Audio Recording

Hi, I’ve subscribed to your website and it has really been helpful. I am based in Africa and in my country there isn’t any legitimate sound engineering school. I’ve been making beats for about 8 years now. I would like to know the basic standard frequencies for:

The Kick drums (hip hop and RnB)
The Hi-Hats
The snare
The crash cymbal

Thank you
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My reply:

Theory about central frequency of every drum instrument

Thank you for writing and subscribing to audiorecording.me. First let give you a theory about central (or fundamental) frequencies which are discussed in the musical instrument frequency range analysis. The frequency response of any drum instrument can be approximated by this graph:

At Emax is where the central frequency of the instrument will be located. This is the strongest and dominant frequency that you should know. The purpose is to have your EQ adjustments to be as accurate and effective as possible. Central frequency is what gives the drum instrument a distinct and identifiable sound in the mix. Kick and bass drum tends to have central frequencies in the bass/subwoofer frequency range. Snare drums tend to have its central frequency in the mid-frequency range. And finally hi-hats and cymbals tend to have its central frequency in the upper frequency range (treble).

However, the central frequency at Emax is DIFFERENT for EVERY DRUM RECORDING SESSION. This is because recording techniques have strong influence on the final/resulting instrument sound. Like how you place the microphone in the bass drum could affect its central frequency response. If you put the microphone nearer to the kick pedal, it tends to have different sound than placing the microphone significantly farther. Another example is the way how you put the microphone on the snare drum. Also the type and skin of the snare drum can also affect the resulting central frequency. And even different brands of drum kit can have different sound. This goes to say that:
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I received an inquiry about drum mixing tips for rock music, here it goes:

Hey!
I’ve been following your tutorials and they have been very helpful. I’m quite new to mixing and I’ve been trying to mix some recorded drums for a rock song and I find it very difficult to get them to sound good. What mean with good is, well with regards to any modern rock song. In my opinion they sound boring, dry, “hi-endish” (made up word) and lacking some space.
What is your take on them and what can I do to improve the mix. Any tips? If you have time please let me know, it would be very appreciated. Big thanks

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My Reply:

Actually before going to any drum mixing details, one of the most common problems originated in the drum recording/tracking process. There are too many factors influencing the drum sound as you will know in this post. Remember the garbage in-garbage out analogy. If it’s not recorded properly then you will have a hard time mixing it. On my experience the following are the important elements in getting a great drum sound:

a.) Make it sound perfect before doing any recording takes.
b.) Record it in a perfect room.

This is how the professionals do the drum tracking. If you have done a great job in doing those two essential elements, it will be very easy to mix drums. Lets go with each in detail. This is the drum audio you have provided:

Listening to it, its not actually that bad though it can be improved significantly. Anyway below are my suggestions to improve that sound:
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Snare is one of the most important parts of the drum that plays a significant role in rock, punk and alternative music production. This tutorial will illustrate how the snare drum sound changes with 5 different compression settings. This is a useful guide for a beginner in choosing the best compression settings for the snare. Let’s get started with the default settings (original and uncompressed snare):

This is how the snare waveform looks like “uncompressed”:

Supposing you want to apply this first compression setting:

-30.4dB threshold
2:1 Compression ratio
Scan mode: RMS
Smooth saturation: Yes
Attack time: 5ms
Release time: 10ms
Output gain: 7.6dB

The threshold depends on the peak of the snare drum; feel free to experiment to get the optimum threshold. The compressor that I’m using is the Sony Wave Hammer. This is the resulting sound:

The snare drum sounds scratchy. It adds more character to snare drum wires and also the snare drum sounds a bit sustain more than the original. Although this sound is not as thick as the other compression settings to be illustrated later on. If you need your snare drum to sound like this. You can start implementing the above settings. The output gain is adjustable depending on your desired snare drum volume. This is how the waveform looks like for the first setting:

Comparing with the uncompressed wave, compressing with very fast attack time and release time results to less energy at the maximum peak of the snare drum; as you have noticed that peak section is now thinner compared with the uncompressed snare. Let’s try this second setting:

-30.4dB threshold
4:1 Compression ratio
Scan mode: RMS
Smooth saturation: Yes
Attack time: 5ms
Release time: 100ms
Output gain: 7.6dB

The second setting has very fast attack time but slow release time. It also uses moderate compression ratio of 4:1. This is how the snare drum sounds like:

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