Poor drums

Extek

Member
Joined
Nov 2, 2013
Hi!

I got a problem,the drums doesnt sound as hard as i want,they sound very low and dont give strength to the drop,how i should eq. them or masterize them?
 
Layering will help here but most of all, sample choice!

What do you mean by 'low' ? Pitching would help if they don't sound right.

Another tip is set up a drum bus with something like Vintage Warmer on, helps to beef shizzle up.
 
/\ This. Is there any way you could post a sound clip for us to critique? I think punchy drums is probably one of the most searched/asked about topics in music production, especially in the electronic end of things; so, if we had something to hear and talk about we could give you a response much more geared towards whatever would be best practice for your situation.
 
I think one of the issues might be partly down to how the percussion is fighting against the bright and thick bass lead layer. But on the whole though, if you are having problems with things like the kick or the snare punching through a mix, then sometimes it is better to go back to where it originated from and either relayer, or find something new. There's a softness to the kick you used and while it has a lot of bass, the actual punch itsn't getting through enough. Sometimes having too much low end on a kick can make it worse as well, especially in DnB. I take it you have tried sidechaining as well?

Try turning off every layer and bringing the perc in one by one to get the desired punch and feel and then bring in other elements like the lead, bass etc.
 
Yeah mixdown needs a ton of work. If i were you, i'd graphically analyse the EQ of the drum stems off that Noisia remix comp and try and go from there. Kick and Snare need to be the loudest together, then work down from there.

Your track has way too much sub on the kick and the snare has hardly any body (150 -250hz) .. I think you need to EQ your hats or change that sample. Look up surgical EQin, a lot of mank frequencies going on.

HTH
 
split your lead into different layers and sidechain the kick to the low one and the snare to the one with the mids, eq your drums a bit more pitch your samples around till they sit well in the mix (if punch is missing you can always add a lower drum sample and then just pitch that up, works most of the time), kicks in dnb dont really need a lot of sub as the sub bass already takes care of that area (i usually roll mine off at 80hz, depends on the track though)

also raise your overall level of the drums, the rest just overpowers them, i usually have my kick sitting between -2.5 to -5 db and the snare between -4 and -7 (again depends on the track obviously but just to have some sort of guideline)
 
split your lead into different layers

And how i split my lead into different layers if im using massive?

I think the biggest problem is the snare,maybe the sample is not correct or i need more eq to make it harder and better (and faster and stonger :p)Can you tell me good sample packs please??

Thank you everyone for the advices,i'll try to make what u told me :)
 
And how i split my lead into different layers if im using massive?

I think the biggest problem is the snare,maybe the sample is not correct or i need more eq to make it harder and better (and faster and stonger :p)Can you tell me good sample packs please??

Thank you everyone for the advices,i'll try to make what u told me :)

i am not working with massive, but i guess you can just copy your instance of massive and lowpass it one time and sidechain that to the kick, highpass it the other time and sidechain that to the snare, should work
also reading up on parallel compression (as markus said) is probably gonna help
 
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Select good quality samples. Layer in terms of body and attack. Saturation. EQ. NY Compression and some gentle processing on a drum bus for cohesion.
 
Not even sure if it will help you out, but these thoughts occured when I heard the last one:

Volume control should be primus always, since this will alter the sound the least - it's a tad too high, IMO, and it's the biggest problem.

Your synth really takes up room, well, everywhere; Your synth is somewhat stereowidened, which isn't a bad thing at all. Usually, though, the low end is preferred to be in mono. This can be done by seperating the low-end and higher freqs in your synth into two tracks and some EQing.

Also, look into sidechaining. A kick normally is normally distinguished by the pulsing low end it will give to the tune (If that's a word for it, lol), but sometimes the synth's low end will blur that effect away. Sidechaining can help on that problem, as well as other problems, where you need direct and straightforward presence of a sound. Can't really figure if it will help on your mix, but it's a worthy and diverse tool.
 
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