Mixing Toms : Tips Anyone ?

[VanLichten]

I just finish a track with some real acustic toms and i really
don't get to make them sound at least decent ..
By itself, they don't sound too bad, but in the mix they sound (depend on my approach) like
a.) made of toilet paper
b.) thin and boomy at the same
c.) impressive, but eating up all the rest of drums and bass.


I HATE Toms ....anyone here who succeeded mixing toms who like to share some tips..would be very much appreciated !

Cheers, Richard

[donkey tugger]

Hehe, I love me toms.

I tend to stick them on an effects bus of their own independent of the kick and snare, and compress them quite a lot. Depending on the samples also sometimes do a little dip in the 'boom' frequencies of around 200-300 hz. If the drum part is quite a busy fast one, its also worth gating them (or using edited samples), so that you get the whack but not loads of the rumble afterwards.

[C00kie]

1) (parametric) EQ !!
2) Compression !!
3) additional effects like reverb, pitch shift ....
4) adjust volume
5) go back to step 1

Use the EQ to shape the sound, so it emphasizes the character of the tom sound. Cut unwanted freqs, boost some mid freqs a bit to emphasize it.

Use compression to shape dynamics behaviour. Emphasize the initial hit, bring up (or temper) resonances.

Adding reverbs can do justice to a bigger sound. Also adding a pitch shifter may help. Or not... try it.

Finding appropriate settings for each component is a pain, I know. It takes some (a lot!) practice to get it right. Get some sense of what all the controls on the plugins do.

And do it in the context of the song. Do not expect something that sounds good on its own to sit well in the song.

[maxxxter]

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[maxxxter]

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[Rusty Shackleford]

I hope you're using Cubase or Nuendo. If you are, here's a few tips:

1. make sure your kick sounds right
2. make sure your bass sounds right
3. make sure your percussions sound right
4. bounce the above mentioned into one, single wave file (named TEMP.wav or something similar), (master out: 0db, brickwall limiter (of your choice) ON )
5. once you have this wave file in your project as a new separate track, put Elevayta SpaceBoy plugin (source) on this track and mute the track.
6. put another instance of the same plugin (destination) on your tom track
7. 'solo' the original kick, bass, percussions and tom tracks and keep the bounced one muted.
8. Open the destination instance of the SpaceBoy plugin (tom track) and adjust the 'humidity' (wet/dry) parameter; you probably don't want to remove all the bottom end on your toms, so let's say that setting the 'humidity' value somewhere around 60% should do the job. Use your ears.
9. Once you feel happy with how the toms sound, 'solo' the track and render it as a new, separate file (tip: 32bit float - sounds better).
10. Now that you have a new tom track, delete the TEMP.wav track and the old tom track
11. got to http://www.x-buz.com/products.html and download that free multiband stereo imager plugin ( STBOX4 ) or use Izotope Ozone's MB Imager if you have it.
12. Subtly adjust the stereo width for all bands.
(but focus on the bottom end & low-mid area).
tip: Try tweaking the crossover points too.
13. Once happy, add one more plugin in the chain: Muon M-Drive and adjust the left knob till it sounds right.
14. Once happy, render the file into a new track.
15. Take your SIR revreb and find a good impulse.
tip: (TC 6000)
16. download the new waves L1 clone limiter from BetaBugs and maximize the newly reverbed file.

This is how it works for me. Hope it helps a bit.

a bit like shooting a fly with an elephant gun isn't it?

[maxxxter]

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[C00kie]

I hope you're using Cubase or Nuendo. If you are, here's a few tips:

Why don't I see anything related specific to CuBase/Nuendo? (maybe it was the colour that blocked me from reading properly) All these steps can be done in all hosts I've seen so far...

Mind you, I would not take that approach. Using SpaceBoy is regarded as "cheating". You learn a lot more by fixing problems at their source, and not patch it up later on. A well-treated drum / toms track does not require to be SpaceBoyed.

[maxxxter]

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[nool]

auto dc and hipass it from 50hz and up ... a dip in 100 or 200 depending on the samples isn't a bad idea either

just use ur ear

[MickGael]

Try the "disco" curve.

At the last mastering session I was at, the band I tracked and mixed hired a top gun who came from Le Studio in Canada (engineered for Rush, the Police, King Crimson, Moody Blues, etc)

We chatted about engineering, including recording toms. He said "try cutting the mids and boosting bass and treble."

Know what? It worked great.

That said, 90% of the time, I found a pair of U87s placed behind the drummer, about 15 feet high, we almost all I needed. Gary Malabar shared the technique Glyn Johns technique with me at a master session. Boy, does it work.

Just add some kick and snare, and <lip smacking sound> tasty.

Cheers,
DJSL

[P.T.]

Like everything else, do your EQing and mixing with all tracks turned on. Do not work a track in isolation. You might get a track sounding great in isolation but it most likely will not work in the mix.

Find the boomy frequencies and reduce them. Find the frequencies that bring out the sound and give them a bit of boost.

[Stupid American Pig]

Not really mixing advice, but if someone could tell me how to get the toms sound that Phil spector got on plastic ono band and imagine I would make a track with toms as the only instrument

[VanLichten]

Hell, what a great amount of tips !
KVR is a great place...

I don't mind shooting mosquitos with elephants guns if the
result sounds good (as on some of your songs i heard here, Donkey Tuggers for instance) - toms CAN sound great, for sure, tribal, groovey..but until know mine didnt, not at all .

Thanks for all the contributions so far - i try them all out, perhaps getting Spaceboy in the process.
Probably i will start some more drum treatment threads, call me stupid but mixing drums is the most difficult part of audio mixing for me; i had make some progress with snares (Rubytube, bit Chorus, some Ultrafunk Reverb (thanks ttoz)) and kicks (Crunchessor !) but still inadept.

Cheers and thanks, Richard

[MickGael]

Not really mixing advice, but if someone could tell me how to get the toms sound that Phil spector got on plastic ono band and imagine I would make a track with toms as the only instrument

I hear ya. Detailed, but not hyped. The remastered version of those records are a stunning revelation, and boy, does "Gimme Some Truth" sound as relevant and contemporary today as it did more than 30 years ago.

I'd start with a ribbon mic, but I don't know for sure what mics Spector used. I do know that the Geoff Emerick used the Coles 4038 mics for overheads (and from what I can tell from session photos) dynamics for close-micing the drums....

Helps to have Ringo, Alan White, Jim Keltner....