How mix drums that were recorded in a small studio – and get them to sound huge!
Hi Friends, I regularly work with drums that have been recorded in small rooms, which don’t sound as massive as I would like right from the beginning.I imagine many of you find yourselves in the same position:
Often there just isn’t the budget to record your drums in a professional studio with a big live room, so you’ll work with drums that have been recorded in a rehearsal room, living room or hey, even a bedroom. And that’s absolutely fine!
In fact, I recorded Ace Frehley’s “Fire and Water” featuring Paul Stanley in my home studio with a minimal setup and inexpensive mics. When I sent the instrumental mix to engineer Greg Collins for Paul to track his vocals to, he called me and said: “Wow these drums sound amazing, where did you record them?”
Shhh… in my home studio… 😉
I’ve often talked about the fact that some of the greatest records of all time were made on very humble setups, in houses and far from any major studio. I 100% believe that that’s all you need to make great music today. Because what really matters is your creativity, a great song and a great performance!
You CAN get a powerful drum sound from drums recorded in small spaces, you just have to know a few tricks and workarounds to make it happen.
This tutorial shows you how to make your drums sound bigger and more ambient than they actually are:
I’ll teach you a technique I’ve learnt from legendary rock mixer Andy Wallace. With this technique you can shape your reverb and make your drums sound like they were recorded in a huge space – all just by using stock plugins in protools!
I’m also going to show you how to smoothly edit an uneven drum groove without making your edits too noticeable or obnoxious sounding. I hope you enjoy this tutorial.
Thanks for watching! Please leave any questions and comments you may have below.
You can learn more tricks on mixing home studio drums, and download free multitracks here.
Have a marvellous time recording and mixing,
Warren
Perfect timing. I just finished a drum session yesterday and was going over how I’m going to make them massive. If you were timing the kit before you track the next instrument, would you do the same deal here (time just the stuff that needs it) or get all the main hits exactly on point??