Have you ever wondered why, despite your best efforts, your drum recordings end up sounding boxy or muddy?
Are the cymbals piercing through your mix, or the kick drum’s low-end driving you crazy?
Fear not! We’re about to dive into the world of drum equalization (EQ) to help you craft the perfect drum sound.
Cutting Out the Boxiness
First things first: let’s tackle that annoying “boxy” sound. Often, this issue lives in the 300 – 600 Hz region.
Here’s a secret tip: Create a narrow Q, crank up the boost on your EQ plugin, and start sweeping around until you locate the boxiest frequency. Once you’ve got it—POW!—kick it out!
This method works wonders not only for the kick drum but also on a drum group bus, toms, or any other drum that needs a bit of smoothing out. A cut around 400 Hz might just be the ticket to a tighter drum sound.
Mic Phase and Polarity
This one doesn’t get enough credit: the phase and polarity relationship between all your drums.
If you’re using multiple mics on your drums, like an over and under snare mic, you’d be surprised at how much punch you can bring back into a drum sound by simply aligning the polarity of all elements.
This tip isn’t just for drums either. Try flipping the polarity of one of the tracks on any multi-miked instrument, and see if it doesn’t pack some extra oomph to the overall sound.
A Kick That Cuts Through
For kick drums, the usual approach is to cut the mids and boost the lows for bass and the high-mids for the beater.
Solid strategy, but sometimes, you need to be a bit more forceful with taming the lows, especially in genres like metal where kick drums can turn into a muddy mess fast with too much low-end.
Think about adding a shelving cut filter to control the lows while giving a big boost to the beater area around 4 kHz. Let the bass guitar handle the low-end presence and make the kick stand out in the mids instead.
Genre-Specific Adjustments
Here’s a great rule to follow: The harder the genre, the more higher-mid boost you should be applying.
Metal kick drums really shine with a big boost in the 4 kHz area.
For softer genres like pop, folk, and rock, you can achieve your desired results by focusing more on the area from 1.2 kHz to 3 kHz.
Taming Harsh Cymbal Noises
When you hear the cymbals piercing through the mix, don’t assume you need to cut the highs because that’s not the part of the cymbals that’s being annoying.
Usually, the high mids cause the most problems, so a cut in the 2.5 kHz area can still get you a clean and airy cymbal sound without the annoying harshness.
Dealing with Low-Mid Buildup
Home-recorded drums often have annoying low-mid buildup, causing the kick drum to have too much energy in the 100 – 250 Hz area.
Don’t be afraid to cut lows and low mids to clean up your drum sound. It doesn’t always take a low-frequency boost to create powerful bass. Sometimes it’s about cleaning up the area to hear the bass that’s already there.
Adding Body and Sizzle
Finally, let’s chat about adding some body and sizzle to your drums.
Fancy adding some body to your drum sound? Try looking for it around 150 – 250 Hz. If you’re after a meaty snare sound, boost the low mids to enhance the thickness of the body.
Want some more sizzle or attack? Accentuating the 2.5 – 3 kHz area can help bring it out in the mix.
But if that rattles the snares too much, a high-shelving boost around 10 kHz will enhance the brightness of the snare drum without adding harshness from the snares themselves.
Conclusion
And there you have it, my fellow sound engineers! A few tips and tricks to give your drums the punch, clarity, and body they deserve.
Remember, these are guidelines, not strict rules. Every mix is unique, so use your ears and feel free to experiment. Happy mixing!
