208: How To Make The Kick Drum Work In Your Mix - Pt. II

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Episode show notes:

>>Please go back to part one of this mini series (episode 207) before you listen to this one!<<

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.

PS: Please join the conversation by leaving a comment, a rating and review, or a post inside our free Facebook community.

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For links to everything we've mentioned in this episode, as well as full show notes go to: https://theselfrecordingband.com/208
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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

I don't really like it when people say this is how you mix a kick drum, because to me that sounds kind of weird. Like a mix is the mix of different elements that together create a song. So I'm mixing a song and to me there's no such thing as like mixing a kick drum, unless that's really the job. Like if I'm without content, for whatever reason, I have to mix a kick drum, but like I don't know. So to me it's just one, one part of the puzzle through the entire mix and we'll do whatever is necessary to make it work. And this is really important, because this could mean Sometimes we barely need anything. Sometimes we need 10 plugins and crazy moves, whatever the song needs and whatever the kick drum needs in order to work in the context of the song. This is what we're going to do, yeah.

Speaker 2: 0:39

I love that we mix songs. Yeah, yeah, totally, totally. That's great.

Speaker 1: 0:45

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. Hello and welcome to the Self Recording Band Podcast. I'm your host, denadik Tain. Thank you so much for joining us. If you're new to the show, welcome. If you're already a listener, welcome as well. We're so glad to have you again.

Speaker 1: 1:11

This is part two of a little series that we started last week about kick drum processing in a mix. So we started with cleanup process, basically so shaping the sustain of the kick drum with the gate and then cleaning it up with subtractive EQ. Then we talked about what to boost with EQ and how all those things go together. We talked a lot about the context of the mix and how we don't make these decisions in isolation. So just go back to last week's episode if you missed that one and start there, because it's going to be relevant for this one too. We're not going to repeat all of the things we just said there in last week's episode. So if you missed that one, stop right now, go back to the other one and then come back to this. Otherwise it doesn't make sense, or at least you don't get the full picture, I guess. So yeah, today is part two and we're going to talk about more tone shaping and this time it's going to be saturation clipping, compression limiting and how that goes together with our EQ decisions and all that fun stuff.

Speaker 1: 2:09

So, yeah, I'm doing this with my friend and co-host, as always, malcolm Ohnflutt. Hello, Malcolm, how are you? Hey, benny, I'm great man. How are you doing? Doing good still. So we just recorded the other one, so we'll just keep going and record this one, yeah let's just jump right into this one I think the other thing I want to cover.

Speaker 2: 2:27

This episode is also like mixed, because everything we've been doing and again you should really listen to episode one if you haven't but like all of those EQs and you know, gating the kick drum, we're pretty much talking about our close mics. You know we talked about the context of listening to it with other mics, but we've been processing our kick drum mics. But we also want to make sure we address shaping the kick drum sound with the other mics that have a lot of kick drum. Namely, the rooms have a ton of kick drum and that could either be the most useful or the least useful thing, depending on your song. And then I mean overheads also get a lot of kick as well. I would say so like they're part of this conversation as well. So let's make sure we touch on that too 100%.

Speaker 1: 3:11

Yep, always in context and yeah, it's all in the beginning of the last episode. So there's different levels of context and things to think about. And also that's why I said in the intro of the last episode I don't like, I don't really like it when people say this is how you mix a kick drum, because to me that sounds kind of weird. Like a mix is the mix of different elements that together create a song. So I'm mixing a song and the kick drum is part of that and I might, I can tell you how we process kick drums in a mix in the context of the mix, but there's no such.

Speaker 1: 3:42

To me, there's no such thing as like mixing a kick drum, unless that's really the job. Like if I'm without content, for whatever reason, I have to mix a kick drum, but like I don't know. So to me it's just one, one part of the puzzle to the entire mix and we'll do whatever is necessary to make it work. And this is really important because this could mean sometimes we barely need anything. Sometimes we need 10 plugins and crazy moves, whatever the song needs and whatever the kick drum needs to in order to work in the context of the song. This is what we're going to do, yeah.

Speaker 2: 4:11

Yeah, yeah, I love that we mix songs, not kick drums. Yeah, totally, totally so okay.

Speaker 1: 4:16

Part two after EQ. And I don't know, maybe it's even before EQ. I mean, we might have skipped a step. For you, they're welcome for me that I do cleanup, then sweetening EQ, and then I move to compression and other things. Maybe you have a compressor early in the chain, I don't know.

Speaker 2: 4:32

Yeah, I mean, I've got my, my EQ, which is kind of subtractive and additive, all in one step, and then I'm compressing, so you you, you boost. And just because I did mention in the last episode, there's that kind of exciting like a saturation phase that I use to further shape it. But I usually do that after my compressor.

Speaker 1: 4:50

Oh, okay, but this means you boost into compression also. Right, the same way yeah.

Speaker 2: 4:54

Awesome it does. Yeah, me too, me too, and I have no problem doing that, me too, I actually prefer it for various reasons.

Speaker 1: 5:00

It's I like the how and we, we gotta get to that. So the compressor depending on what we, how we push certain frequencies or part of the frequency range into that compressor, it will behave differently. And I like to play around with that and I like to have this kind of push and pull rubber band thing where even in later stages of the mix, if I decide to, oh, I might actually need a little more low end than I thought and I push some more, that will also make the compressor work differently. And I kind of like to hear that reaction and it's really what gets me sort of the vibe and this is where I can really dial in the feel and the groove of the song.

Speaker 1: 5:34

It's not just the EQ, it's how everything after the EQ changes and behaves if I change the EQ. That's really the fun stuff for me and there's multiple layers to that, because you got the compression on the actual kick but then you maybe have a drum bus compressor and a mix bus compressor and all those kind of change a little bit. So we're simply talking about kick today, but again it's all about context and a simple EQ move at the beginning of your chain might change how the entire song pumps on your mix bus, for example. So it's always everything affects everything.

Speaker 2: 6:04

Yes, yeah, yeah. I really don't understand the don't EQ before your compressor argument.

Speaker 1: 6:10

Is there such an argument? I mean, I've seen people do one or the other, but is there a strong tendency towards not doing that? I don't know.

Speaker 2: 6:18

I've definitely just like seen, you know, the YouTube thumbnails like stop compressing before or stop EQing before your compressor.

Speaker 1: 6:24

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 6:24

Why you should never EQ for your compressor. It's just total nonsense. It's like it's no different than moving the microphone. You know, if you may move the microphone into a brighter spot, get more beater. That's going to change the relationship of your compressor, like you just got to think of it as you're changing the source 100% and I think maybe they do it because they want to prevent people.

Speaker 1: 6:46

You know, they want to make sure that people don't accidentally change the behavior of the compressor by. You know, if you're, it's safer sort of to have the EQ after the compressor, because if you change it the compression stays the same. But yeah, it's not. But it's a different thing and to me there's a reason for why there's a switch and all these consoles that lets you put the compressor either before or after the EQ, or many of them. The default is EQ before compressor. So you know, but there's a reason.

Speaker 1: 7:12

You can be intentional with that and sometimes I might actually have to.

Speaker 1: 7:16

You know, there's always the exception.

Speaker 1: 7:17

I might have to compress before EQing, for whatever reason, or I don't like how the compressor behaves when I push the low end, but in general I try to EQ into the compressor and I kind of like that response that I get by doing that.

Speaker 1: 7:29

Another reason maybe why people teach not to do that is that on a traditional sort of analog channel strip of a console you have the gain knob at the bar at the top and then you have an insert point and that is usually the second thing in the chain which is before the EQ, then you have the EQ, then you have the sends and then the faders. So if the console itself doesn't have a compressor, where your compressor usually sits in, the chain is before the EQ. And those consoles often the smaller consoles, also the live sound consoles they don't have that pre switch. So if you insert a compressor into a channel it just by default sits before the EQ, and maybe that's why people think this is the way to do it. But on, like proper mixing consoles for the studio, the large format consoles, you have a switch where you can put it either before or after the EQ and oftentimes the default will be after, so EQ before.

Speaker 2: 8:13

Yeah, just to be totally clear, I'm not opposed to doing it after the compressor either. It's like it. There's nothing wrong about either way. It's just if you make changes, it will obviously affect what comes after it. And the same is if you compress before your EQ what your EQ is going to sound different to. So it's the exact same thing either way. The result will just be influenced by whatever you put first. Absolutely it doesn't matter which way you do it, as long as you're being intentional and it sounds the way you want it to sound, and that you're aware that the changes you're making are going to affect whatever happens next.

Speaker 1: 8:46

Yes, 100%. So okay, I like boosting into compressor for another reason as well, and that is that the compressor kind of compensates, or like I don't know how to say it. For the kick drum it's not as obvious as with other things, but, for example, I push vocal top end into a compressor because it tends to get less sibilant overall, because if it goes too far in certain sections the compressor will react to that excessive top end more and will compress even more the harsher it gets. Basically For a kick drum, maybe the same could be true, though, like the harder hits of a kick drum or the varying degrees of low end. The compressor to me like kind of how to say this, let's put it differently If I can make the compressor focus more on the stuff that matters with the kick drum, I feel like it does a better job of making that consistent.

Speaker 1: 9:40

I don't actually want it to react to the stuff that I don't want in the kick drum anyways, and if I can focus it on the low end and the top end and I can boost various you know, varying degrees of that into the compressor, I feel like I get a more consistent low end and I get more control over the beater attack and that's, to me at least, another benefit. I feel like if I compress before the EQ too much, then certain hits will be a little clickier than others and the low end will be less controlled. And yeah, it's just to me a more consistent kind of thing. It's hard to describe, but you have to try it.

Speaker 2: 10:13

Yeah, no, I do understand that. Yeah, like I think we've talked about this on another episode about using, like a bus compressor to give you the boxes, like, of your painting that you're going to paint inside, and a compressor on a single channel kind of can do that as well, where it's like getting this compressor in there kind of gives you something to EQ into and it starts reacting and feels more cohesive in a way, and then where those super loud hits don't jump out quite as much as they used to, it just seems a little more uniform, which I mean, that's definitely a reason. To use a compressor is to get things more uniform 100% yeah totally Okay.

Speaker 2: 10:53

I do agree though. Yeah, it seems like we're the same there. Kind of have that compressor after some EQ.

Speaker 1: 10:58

Yeah, now what about Malcolm? How, what do you do with the compressor, like, why do you even compress and how do you set it to achieve whatever you're going for?

Speaker 2: 11:07

This is really something that is never the same for me, but I do think of it very again holistically, in much to the same way that what I'm thinking about when I'm EQing, and often kind of at the same time, even Like that I'll be messing with the EQ and the compressor, kind of going back and forth, because at the end of the day I want that attack to sound right to me and I want that low end to feel big and awesome and how it's meant to be for the song as well, and the combination of that EQ and that compressor really matter for both of those things, especially the top end.

Speaker 2: 11:43

Actually, I think the attack can change so much depending on how you set your compressor's attack to grab that transient.

Speaker 2: 11:51

And so if I like I might go really fast or I might, if I want to modify the attack a lot, I'll make the attack come on my compressor super fast and grabby and then like, find that sweet spot there to totally change the attack and click of my kick drum. But if I love it I'll go slower and let that transient through and kind of get out of the way of that transient so that I'm not modifying it too much there, right and the sustain of the drum will get altered in the step two, but actually not that much for me because I've done so much of that with my first step in Back in Epsom one of the series with the gate I've kind of got the decay of the drum pretty figured out, so I'm not too worried about that. With the compression stage it's more of an attack-shaping thing for me and like a density kind of thing, like how much of an uh do I get out of it?

Speaker 1: 12:42

Yeah, totally, I think. In most cases, though, unless you're going for a really long release, which is kind of uncommon, I think, for drums, I think in most cases you'll likely to extend the sustain a little bit, though just by compressing. Usually, the sustain comes up a little bit, or the room comes up a little bit if you compress harder. So I guess that just happens. But it's not what you focus on when you're compressing, right?

Speaker 2: 13:03

No, no. And yeah, obviously I'm going to be aware of the sustain and you know, use the release knob for sure, but it's like what I'm really thinking about is more so the attack of the drum. Is that sounding great? This is really where it should. We should be pretty close at this point.

Speaker 1: 13:20

Absolutely, I agree. So it's actually pretty similar for me as well. So sometimes if I'm going for more punch, like a harder hitting kick drum sort of, and like I will go for a longer attack time, let the transient through, then let the compressor clamp down on like on a short yeah after the transient and just shape it, I feel like it's pretty. With kick drums it's pretty obvious to hear for me at least, like with some experience where if I go too fast the kick drum just gets small and just it's a fine line there so I can add more punch to it to a certain degree, but at some point it just gets very narrow and tiny and small and like weird, it doesn't sit much like really well anymore, especially if you leave the longer attack. If you leave, if you let the transient through, it can become this short, clicky transient thing that you often don't really want for a kick drum, if you so. But but usually that's what I do longer, longer attack and then just enough to make it sit well, to get the punch that I want, and then that's basically it. I control the transients in a separate step afterwards that we'll get to. Sometimes it's rare for me and I think much more rare than much rarer than for you, malcolm. But sometimes I might use an 1176 or something really fast, or I will turn the you know attack knob on the SSL in too fast attack mode or peak mode or whatever, and I can and I will make the compressor immediately react to the transient which makes the kick drum sit differently in the mix, like it's going to be very consistent, it's going to be. The transient will be a little softer but at the same time there will be a kind of a different kind of punch added to it and this kind of. It's so hard to explain this with words, but yeah, I've seen you do this in a Mixes Unpacked thing where I think you've compressed the kick drum with an 1176 in pretty short attack times and you compressed the hell out of it and it still sounded yeah, it still sounded punchy, and so I feel like I can't do it that often it just the kick seems to disappear if I do that, but sometimes it's the move and yeah, but it all depends on the context of the song.

Speaker 1: 15:15

It's just important for you to know that the attack is very critical here. You've got to be very intentional about this and you just the best way to learn this is, I think, to turn the threshold down so far that you do a lot of compression, use a high ratio just over, compress the hell out of the kick drum and then just start with a very, very short attack time, like the shortest one, and then gradually increase it and listen to what happens, because you will hear the at some point the transient will come through. It will be very narrow and pokey and clicky. Then more and more of the entire kick drum will come through until you reach a point where basically all of it hits you and only the sustain is compressed. And then you turn down the amount of compression and do that again until you really find that sweet spot that you want for your kick drum. But you've got to learn how the different attack settings change the entire shape of your kick drum transient. Basically.

Speaker 2: 17:45

Yeah, yeah, and it does take practice to be able to hear that accurately, to be able to hone in on just what's changing with the attack knob, but once you get it, it's like riding a bike. You've got it. Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1: 17:59

So what I like to do, instead of the super fast compression usually on kicks, is I like to do the slower one, to add more punch and only do a few, you know, a little bit of compression usually, and then I will afterwards push it into a clipper, though, or a limiter, which is a limiter is kind of the same what you're doing with 1176, it's just a separate thing again for me where I feel like I have to punch, but maybe now it's just the transient is a little too hard and I don't get the full oomph of the kick drum that I really want.

Speaker 1: 18:28

And to control that, and especially the louder hits, to make it more consistent, I will then push it into maybe even a pre-destructive limiter like an L1 or something, or into a clipper, and clippers can be awesome, because to me they also add some grit to the beater attack and they add a certain quality that I just like in terms of how the attack sounds.

Speaker 1: 18:49

You just have to be careful, because clipping, or heavily limiting as well, also usually means that low midrange frequencies creep up. So you get this kind of you know exactly what I mean, right, malcolm where you get this upper bass, lower midrange thing that gets louder all the time and then gets saturated at some point and it adds this weird resonance to the kick that you actually don't want. So this is one of those things. If I do that, I this is one of those things where I actually have to go back to my subtractive EQ and remove even more of the 150 or whatever that I did just after crushing it, because that stuff will creep up again and then we'll add this weird quality to the low end that I don't want.

Speaker 2: 19:26

Yeah yeah, clippers can get really bad on low end information if you're not careful. So it is like definitely a. I'm pretty cautious and tend to avoid clippers for that reason, but they totally can work. You're right, and, like I think it sounds like we're both kind of getting to the same point, though, where we're shaping the attack. We really emphasize that, like the getting the attack of your kick drum sound at this part is really crucial. But we're also trying to deal with the consistency of the hits, because, unless your drummer is just fantastic, there's probably some hits that are just a little quieter than others that aren't meant to be. You know, like there's more dynamics than you actually want in the performance of the drum. So we need to try and narrow that and get the more uniform so that it's just like more consistent throughout the song, and obviously you can go too far with that, but generally, where you're starting from, there's too much dynamics. So this is also a part where we're trying to level some of that out.

Speaker 1: 20:29

Yeah, absolutely Quick pro tip here and this is not one of the essential things that you need to do. So if you do all the things we just talked about, you're usually, you know, fine and it's like you're going to be in the ballpark and it's more than like absolutely. In most cases it's going to be enough. But there's always the exception, and I'm going to give you something that works really well for me. But don't feel like you have to do that on every single kick drum. But the logic behind it is really interesting. That's why I wanted to bring it up. So, usually with a kick drum, if you hit it like, if you have the problem that you just described, malcolm, with like an inconsistent drummer, too much dynamics actually. So if you hit a kick drum quietly, it usually also means not just less volume, but it means longer low end and more low end in relation to, like, the beater attack. So you have, instead of a, you know, hard hitting kick drum hit, you got a sort of soft low end and less beater attack. So the sound changes as well, not just the volume, whereas on the like really hard hits, especially if the drummer is like burying the beater, then you might have a very short low end because the beater just they just stick the beater into the head and the low end is kind of choked, but you have the massive sort of punch and beater attack and so there will be a difference in sound. And for me to make that more consistent if that is not intentional or if it's just too much or more than I want to, to have to make that more consistent you can use something like a. You can use a multi band compressor, slash expander. So you need something like pro MB by FabFilter or something like that where you can switch the bands from compression to expansion.

Speaker 1: 22:06

I'm going to explain really quick what that means. So two bands one is controlling the low end, one is controlling the upper midrange, where the beater attack is. Now you set the beater attack thing like the upper midrange band. You set that to compression so that it reduces it when the signal exceeds the threshold, and the low end you set to an expander so that every time the signal is loud and it goes past the threshold it actually boosts some low end.

Speaker 1: 22:32

So that way every time a loud hit comes in, the thing does this it ducks the presence and boosts the low end and on the quiet hits, it stays kind of the same, and that way the louder hits are have a more controlled beater attack, but an additional low end boost and the quiet hits, kind of stays, stay the same, and so that is something you can do, and what's just important to realize about that is that consistency so important, that the source really matters and that a louder kick drum hit is usually not just louder, unless it's a one shot, that's exactly the same.

Speaker 1: 23:02

It means it also sounds different, and our goal with all the kick drum shaping that we just described in these two episodes is to make the song feel good and usually, and to make the get the groove right and usually this requires some level of consistency and we need to do whatever we can to achieve that and with many especially natural drum performances where it's not programmed and you can't really do anything about it, you just have to, you know, mangle it and crush it and whatever, to make sure that actually happens.

Speaker 2: 23:32

Yeah, yeah, that it's a really clever way actually if you're trying to compensate for that performance deficiency. It doesn't like we. We both know that it doesn't actually do it. It makes it better and like sonically more consistent, but like there's just a different sound to a hard hit, right. So like always get your drummer to hit harder, more consistently, consistently, but like, yeah, you've got to do what you got to do essentially, and that is one method of getting it a little bit closer and all these things add up.

Speaker 1: 24:05

Absolutely, and then just standard limiting does a part of the job as well.

Speaker 1: 24:09

Like we said before, it's just also consistency where you just basically in terms of just levels also how hard you hit your drum cusp bus compressor and the mix bus compressor. So you want to control your kick drum to a degree that if you send that finished sort of shaped kick drum and the snare and all of that, if you sent that to your drum bus or the mix bus or both, then you just want to make sure that whatever is happening there is seeing an actual groove and not like a thing that's all over the place dynamically. So you just want to make sure that the peaks, if you look at the meter of your final sort of kick drum channel or group or whatever you have, it always depends on the genre and if you're making jazz or whatever, like there could be, you know drastic differences in dynamic or whatever. But like if you're doing any sort of modern rock, pop, heavy music, whatever, usually the meter pretty much looks the same for every single hit. It's just you just lock it in and then you can write automation to make it more dynamic and that stuff.

Speaker 1: 25:00

But before you add the intentional dynamics. I try to control the dynamics that are already there as much as possible so that I can then actually control them if that makes sense. So I try to make it consistent first and then add back whatever dynamics I think it needs for the song, because I want my bus compressors to see a groove that is working together and is kind of predictable, and because that is what makes us move to the music.

Speaker 2: 25:27

So yeah, yeah. No, I told you I agree with that. It's like it's a pretty advanced concept and so if you don't understand that yet, don't worry about it. Just like it's a, it'll stew in the back of your brain for a little bit. In the one day it'll click. But yeah it's. There's a lot of doing something that seems bad to make it good later in mixing. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 25:48

So what do you do in terms of color or other things? Because that's typically it for me. I might have a parallel bus, you know, I might have a drum crush, that I send stuff to do, but it's always these things like I use saturation of clipping tools to add the color and a little bit of grit to the attack, and there's no rules there. You really have to find the tool that you like and experiment with that. Be careful with the low end, though. Maybe just saturate the beater, attack the top end or whatever. You know certain things. Then there is a Q and then there's compression. That's pretty much it for me, but I don't know, maybe you do specific other things to shape the kick drum or add some character or color that's pretty much it as well.

Speaker 2: 26:22

I mean, after that compressor is where I do my saturation and, like I mentioned, backspace I think maybe that was in the last episode but like I'll start adding density through harmonics to the kick drum after that and it's again quite subtle usually, but it like just kind of gets it where I want it. And then, yeah, this is where I really start thinking about the drum even larger in the scope of the mix, and we've talked about how you need to be listening to it in context all throughout this and just constantly checking it with your mix. But this is like now where I'm gonna be like, okay, can I use these roommates to really make this drum explosive, you know? And? And that's where you can really get creative. And it's not that every mix needs this, but like one fun example, just to kind of give people an idea of like how far you can go, is you could sidechain or like duplicate your room mics, for example, and then sidechain it to a kick drum like signal so that it only plays the room mics when the kick drum gets hit.

Speaker 2: 27:26

So you've got this like explosive room mic sample essentially you've made with your real room mics and and then you EQ that to to hell yeah and make it whatever you need to be the perfect kick drum room, you know, and and it doesn't, you don't. You don't worry about the bleed because it's only firing when it's been sidechain from the kick drum signal and there's to make that happen. It's more complicated than that, but it's like that's an example of like how far you could go with using the rest of your kit to to make the kick drum sound cool and like, if you have a really wide room mic set up that you're doing something like that with. It's now now your drum stereo, you know you've got this big splash coming left and right on the kick drum hits as well, so it's like a very dramatically different thing all of a sudden. So all that to say after this core stuff that Benny and I both seem to kind of do very similarly. Yeah, this is where I get really creative and see what else is possible absolutely agree, 100%.

Speaker 1: 28:21

Yep, that's just really about context, then, and about automating things up and down. I might be, I might even do that, what you just said with the explosive room mics. I might just bring it up for a certain part. Maybe the song in general is like too fast or too dense for that. But then there's this one breakdown with tons of room in between the kit, the hits, and then I will just automate the, the room mics up, compress them hard, and then this one part will completely explode, or you know things like that. Or there's the quiet verse or bridge, where I might mute the room mics entirely or make them very quiet, so it all becomes like very intimate and small you know really creative stuff, and it all affects the, the kick drum, but the mix as a whole, oh, this is actually one very important thing that just comes to mind here with automation.

Speaker 1: 29:02

One thing that I ran into quite often in the past, where artists often like made me aware of that more than I noticed it myself, is and now I am very aware of that and do it all the time is where I might have a kick drum sound that really works for the song, and I will automate it up and down, you know whatever I need. But then sometimes if there's a quieter part or a certain the beginning of a verse or whatever, but it's not really, there's not a lot of energy and the band is not playing like super loud or like it shouldn't feel like a band playing super loud, I oftentimes had the kick pretty much the same still, because it didn't bother me. I like the consistency. But then often artists pointed out to me hey, that like the kick here is sounds like it's hitting way too hard, so we need to turn that down, and not just the volume but the way it sounds. And now I'm very aware of that.

Speaker 1: 29:47

That when there's actually a quiet verse and the snare is quieter or there's like, yeah, more detail in that or it's an intimate somebody sort of thing, I make sure that I might not. I will not just automate down the kick, I might actually use the clip gain again or push less into my compressor or like change the beginning of the chain to make that part less aggressive, because it sounds kind of weird if you turn the kick drum down but it still sounds like a full-on hit all the time right in a part like that. So sometimes you have to make changes to the beginning of the chain to not change the volume only but to change the entire feel and to give the song that kind of relief for that moment before it hits hard again.

Speaker 2: 30:23

So told the yeah, that's a great note. Yeah, it all comes back to context again. It's like we're mixing the song, not a kick drum. So if you've been doing all of this, like this entire process that we've been talking about, just listening to the last chorus, the loudest part of the song, when you go back to the quiet verse, you might be sorely disappointed in the decisions you've made. So you have to be careful about that and make sure, like you are making decisions that are going to benefit the song as a whole, and often that will mean making automation changes throughout different parts of the song. But while I'm doing this, this kind of like first mixing pass, I am trying to make something that's like a broad decision for the whole song. And you know what's interesting, benny, I'd love to hear thoughts on this.

Speaker 2: 31:13

Normally I'm kind of prioritizing the loudest part of the song because I don't want to make decisions on the quiet part and try and make it hit really hard. And then I get to the loud part and it just like everything blows up because it's so much louder. That makes sense to me. Well, what was my train of thought there? Shit, I really don't know where I was going with that, I convinced myself that there was a reason I might want to do it the other way around. But now I'm like no, I definitely like doing the loud stuff. Maybe we'll just keep that in there. Let's go. No, but yeah, so yeah for me.

Speaker 1: 31:42

I definitely start with the loudest parts of the song because I feel like it's easier to reduce the amount of processing and make it less intense but still retain sort of the character that I and the sort of vibe that I created, versus trying to mix a quiet verse where I might not need to do much for it to work and then the chorus comes in and it's just too soft or whatever. Or I'm yeah, I just doesn't make sense to me and like I start with the loudest part, for sure for various reasons, also for gain, staging reasons on like the mix bus and all of that it has to be yeah absolutely.

Speaker 1: 32:14

Yeah, always, always, do that and then work my way backwards sort of from there, or I will not backwards, but I will start with the loudest part, usually to get the levels and gain staging general vibe Right. The loudest part is oftentimes also kind of the climax of the song, the most important part where it's like, okay, this really has to hit hard and this is like the most important thing. And then so I need also all the objectivity and, you know, fresh ears and everything to make good decisions there. And then I will usually jump back right to the beginning of the song, regardless of whether that's a quiet or loud part, and then just work my way through the song, because from there, once I got the loudest part right, I think the next and most important thing is that the beginning of the song is absolutely right. So this is the first thing listen is here and then I just work my way through the song part by part, usually.

Speaker 2: 32:58

So yeah, yeah, that sounds about the same to me. Just keep in mind that you will want to make things less intense, potentially. So if you have kind of like some ideas of how you'd pull that off in mind, it could stop you from painting yourself into a corner, I guess. And there's all sorts of ways you could automate just the parameters of the plugins you've used, like back down. So maybe you need to lessen that a super intense attack. You built in with an EQ so you could just automate that down for a section. Maybe it's just as simple as like a dry, wet, dry knob and you can just automate the mix down to be less intense, you know. Or maybe it's simply volume yeah, you know, just got to. Or, as Benny suggested, clip game is a really great way to do it, because then you're just driving the processing. You've applied less hard, yeah.

Speaker 1: 33:44

Absolutely Exactly Good. I think there's lots to think about already and let me know as always, let us know if you have anything you like to do to your kick drums, any special you know creative things you discovered or whatever. Just let us know. There's a million ways to treat a kick drum in a mix and we always love to hear new and exciting approaches as well. But I think for most people it's a really good idea to start with those basics to get the levels and the balance right, to have good source tones, to EQ properly, compress properly, and then you basically pretty much there and everything else is like creative, you know add-ons, nice to halves, but if you have a good sounding kick drum that fits the song and you EQ that well and you compress it just enough but not too much, you should be there. So Absolutely yeah.

Speaker 2: 34:32

Now I've got an idea for an episode and I would love to hear from listeners if you're listening listeners if they want it. But this was kind of how to process a kick drum in a normal setting. But what if we did an episode on how to mix a really terrible kick drum? Why?

Speaker 1: 34:48

You can't do that, you can't use this, so what do you do? Oh, okay, oh, I thought you were talking about creating a really terrible result and I was like, why would I want to do that, dealing with something really bad?

Speaker 2: 34:57

because these decisions were based on it being workable, under the assumption that, like, the job's been done to an adequate degree of tracking these or whatever.

Speaker 1: 35:07

And you mean, like we can't just replace it, we have to deal with whatever we have, because the solution would be just replace it.

Speaker 2: 35:15

But like I think there's multiple ways you could go, because I would say, even with a really terrible kick drum, there's usually one good quality in it, yeah yeah. So it won't be the kick drum, but it might be a piece of it, you know. So maybe there's a fascinating polishing turds episode series we could go down.

Speaker 1: 35:32

Maybe, yeah, or it could be a topic for, like, youtube videos where we actually show how that would sound or whatever. Because, like, how do you describe terrible kick sound? But, yeah, good idea though. Good idea though. I love that. That's actually a good idea in general. So maybe we should do more episodes on how to fix or deal with less than ideal recordings, because at the end of the day, if we're being honest, that's what we deal with often with, like self-recording bands. It's like just the reality. So if you're recording yourself, chances are you're not at that level yet where you record and produce world-class sort of recordings and what you capture is going to be pretty raw and not saying it's terrible, but usually there's problems.

Speaker 2: 36:10

There'll probably be something in there that you screw up, yeah.

Speaker 1: 36:14

Chances are that there are, yeah, yeah, good, good idea, very cool, very cool. Let me think about that. Great Now. Hope that was helpful. And again, let us know in the comments If you're listening watching on YouTube. Let us know in the comments If you are listening on your podcast app. Leave a review. Tell us there if you find this helpful Having to ask you for that in a while, I think and join our Facebook group. It's still growing every single week. So apparently people are still on Facebook and we are in there as well and taking care of that community over there. And yeah, thank you for listening. That's all I can say. Thank you very much. See you next week. Bye.