'm not allowed to mention yet, but I'm excited about them. And then I mean, just most recently I don't want to get too far into it because we got to get to today's episode, but I did just do a bunch of stuff with sports net which like candles, the hockey day in Canada, stuff which is a big deal.

Speaker 1: 5:40

I saw the post Canada.

Speaker 2: 5:43

I think everybody's probably aware that hockey is a really big deal in Canada.

Speaker 1: 5:48

We're pretty into it.

Speaker 2: 5:51

And I am pretty not into it. I mean, actually I love hockey, I think it's super fun, I love going to games and watching it, but I don't keep up with it at all. So I'm meeting like full on legends and I have no idea who they are and they're like all right, go, mike, kevin BX. I'm like who? I don't know which one of these guys is Kevin, and they're like, oh really, so that was funny, but it was a super cool gig. Got to see the Stanley Cup and stuff like that. So, yeah, it was a fun one for any hockey fans out there.

Speaker 1: 6:20

All right, that's awesome. Yeah, so that story that I saw yesterday was that the Stanley Cup that you're standing next to?

Speaker 2: 6:26

Yeah, it was yeah. So you're aware of the Stanley Cup over in Germany. Does that mean yeah?

Speaker 1: 6:32

There's actually pretty. There's a lot of people into hockey here as well. The thing is for the German listeners we don't call it like hockey is a different thing here. Hockey is like field hockey, for us like the summer thing and hockey, so hockey is a different thing. We call it like ice. Hockey is what you call hockey yeah, that's fair. Yeah, yeah, we only differentiate by calling it field hockey usually.

Speaker 2: 6:52

But I think you're right. We should be going ice hockey and field hockey.

Speaker 1: 6:54

That makes more sense.

Speaker 2: 6:57

As usual, Germans are right.

Speaker 1: 6:59

We skip the field, though, in hockey, so we call it hockey, and you have ice hockey and hockey, and you have field hockey and hockey. So yeah, two different hockey Anyway people know what you're talking about. So, yeah, that's exciting. I saw that post yesterday that story and that was awesome. Had no idea how huge this thing is, by the way You're standing next to it? Yeah, Tons of stuff Tons of.

Speaker 2: 7:21

Yeah, it was good fun, Awesome man.

Speaker 1: 7:23

Awesome, really good to hear. Well, great, let's get into today's episode. Yeah, kick drums, kick drums. So what we're going to do is we're going to wing it today.

Speaker 1: 7:31

I'm going to be fully transparent here, because there is we've mixed so many songs and all of them basically, you know, have kick drums in them, or like 99% of them probably. So I guess we really know what we're talking about here and what we do typically, and the reason why this is not is we were talking about whether to do whether we would do a EQ episode and a compression episode or whatever, but we actually decided to do a general kick drum processing episode or two of those, because Everything affects everything, sort of. So the way we, you know, might gate the kick drum changes the way we compress it, and the way we compress it changes how we would eq it and like. We want to help you get an understanding for that and not view the individual plugins or parts of the chain as sort of individual things to do. But it all goes together and what you're doing at the end of the day is you're creating a kick drum sound that works in the context of the mix, has the energy you want, serves the song and there's multiple things that you can do to achieve that and they all kind of go together.

Speaker 1: 8:32

So that's why we do it, and we're just going to talk about our chains, I guess, and typical approaches and maybe we have, like I don't know, two or three different things for different genres, but honestly, across all kinds of genres that I mix, the things I do to kick drum are relatively similar. I might address different frequency areas or I might, you know, use a certain parameter on a compressor slightly differently, but the general thought process or what I'm trying to achieve is kind of the same. I don't know about you, malcolm, but it's not that I'm having I'm creating a completely different kick drum chain every single time. It's usually my go-to things that I use to varying degrees.

Speaker 2: 9:09

Yeah, no, I would agree with that. I mean, like the sample world is where the biggest difference would be from if I went to like a softer, more acoustic genre. Of course, but overall, yeah, the processing does stay the same. But I do want to reinforce what Benny was just saying in that like we're doing this because context is everything and I think that's an important takeaway.

Speaker 2: 9:32

Just for all mixing education you consume anywhere, including our own, on this podcast or on YouTube, is that like if you watch a video that's just like how to mix the perfect kick drum, it doesn't matter unless you hear the whole mix with it, and they mix the rest of the song into that as well. It's always got to be done holistically and you know you can spend all the time you want on that kick in mic and get it sounding massive, but then you throw your overheads in and it's a totally different game. So really always keep that in mind. There's not value in these kind of specific techniques that sound good soloed, but just you have to also know what's going to happen when it's not in solo anymore. Yes, so really, really important to just keep that in mind whenever you're learning anything about mixing on any instrument, any mic.

Speaker 1: 10:20

Yeah, 100%. So there's actually different levels or sort of levels of context there. It's the kick in the context of the entire kit, like the drum kit. So when you turn on the overheads in rooms, that has changed how the kick drum sounds. It's not just the close mic. Then there might be multiple close mics that you have to blend first. Then there's the context of the song. So the kick drum on its own might sound exciting or cool or whatever, but that doesn't mean it works for the song, and yeah, and then there's things like, yeah, the context of just the frequency band, you know it's like the low end summed of the rest of the instruments.

Speaker 2: 10:57

You know, sometimes you throw in that bass guitar and your kick drum just falls apart and you're like why? Yeah, but it does. And sometimes it could be the guitars, even though they're out to the sides. It's like still, all affects everything, affects everything.

Speaker 1: 11:10

And then the beat as a whole as well, like the groove of the song. So not just how the mics influence the kick drum sound, but how does the kick feel in sort of relation to the snare drum. So do the two, you know, the downbeats and the backbeat. Does that work together, and is there any other percussive element that is part of that too? So there's all kinds of things, and it's not that we think about it all the time, it's more a feel thing. Right, you learn how to listen for certain things and you just pay attention to how the groove feels basically. But these are all things that are part of that. So never look in, like you said Malcolm, never look into any of these things in isolation. You always view the song as a whole. Especially with kick drums, I feel like they carry so much of the energy of a song and so much of the emotion, the vibe, how aggressive it is and all that it's so important, like it changes the entire song. Basically, it's like there's so much in the kick drum and so yeah.

Speaker 2: 12:02

Yeah, people love kick drums for a reason they get you moving right. People really resonate with it and you know this could be another cool takeaway, because I think people are usually pretty impressed with how quick professional mixers move If they're watching them mix something like they, you know, pull up an EQ, a couple of tweaks, bam, they're on to the next thing in the chain or somewhere else in the song entirely. And that is less to do, I think, with them being like I just nailed it, the kick drum is perfect, and more with them knowing, as professionals, that they're going to be right back in a minute to go look at that kick drum as soon as they change something else. And it makes them unhappy with the kick drum. We're not very precious as we're mixing because we know that the context is going to change as we unmute things and as we change other things, so we're always constantly going back and modifying our work. So, yeah, it's holistic and we're not precious with the decisions we're making. These are kind of our first moves.

Speaker 1: 12:55

Yes, totally. However, I want to say, though it's maybe it's a little different for me here, because I try to avoid that as much as possible the whole going back and undoing thing. So you're right, I'm not afraid to do it and I will absolutely. I'm not precious about anything in this regard, but I tend to avoid doing too much in solo, for example, only to then have to undo a bunch of things later. So I try to always move forward. That's a general thing for me in mixing is I make a decision and it's the decisions been made, I move forward and I basically almost never look back. It's really like that at this point. So I make my decisions in context from the beginning. And, yeah, it's very rare that I have to go back. So it sometimes happens, but it's actually pretty rare. But this is just because I don't start with OK, let's listen to the kick drum and then listen to the other thing, and then I bring up other stuff and then it changes. But I listen to the song and then yeah but so that's different for everybody just to still totally write what you said there. Don't be afraid to change it if the context changes, of course. Definitely OK, this especially.

Speaker 1: 13:57

I think this is very valuable advice for DIY musicians, because we often mix as we record or we write and then do pre-pro and before we know it we're already in the recording session and then it's also partly mixed. So sometimes the whole process gets kind of this one always evolving session sort of, and especially there the context will definitely change and then you might have to go back and change things. For me Maybe it's a little different, because I always get the final multitracks. I can only focus on the mix and that there's not much going. You know much changing changes going on, but as soon as you add something to the arrangement or decide to re-record something or whatever, context definitely changes, and so I think it's absolutely important it's usually not necessarily a change for me either, but I mean it certainly is.

Speaker 2: 14:41

Sometimes I go way too big on the low end on a kick drum, for example. Just be like, hey, there's nothing but room when it's soloed, and then I just go huge. And then you know, once everything's happening, it's like, okay, it's a little little much. So sometimes that happens, but more likely as the mix starts coming together, I might be like you know, I need to saturate that kick drum or something just to get it a little denser, or clip it or something you know just like. So it's like additive steps that are tweaking it. You know it's like, okay, I got it where I thought it needed to be, but it turns out we can push it further.

Speaker 1: 15:13

Oh yeah, oh, I do that all the time. I think that's. I will constantly add things during the mix. It's just that I rarely undo things that I've done. I like go back and then you know it's been made for a reason. I just move on, otherwise I wouldn't have made it. But but I definitely keep adding things, not that I'm done with the kick drum and then mix the rest and don't touch the kick drum again. No, not at all. Like I might. It might be the very last thing that I do again, for whatever reason, but it's usually just like you said boosting a little more than I thought or adding a little extra thing there, things like that. Yeah, totally, absolutely Great, great, great note, cool. So what is the? Let's start with the first thing you typically do to your kick drum, because this is already different between the two of us, I guess. So what do you do first?

Speaker 2: 15:55

So I, for a while now, have been using gates on my kick drums a lot. I find that they I mean there's often a lot of information I don't need between kick hits. So I'm happy to remove all that. Generally Some instruments bleed can be a nice thing, but with kick drums I tend to not enjoy any of that stuff. Not that it's overly loud either. On a kick drum Generally that bleed is pretty quiet, but I suck that out. And then.

Speaker 2: 16:23

But the main reason I'm using a gate is actually to shape the kick drum because you have total control over the decay and like it's sustain of the drum. When you're using a gate that you have, I mean we won't get into it. But I control my gates with key spikes which let me totally tailor them super accurately. But that's another topic entirely. But just know that I use a gate and then I shape the drum either shorter or change the curve of its decay to kind of make the groove of the song, like Benny was talking about, find that relation of the kick drum and the snare, the backbeat, and make a groove, that and shape the sustain of the kick drum to fit what I want to happen in that groove. That's like my very first move for a while.

Speaker 1: 17:11

Okay, great. So I actually want to achieve the same thing. I just do it a little differently. So I sometimes use gates and if I do, I also trigger them with, in my case, not audio key spikes but MIDI which, but for the same reason. So I use MIDI gates and I love the control over when it actually opens and I want to avoid any sort of mistriggers or like miss when it shouldn't open and stuff like that.

Speaker 1: 17:38

So I like to do that as well sometimes, but for the most part I control the shape of it and the sustain by using a transient designer rather than or some sort of envelope shaper rather than a gate. I feel like that gets me the same thing. I don't know, it's just like what I can do with that, I don't know. So the thing is. A nice side effect of a transient shaper is actually that when you reduce, especially when you're making it shorter, so when you reduce the sustain of the kick drum, when you shorten that, the bleak kind of goes away as well. It almost sounds like a little bit of gating or expansion or something.

Speaker 2: 18:11

When you do that.

Speaker 1: 18:12

So I'm doing a similar thing, just with a different tool, and sometimes the gate is the answer. But again, the how is not as important as the why. We both try to make sure that the kick is not way too long for the tempo and feel of the song. We try to make sure that the low end feels right, because I feel like shorter kick drums feel tighter and harder in a way, and longer kick drums have more of this pillowy, longer, softer low end in a way, oftentimes at least, so I can shape that. And then there's only so much space in terms of tempo and then depending on what the bass guitar does and all that stuff. So that's also the thing that I start with. I want to make sure that the source that I have fits well within the context of the song and the low end and tweaking the sustain of it and sometimes the attack also is a good starting point, for me for sure.

Speaker 2: 18:58

Yeah, yeah, this is like actually it sounds minor, I think, to people listening that haven't messed with doing this, but it's actually probably like the most creative step in my kick drum sound. Maybe aside from choosing samples if it's going to be a sample heavy mix but like you can make it go from just a totally normal, natural sounding kick drum to like an 808 with a gate. You can really make it sound like a totally different drum and totally transform it. So it's actually a really creative step in the process. So don't sleep on it, 100% yeah.

Speaker 1: 19:32

Just to also make it clear we assume that you have a great source already in this episode, so we're not going to get into choosing the kick drum and the samples and all that. So might be just a natural kick drum, might be all samples, might be anything in between. What's very important is that the source has to be right. So whether you achieve that through sample layering or replacement or programming or organic drums doesn't matter. But we assume now that before you go into, before you do what we are about to talk about, look here, before you do, that you got to make sure that the source is right and that the kick drum is actually a good choice for the song, because if that's not the case, everything we're now talking about is not really relevant.

Speaker 2: 20:09

So yeah, yeah, and really good point, benny. I was kind of talking as if I was only referring to live drums, but I do the exact same thing. If I get like, if I've got an electronic kit that's been printed into audio, I'm still shaping the kick drum the exact same way, even though there's no bleed on that. Often it's just an electronic drum kit, like printed to the audio file, midi to audio, and if they send it without bleed, I'm still going to shape it.

Speaker 1: 20:35

Yeah, exactly, great, cool. So next step I do that one first and then I'll let you do the next one again. Maybe it's the same, maybe it's different. So, after the shaping of the sustain, what I'll typically do is so, actually another thing. I just have to say that I assume you do this before you even dive into kick mixing.

Speaker 1: 20:56

So what's essential to me is that before all of that, I created a kind of a balance already, like a rough mix that I like. So I already know what my kick sounds like, combined with the overheads and the rooms and all of that. So this is one thing. So the balance is sort of there already. So that gives me a lot of info about. So I listen to this rough mix, I create my balance that tells me a lot about the song.

Speaker 1: 21:16

So by doing that rough mix first, I know, oh well, this kick drum is nice, but it sounds a little boxy and cheap or it doesn't cut through for whatever reason. I have to turn it up really loud for it to be audible. So I get these cues and I know about some of the problems I'm having with the raw kick. I just get these by just doing the rough mix and trying to find the balance, and so now I use this information from my next step, which is typically a cleanup process where I might remove some.

Speaker 1: 21:44

In most cases I will remove some of the mid-range, which is oftentimes a cardboardy, boxy kind of cheap sound. The exact frequency is different from time to time, but anywhere between 200 and or 300 and 700, 800 somewhere there in the mid-range is usually something I don't really like about the kick, unless it's like a really low-fi, on-purpose like dirty thing. But in most cases there's something that I can subtract there and then I will listen for an unpleasant and I haven't seen many people do that actually but I personally also listen for an unpleasant quality in the beater attack because there's the good click sound, sort of the good attack that will cut through the mix. But then oftentimes there's also an annoying kind of thing that I don't really wonder. That also can sound cheap. So sometimes if that's the case, I find that a notch it out which makes it just a little more pleasing sounding.

Speaker 1: 22:39

I don't know if you know what I'm talking about here, but sometimes there's a 4K or whatever very narrow point on the kick drum that I don't really like and I will try and find that and smooth it out a little bit. And then I like a broader boost to the entire upper mid-range or whatever. That sounds better to me often. So if that's the case I might clean that up. And then I will also clean up the low end, meaning that based on the context of the song and whatever the bass guitar is doing, the key, the tuning of the song and all of that I might be like okay, I want a very sub heavy kick drum with a lot of energy at 40, 50 hertz or something or 60 hertz, or I want a kick drum that has more of a knock and less of the subs and then I go more for the 100 or whatever that is tighter, more of that knock, punch kind of thing. And that means I might carve out one or the other and focus In general I will focus the kick drum low end on one of those two areas.

Speaker 1: 23:33

It's either the focus is on, like the 60, 50, whatever the fundamental of that kick drum is. You see it on Analyzer pretty easily. So whatever that fundamental is, I might either focus on that or I will focus basically an octave up on the 100 or something like that and leave the low end a little thinner, like the subs, and so this is the second part of the cleanup process and I oftentimes will then take out 50 Bs or something at 100 or 150, or it's totally context dependent. But I would absolutely have a look at the low end and decide what my focus is going to be on and whether or not it's getting in the way of other things and just clean things up there. I don't want the kick drum. That's what I'm saying. I don't want the kick drum to usually to cover everything from like 20 to 150, usually not. So usually there's something I get rid of in order to make space for other things and also in order to focus the low end better on the kick drum itself.

Speaker 2: 26:09

Yeah, yeah, I would say I'm pretty similar there. Drum is like the one thing that almost every time at least, has like a low, mid, high EQ like move on it Like it's like the you need those three bands to all get looked at pretty regularly, and it's also probably the thing for me that most ends up as a little bit of a smiley face. Yeah, like there's always like there always is that mid cut somewhere there's always a little top end boost, probably after addressing the beater attack, like you suggested there, which, by the way, could be the most like problematic thing with your kick drum. So pay really close attention to that If you're making your own kick drum, that the beater attack isn't just like terribly annoying because it's really hard to fix that. And then, and then, yeah, the low end, I mean that's the whole, that's the whole thing. Right, we need that to work. So got to pay close attention there I'm similar.

Speaker 2: 27:08

I'm kind of addressing something, usually on the upper octave of the of like the fundamental level. I'm ducking that around 150 or whatever it happens to be, and then boosting, like with a shelf or something, if, if I can. Sometimes you boost with the shelf and you're just like, oh, I can. If I add more it gets worse. But if you can, I go for it.

Speaker 1: 27:26

Totally so. Does that mean you do the cleanup and boosting in one step? Because I specifically okay, oh, yeah, okay, that's different then, because I do what I just described only like cleaning those things up, usually with something like a fab filter or stocky queue, like some clean digitally queue doesn't matter, they're all the same in terms of sound quality, and this is really true. By the way, if you have any sort of digital EQ that doesn't emulate any saturation, analog vibe, whatever they are all the same, it's literally the same code underneath it. The curves might differ or whatever, but there's no difference in sound quality. So just use whatever you have.

Speaker 1: 27:57

But then after that I will boost with usually a different EQ that is a little more colorful. So I might go for an SSL EQ or for a pull tech or for a need for something that has not just different curves but also something where I can't see the curves. I like to just do it by feel and ear. So I like to just have the knobs. That's one thing. And then also I like the color of the specific sound of a certain EQ for certain things. So those are two different steps of the process. For me Doesn't have to like, not saying should do it that way. But that just works for me. I kind of subtract very surgically and then boost with rather like much less precise moves.

Speaker 2: 28:39

Basically, Cool, are you just out of curiosity? This is a nerdy question for me. Are you using your SSL all the time, like kind of, yeah, yeah, so Benny has like an interface that interfaces with, like the SSL plugin. Oh, he's holding it up to the camera. If you're on YouTube, so those knobs map to sorry, those knobs map to the plugin in Benny's session so he can like mix as if it's hardware, which is really awesome.

Speaker 1: 29:01

It's pretty fun I can, even. I can. Even if I hit one button here, the virtual SSL console comes up on the screen and covers it entirely. So I don't see the DAW anymore, I just see my channel strips with all the active instances, with all the meters going and the view meter for the mixed compass compressor, and, like I have just have this SSL in front of me, not even seeing the session, and then I just grab knobs and turn it like on an analog console and I love it. And so, yeah, very fun, very fun. Yeah, so that's what I do and for the I do.

Speaker 1: 29:28

I do it very similarly to what you just described. I will go for a low, like usually a smiley face thing, where after I got rid of the stuff that I don't want in the low end, I will typically find either a low shelf or I switch it to the bell and find the fundamental or whatever I like about it and boost that as much as I can in the context of the song, and then I will do the same with the top end, and usually there's. I use two bands for that. I don't know about email comes, so depending on the genre as well, but like for a lot of modern stuff. I tend to boost pretty high for the kind of typewriter sort of wet kick drum sound thing a little bit, where it's like it could be eight K, could be even 10 K and some metal stuff or whatever. And then I have another band. Usually if it's more rock it could be around 1.5 or 2K or something. If it's more metal it can be 5K or I don't know, but like some upper mid range band, and I try to balance. They sound different to me and I try to find a good balance there to just give it an overall presence boost as broad as possible so that it is kind of transparent, not annoying, but then also as narrow as I have to be, so in order to not boost stuff that I don't want. And yeah, so that's what I typically do. So I will clean it up and then use a colorfully cue to boost top end and boost low end. That's basically it in terms of e queuing and that just I think that's a very valuable lesson there for you guys as well is that I've seen so many people use 15 bands on a kick drum doing all kinds of weird moves, and in most cases it's true for the both, for the two of us, but also for all the other like all like really good mixes that I've seen do their thing.

Speaker 1: 31:04

There's not a lot going on. Usually it's like it's a low end boost, it's some kind of presence boost, it's some cleanup in the mid-range and the upper part of the bass or whatever, and that's usually it and and it's it's almost always that kind of smiley curve. It varies based on the genre, whatever, but everyone reaches for kind of the same things for the same frequency areas and there's no, no need to reinvent the wheel there or no need to create any kind of weird curves with tons of bands. It's always pretty similar, like how much attack do you want, how much low end do you want and how much of the mid-range that sounds kind of carporty, boxy, whatever, how much of that do you want? And you just dial it in.

Speaker 2: 31:41

Yeah, yeah, I don't know about you, benny, but I really find that kick drums really fall apart. If you push EQs on them hard, at least, especially in like the low end, like like if I, and end the subtraction of the mids, it's like as soon as you are listening with context and you start really yanking around a kick drum, the relationship with the rest of the mics just deteriorates super quickly and it's like it just falls apart. So it you kind of have to be not I'm not saying be subtle, but I'm just like again, listening context, and maybe there's another way to get it to do what you want. For example, you might get some of that attack off of the off of the overheads, or maybe, maybe if you mute the overheads, that attack problem goes away, and so you have to find a balance there. You just yeah, I don't find myself going too far with an EQ on a kick drum. I guess is really the the moral of the story.

Speaker 1: 32:37

Yeah, I tend to agree. I will go pretty far, usually with the, the presence, with the attack, especially in modern dance music. That's always the one that surprises me. If you listen solo, you think like well, that sounds clicky, you know as how, like I don't need any any more there. But then you turn on the rest and the kick disappears and then you find yourself having to boost 12 dB or something. So that happens. But on the low end especially, I'm totally with you. It's not uncommon for me to just do one or two dBs of low end boost and that's totally enough. And when in solo I might think, well, it sounds cool if I boost 10 here. But like, and the context?

Speaker 2: 33:09

of the mix is quickly too much.

Speaker 2: 33:11

Yeah, it can quickly get weird and the the way I've been working around this and it's kind of what you do with separating the additive stuff to a different EQ. But I do a similar thing but usually with some like harmonic kind of treatment instead like saturation. Multiband saturation is kind of how I've been shaping kick drums for the additive stuff more lately, especially the low end, like like max bass that you know old school famous waves plug-in I think that's. I don't actually know what that thing does, but it makes my low end bigger yeah, that's what it's supposed to do, yeah.

Speaker 2: 33:45

And so like that's, that's kind of my usual go-to for for figuring out, like getting getting more low end squeezed into that kick without using an EQ to do it, or or like some kind of exciter plug-in can even be used to get that click thing figured out as well, like it can just make that area denser and less, less harsh. So saturation is kind of my additive EQ move. That's how I think of it anyway.

Speaker 1: 34:06

Absolutely. And I'd say, let's go into saturation, compression and that sort of color stuff in the next part of this, because this is really exciting, because this is how I get a lot of the character and, yeah, color and vibe and all of that in a kick drum, and I guess you do too, and it's really interesting how all of that serves kind of as EQ in a way too. So, yeah, let's, let's dive into this. So to wrap this one up, I think, yeah, listen in context, create a balance first, make sure the source is right, do some simple intentional EQ moves and then the last thing maybe to say here is that things like again pushing the context thing here, things like the mid range, for example, you don't know how much of that to get rid of or how problematic it is or whatever.

Speaker 1: 34:49

If you don't listen to the kick drum with the overheads and the rooms and stuff on, because a lot of that if you listen to your rough mix and you feel like it sounds kind of boxy or cheap or like a jam space basement recording, maybe it's not even the kick drum, maybe it is the room that's really loud, or maybe it's the overhead or some other mic bleed another mic or whatever. So you might try. You might be trying to clean up the kick drum without success when the problem is actually on some other microphone or you know that sort of stuff. Or you feel like the kick drum is kind of not really cutting through. You only hear a little bit of a low end thump and a little bit of a clicky attack, but it doesn't have like the body length or substance that you want. Maybe just turn up the rooms more or the overheads or you hear those differently, or maybe you have to low cut all of your cues.

Speaker 1: 35:32

And very common actually that you have to get rid of the low end in the overheads and the rooms so that the actual good low end of the kick drum can come through. And if both are or all three of those are together, it's this weird muddy low end, no matter how defined your kick low end actually is right. So oftentimes I have so. Sometimes I enjoy a lot of low end in rooms in a slow song where I really want the kick to bloom and you know. But sometimes it's just way too much. Sometimes I have to get rid of everything below 200 or something on the overheads and rooms and then all of a sudden the carefully shaped low end of my actual kick drum can come through and and is not being altered and filtered and changed by all the other stuff. Right, because it all works together. Yeah, and the more you cue, the words you can get, because the phase phase relationship changes with the cue. That's also another thing. So, yeah, context super important.

Speaker 2: 36:23

Yeah, yeah, what a great exercise it is just to listen to your drum kit as a whole and then identify what you don't think sounds good. So let's assume that's the kick drum in this case. Now mute your overheads in your room and see if your kick drum sound gets better, and then you've learned. Okay, my kick drum is not the problem, it's the relationship between these sets of mics that's the problem. So do I want to address that by trying to just add more of what I want to the kick drum or by subtracting from the drums that are I'm introducing that are causing a problem?

Speaker 1: 36:51

Totally, totally. And final thing about a cue here and this is something that I said, I said it before in a different episode also so often overlooked and not not talked about enough is if you have multiple kick drum layers or microphones or samples, you can absolutely clean those up individually or boost things on the individual tracks. But be very careful here because you're introducing another problem. If you are putting together your final kick drum sound that consists of a sample and maybe two microphones or whatever, then you hopefully make sure that the phase is correct, that those samples and mics and all that work together well in our in phase. Now, if you start e queuing one part of that kick drum that you just created, like one layer of it, you change the face relation relationship again, unless you're using a linear phase e queue. But that introduces other problems.

Speaker 1: 37:40

So I wouldn't actually recommend that, and so what I mean is what I try to do almost always, if at all possible, I will find a balance between all my kick layers, get them in phase and then I will do, I will e queue them as a whole.

Speaker 1: 37:52

So once I have my balance, I view that as my one kick drum sound and I only treat that. That's my kick drum, no matter how layers are, how many layers are involved. I have my one kick drum sort of master group and I will just e queue that because that will keep the phase relationship intact and that will usually leave you with like better clear transients, more punch, less smear, and I will only go into the individual layers if I really have to, and if I do that I will check the phase again after I did my changes. So if I end up having to low cut one of the samples or do a drastic e queue move, I will just quickly hit the face button and see if it's still intact and I might sometimes I even have to print it and realign it or something if it drastically changes. But if at all possible I try to create a kick drum balance. Then I just view that as my one kick drum mic and that's what I e queue.

Speaker 2: 38:42

Yeah, that's very good practice. It's hard to hold yourself to that, but it's good practice. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I'm not saying you have to do that.

Speaker 1: 38:48

But I've seen situations where people really created a messy situation in the low end by e queuing five different kick drum layers individually and then wondering why that the sum doesn't work anymore, right so?

Speaker 2: 38:58

yeah, yeah and well, this is kind of the the danger of working backwards, like you kind of alluded to earlier. If you go backwards and change all the decisions you made earlier, you might end up just like with a totally different thing and it's like, well, you, the problem you tried to fix by changing something also changed everything else. And yeah, it's messy and detailed work we do.

Speaker 1: 39:17

Yeah, totally alright, thank you for listening. Let's continue next week with compression saturation and that kind of fun stuff.

Speaker 2: 39:25

Yeah, alright, okay, see you next week. Thanks,