Welcome back. We’re learning how to mix live music, and in this session we will focus on drums. As in kick, snare, hat, toms and overheads! Probably the loudest instruments in the band, and the ones with the most focused range of frequencies. Each mic used will require different treatment. But firstly, make sure the drums are tuned well, to sound good in the room: if they don’t sound good naturally, they will never sound good through a microphone! Now many drummers don’t know how to tune their own instruments well, so there is always a chance for a sound engineer to develop this useful new skill. We’re going to skip that topic for now though… let’s assume the drums already sound awesome! In keeping with tradition, let’s start with the kick drum or bass drum. Let’s assume you’re using just one microphone for this drum, and is positioned a little inside the drum. You may want to emphasize the low frequency “thump” of the drum. Or the higher “clap” of the beater against the skin. Or perhaps both. But what you don’t want to do is boost the high frequencies, because there is nothing nice there. Turn down the high band immediately between -3 and -6 dB. Next, listen to the low frequencies. Turn up the low shelf half-way, to increase the bottom-end power. Does it sound good? Alternatively, turn it down if you prefer to reduce “boom”. My general rule in live sound is never to boost an EQ more than 6 dB. Cut as much as you like, but be careful with boosting, as nasty feedback noises can occur! Now the mid band. Here’s a tip: boost the band at least half-way, and sweep the frequency from minimum to maximum, and find the frequency that carries the desired “clap” sound. Keep the frequency there, and take the gain back down between +3 and +6. The trick is to get a pleasing balance between “thump” and “clap”. Now let’s move on to the snare drum. We’ll consider just one mic above the edge of the drum, pointing towards the center of its head. First we are going to reduce the amount of kick drum heard in this channel, by reducing the low shelf a few dB. What we do next depends on the sound of the drum. If it has an unpleasant ringing sound, we could reduce that. Or if it already sounds good, we could find the frequency to help the drum’s “Snap” sound cut through the whole music mix. Start with the mid band’s frequency at minimum, turn up the mid gain, and sweep the frequency around slowly. When the ringing is emphasized, stop and cut the gain a bit. Or, find the point where the drum sound is strongest, and leave the mid gain boosted a little. The nice thing about TF consoles is that they have 4-bands of EQ. So you can use the low-mid to reduce ringing, and the high-mid to increase the snap. You know, there are various methods for drum mic-ing. The common 4-mic method includes kick, snare and a pair of overheads. In this case, the overhead mics will need to amplify not only cymbals, but also toms and hi-hat, and perhaps also additional percussion items. Though hopefully not a cowbell… So if this is the case, let’s cut the low shelf, but hesitate before reducing the mid band. If you don’t use any close tom mics, you might want to use the mid band to boost the fundamental frequencies of the tom. Sweep the frequency dial with the gain boosted to find the right point. If you are using tom mics, you could reduce the mid band for the overhead mics. Now often the snare drum will sound quite live and dynamic in the overhead mics. So listen to the overhead channels in combination with the snare channel. As a result, you might want to reduce the high band of the snare a little. Try boosting the overheads high band a little, to add sparkle, but not more than 6dB. Now listen to the “before and after” audio clips, showing how the MGP mixer’s EQ on the 4 drum mics can make a pleasant overall sound. Note that pan and HPF are already engaged on both clips. If you are using close tom mics, then you should focus on the mid frequencies. We'll reduce both high and low shelves: the kick and the overhead will be supplying those frequencies. Then we boost the mid gain, and sweep the frequency to find each tom’s sweet spot. The smaller tom, the higher the frequency. So in this example, you can see the floor tom is on the left, and the smallest tom is on the right. In some cases, you’ll be able to use a dedicated hi-hat mic, hovering about 5 to 10 cm above the edge of the hi-hat. If you have that luxury, greatly reduce the low shelf, and reduce the mid frequency which carries the harshest snare sound. Mildly boost the high shelf to add “sizzle”. When you look at the kick, snare, and hat channels in combination, you should see how they complement each other: each channel will be boosting and cutting different frequencies, to form an overall natural sounding blend. If you have the time and resources, you might even put 2 mics onto one drum: snare or kick, or both. This will allow a more precise sound to be created: one mic can focus on the “snappy” snare sound or the “clicky” kick sound, while the other mic is focused on the deeper “punch” or “thwack” from the drum shell. However, remember what we mentioned in an earlier chapter about polarity: you will probably need to reverse it for one of the mics. That facility is available in the TF3, so you should be using those more advanced consoles. And you'll get TF’s more versatile 4-band EQ, so you can shape the sound much more precisely. But still, I would suggest only increasing the gain of one mid band, and reducing the other bands to allow more natural blending of all the drum channels. Take a listen to these example recordings, using 10 mics on a drum kit, including 2 for the kick and 2 for the snare. The first is without EQ, but with HPF applied to most channels, and polarity reversed for the second drum mics. The second clip is with EQ applied to all channels, using the TF mixer. Notice the clearer definition of the kick, snare and hi-hat, and less sympathetic ringing from the toms. Right, now we’ve got the drum kit sounding tidy. In the next session, we will EQ the core instruments of a rock band: electric bass, guitars and keyboards. See you again then!
