#247 - The Drummer's Divide: Two Wildly Different Approaches to Drum Production - Secret Sonics

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
But it will be constructive criticism. So you know, a
month later when we crawl out of our existential crisis,
well we'll have learned something.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
There's no end to an existential crisis.

Speaker 1 (00:12):
Okay, Carl, this is post podcast banter. We'll talk about
that afterwards. Okay, Hi, I'm Ben and I'm Carl, and
you're listening to Secret Sonics, Honest conversations chock full of
tactical advice to help you build your dream career in
music and audio.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
Whether it's skill development, mixing, mindsets, personal branding, or work
life balance. We talk about ways to help set yourself
up for success in the ever changing music industry.

Speaker 1 (00:37):
Let's get started.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
And also with that DX revive Holy Cow. Also, I've
been using that on like in mixes really already. Yeah.
Well for singing, yeah, for and it works, it works.

Speaker 1 (00:52):
So dude, you have more REX than I do. But
when I recommend something, you have to take it.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
Seriously, especially in backing vocals. Amazing because it balances things out.
But also it's like, granted, I work with a lot
of self produced artists, so a lot of times, like
like as all as a performance is good, sometimes the
volumes inconsistent or like their microphone isn't the best and whatever,
and like this is it's actually weirdly been very very
helpful with getting like backing vocals and harmonies and things

(01:19):
to be like way more consistent.

Speaker 1 (01:23):
But like that makes a lot of sense. And even
on lead, it does like something there is something special
about it. It does like a pretning for you, Like
it gets rid of some of the boominess, some of
the harshness because it just like cleans it up like instantly.
It's insane.

Speaker 2 (01:36):
Yeah, I feel like for lead vocals. Yeah, for lead vocals,
I've only done it so far on sections where it's
like the vocal is intended to be very stylized, like
if it's going for like the strokes kind of a thing,
you know, like that the strokes where it's kind of
like low fi and like crunchy, you know, and it's
like I do that before all of those effects, so
that way it's a little bit more predictable going into

(01:59):
just going into these compressors and things, so that way
it's like I'm not having certain parts extra allow, you know,
the loud parts. When they really like dig into the performance,
it gets like more distorted than others because the input
gain is changing right right, But otherwise, like it's been
really interesting.

Speaker 1 (02:15):
It's a magic tool. It's like it's like I don't
know what the fuck they put into it.

Speaker 2 (02:19):
And the black Box we've been talking about lately, So
I don't know if it was in an episode recently
or it might have just been like in us talking
in a conversation, but we were talking about the plug
in alliance, the brain Works black Box, and I was
saying how I just started using it, and I was
sleeping on it for so long, and I've been experimenting
with it a lot. And one of the things that
I've been using a lot recently that has been really

(02:42):
interesting and working well is using it in dual mono mode,
not really using much of any of the saturation parts
and just using the density and cranking it up. I
was fixing a long last night that had these kind
of clean but corusy electric guitars in it, and it
was double tracked, but the performances were intentionally just like

(03:04):
a little bit loose. They weren't meant to be like
an exact like you know, like heavy metal double and
I really loved the tone that I was able to
get out of it. But because of the nature of
a clean electric guitar and even with the chorus on it, like,
there's a lot of dynamic variation. And I was trying
my normal go tos of like the omnipresser, like the

(03:24):
even tided omnipressor in dual mono mocause it has like
the upward compression and stuff, and I was trying to
even it out because it was a pretty it was
too dynamic, but I wanted each side to be able
to work independently because they weren't, you know, a direct double.
So I tried the omnipressor, it wasn't really working, and
I put on the brain Works black box in dual Mono.

(03:46):
I don't think I really did anything with the saturation,
but I was messing with the density knob and I
basically just cranked up the density knob and it made
everything sound exactly how I wanted it to. So I
don't I don't really know what that is under the hood.
I think it's some sort of you know, dynamics processing obviously,
but I don't know what it is or what makes
it different.

Speaker 1 (04:07):
But is this the version that has MS in it,
or it's just the regular black.

Speaker 2 (04:11):
Box, I do the dual mono mode in logic, like
the dual mono like plug in version. So I don't know.
I mean I feel like depending on the doll that
you use it, probably.

Speaker 1 (04:21):
No, No, they have like I think they have two
versions of the of the black box, like one that
has like mid side processing and one that doesn't.

Speaker 2 (04:27):
Oh, because I have the regular one, but I can
do mids processing within logic, but I was just doing
it in dual mono, just like treating the left and
the right separately, and holy cow, it was perfect. So
I gotta say, like, so far you recommended the DX
revive to me, and that's been an unexpected game changer

(04:47):
for me. And also the black Box has now become
something that yes, it does sound amazing when I use
it for what it's meant to be used for, but
even when I use it for something totally different and
I'm using it.

Speaker 1 (05:00):
I got to mess around with that, Yeah, using it
just for the equality. Like I love how I like
recommended these two plugins to you and you're using them
for completely different things that I'm using them for.

Speaker 2 (05:08):
That actually kind of tease up this episode a little bit.

Speaker 1 (05:11):
You're thinking outside the box here at Carl, which is
great thinking outside the black box. Outside that black box, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (05:16):
I could feel the collective grown of so.

Speaker 1 (05:19):
We shd rebanned our podcast as the collective grown.

Speaker 2 (05:22):
Yeah, the collective grown. Oh my god, that's my solo album.
So I think that brings up a really good point,
the fact that you and I are using the same
plugins for totally different things. I think that teas up
this episode perfectly because actually I love a different topic
than what we were going to talk about. But we
were tossing around the idea about talking about how our

(05:43):
approaches to recording drums are so different from each other's,
and yes, I think that would be a really interesting conversation.

Speaker 1 (05:50):
Is that the conversation we were going to talk about, No, it's.

Speaker 2 (05:52):
Not we were That was an idea, but we were
going to talk about I don't know, We're going to
talk about other things, other things, But right now I
think I think this is this is great because you know,
we're talking about how two people can have totally different
approaches and uses for the exact same things. So I'm
really curious to hear a little bit more about, you know,

(06:14):
what do we do differently and is there anything that
we do the same, because I feel like so far
there isn't there aren't very many.

Speaker 1 (06:20):
Things, not much, not much. Well we could definitely. I'll
give you like a lay of the land and then
you can kind of decipher what you're doing differently, Yeah,
than me, I'll try to be I'll try to be
very broad strokes here because there's just we're talking about drums.
Drums is very there's a lot of drums in a
drum kit.

Speaker 2 (06:38):
So too many dicks on the dance floor. You know
what can we put demands? Can we put that on
the playlist? I'm putting that on the playlist.

Speaker 1 (06:46):
Oh that's a great call. That's a great, great call. Man.
Since since by the way, just like total side point side,
you know the tangent again, but like just like this,
curating songs for our listeners has been like really awesome
for me because I'm just like finding new stuff to
I'm like what should I share? And it's just like
leading me down rabbit holes and algorithms and stuff that's

(07:08):
finding all kinds of amazing stuff. I'll tell you more
about this later, but I just I just find an
artist I'm like loving, like loving because of our playlist.
So oh great, Yeah, I'll get into that later, maybe
another episode or something. But yeah, anyways, so we're talking
about drums. My general approach to drums is I'm all
about like, got the track stacks in logic, so it's
like auxiliary buses. I have like an auxiliary bus usually

(07:30):
for my drums, like the drum bus, but I have
basically an auxiliary for every single instrument in the drums,
and that will go in every you know, kick, snare,
Tom's overheads, room mics, if there are am I missing anything?
That's basically it.

Speaker 2 (07:46):
Are we talking about mixing or like production?

Speaker 1 (07:49):
I don't know. I thought we were talking about mixing.
Are we talking about production?

Speaker 2 (07:52):
That's up to you. I always think you're going to
go like from the beginning, because I feel like that's
a are going to be even more different there.

Speaker 1 (07:59):
It's opening up so many questions because this is a
really broad topic because there are productions where you're recording drums,
and they are productions where you're making your own drums
and you know, using sample libraries or drum machines and
stuff like that. So where should I begin, Carl? I
don't know, Well, what if?

Speaker 2 (08:19):
Okay, what if it took this like a like almost
like a lightning round approach, Okay, like a Pensado's play
Spatter's box sort of sort of thing. Maybe we can
answer a little bit more deeply than that. But okay,
let's propose different musical situations and how we approach the
drums in that situation.

Speaker 1 (08:40):
Got it?

Speaker 2 (08:40):
Okay, Okay, cool. So let's say that you are recording
drums for a song that has already been written.

Speaker 1 (08:49):
Okay, that's almost always the case for me.

Speaker 2 (08:51):
Okay, It's almost never the case for me. So that's
why I'm oh, okay, I'm curious.

Speaker 1 (08:56):
Okay. So yeah, I'm almost always with a song in
the room who's trying to flesh out their song, and
I will usually have some sort of drum idea or
like a groove idea, and that might go a couple
of ways. It might be me like kind of programming
something with MIDI really quickly. I use a lot of

(09:16):
the Stephen Slady drums. I have also their Blackbird, not
to be confused with black Box, with Blackbird Expansion, which
is like some really nice natural sounding drums, which I
use a lot for singer songwriters. So I'll use a
lot of that, so whether I'm like I might program
it myself. You know, I honestly wish I had better
drum chops and had like some sort of kit or
even electronic hit so I could like lay down ideas better.

(09:37):
But that's like a discussion for another day. But yeah,
I'll often just come up with a part and I'll
just lay down something simple as like a placeholder, so
you know, you know, I'll just like you know, play
it on a MIDI keyboard, you know. Or what's cool
about the Stephen Slay drums. This is a great trick
I use, and maybe I use it too much, but

(09:58):
if you don't know about it, they have all these
grooves that are like built in, so you could kind
of like build yourself a kit, and then they have
like a groove library, and so this is like way
better like if you're using like logic loops, it's kind
of like that, but just a lot more thorough and
there's lots of different styles and so I'll puts around
with that and just kind of like click through a
bunch of things until I gets something that's kind of

(10:18):
close to the pattern that I want, and then I
might drag that in and then I might tweak it,
or I might just keep it as a placeholder. Ideally,
for me, like if it's like a singer songwriter and
it's a kind of acoustic, I would prefer to get
a real drummer eventually. Now that doesn't always happen, and
I'm actually in the middle of something that I'm struggling
with because I sent you a mix before we got

(10:39):
on the.

Speaker 2 (10:39):
Yeah, I saw the about that I haven't had a
chance to listen yet.

Speaker 1 (10:43):
My only problem with this song is the fact that
I don't have a real drummer, and I'm trying to
make something sound good that's not real drums, okay, And
so sometimes you know, you have these legacy products that
are still sticking around at the mixing stage that you
wish weren't, but you kind of have to work around that.
But ideally, for me, like if it's a singer songwriter,
if it's like more acoustic or indie or rock and roll,

(11:05):
you're getting a real drummer at some point. But if not,
then you're kind of working with that and then it
might develop into something else later. If it's more like
pop or electronic, then I might be going to battery
or I might be going to splice, or I might
be doing I don't know, it could be anything like
I can use MIDI patterns, or I might just like
drag samples and loop them and make it that way.

(11:27):
So I do a little bit of everything when it
comes to that.

Speaker 2 (11:30):
So when it comes to you like actually tracking drums though,
like when you're putting a live drummer on it, when
in the process do you actually record the drums?

Speaker 1 (11:39):
Yeah, that's a great question. It's a little all over
the place.

Speaker 2 (11:42):
I'm gonna say, Like, I feel like traditionally, like the
way we all learned was, you know, record the drums
as part of the basic tracks and the beginning of
the project, right, Like that's one of the first things
that you do and then you record.

Speaker 1 (11:53):
That doesn't always happen.

Speaker 2 (11:54):
So that's what I'm curious, Like, I have a very
different approach, and I just wanted to see you know what.

Speaker 1 (12:00):
Yeah, I'm curious about yours. I'll tell you what I
usually what usually happens. This is what happens, like eight
times out of ten, I will come up with some
sort of production around you know, a loop or you know,
like a Steven Slade groove or some sort of thing
that I like conjured together with my bass, usually my
guitars and you know, whatever else I've I've packed into

(12:21):
the production. And usually the production's like eighty percent done
by the time it hits a drummer, And then the
drummer will probably hear what I did and then try
to recreate something that's hopefully inspired by that, but not
that you know, so ideally they come up with something cooler,
like they might come up with some sort of shuffle
groove that's even better than I came up with, or

(12:42):
they might come up with a slightly different kick pattern. Yeah,
that's basically what will happen. It will be hopefully inspired
by my like Shenanigans, but real and with human touch
for my ideal let's say situation, and that doesn't always happen,
and then I'm just dealing with whatever I put together
and tweaking it to the best of my ability as

(13:03):
we go down the rabbit hole of production and or.

Speaker 2 (13:05):
Mixing that makes sense, Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (13:07):
Okay, that's my story, and that's my drum production level
from a very high distance and in a nutshell, yeah somehow.

Speaker 2 (13:16):
Yeah, and mine has become very different than that over
the years. So I for a little context, I started
out my career as a session drummer and gigging drummer,
touring drummers, so I definitely pay more attention to drums
than you know, non drummers do, no surprise, just like
you pay more attention to base than non bass players do.
But my backgrounds, like my college degree was actually an

(13:40):
orchestral percussion performance, so I don't. I mean, obviously I'm
into like really aggressive pop stuff like that's you know,
where my musical heart is. But I think one of
the things that does still come through in everything that
I do, especially as a drummer, it's my orchestra understanding

(14:01):
in the sense that everything has its place. And if
you ever were a percussionist in an orchestra, a lot
of times you either don't play at all, or you
sit there and you rest for one hundred and thirty
two measures before you hit the triangle two times, and
then you rest for another sixty measures before you hit
the bass drum once with a rubber chicken or you know,

(14:24):
it's this is always some like weird random thing that
they're like they make the drummer do, But it's all
about knowing where things belong and where they fit into
the context of everything else going on around it. So
because of that, when I'm producing drums, now, if I'm
doing electronic drums, I'm pretty much just kind of I'll

(14:45):
get a basic thing going, but I'm always tweaking and
removing things as the song develops. I'm I'm changing fills,
I'm changing the specifically kickchrum patterns. Like I don't allow
myself to get too married to anything. I don't go
to dep into any specifics in the beginning stage because
I want to be flexible enough and I want the

(15:05):
drum parts to be malleable enough that I can always
follow and support a new vocal idea that we have
or a new melodic thing in the instruments. So usually
if I'm adding live drums to songs, I'm always programming
them first, like every single time, and I go through
the same process with those program live drums that I

(15:26):
would with all electronic drums for a pop song or
something that's more like electronic focused. But then I'll record
the live drum tracks over top of those electronic tracks last,
like after all the vocals are done, I don't know
anybody else that does it this way. I'm sure there
are people I just haven't talked to them about it,

(15:46):
but yeah, I would have all of the vocals in
place and figure it out before I track the final drums,
because I want to make sure that every note that
I play is going to be fully supporting the vocal
I'm getting In the way, I'm only filling up gaps
that are meant to be filled by the drums. And

(16:07):
to make it even crazier, I also tend to do
the songs for the death approach of doing a full
pass of just kick and Snare, a full pass of
just toms, a full pass of just Crashes, a full
pass of just high Hats using all the mics still,
and then when I mix it around all of the
like the room mics to one bus, all route all

(16:27):
of the snare top mics to one bus, all the
Snare product. Like, you're crazy, dude, But what ends up
happening is from an editing perspective, it ends up being
so much faster and easier because I can like, I
don't have any flamming to worry about, right, you know,
I don't have any simple bleed to worry about. I
don't have to worry about the the sustain of a
crash symbol interfering with things. I can also make changes

(16:51):
if I get a kick drum part wrong whatever, like
I can just like grab another kitschrum and fix it,
like I usually only have to do s for like
the kick snare tom parts, Like I only have to
do one pass and I'll have everything that I need right.
So it ends up actually making the tracking take a
lot less time. If you think about tracking as the
actual performances and the editing of those performances, it's so

(17:12):
much faster. Really only have to do like one take
of the kick and stare part, one take of the
toms maybe well really usually only one take of the
high hats and one take of the crashes. And then
if I decide for some reason, very very very last minute,
like ah crap, I really wish I played a different
kickdrum part here, or you know, we're in the final

(17:32):
stages of the mix and we realize, oh man, if
we just muted the instruments here for this one beat,
it would make the next section explode more. I can
very easily make those changes without trying.

Speaker 1 (17:44):
To get like you could mute the kick without getting
rid of the crash or whatever.

Speaker 2 (17:47):
Yeah, I can also you know, do different amounts of
compression on the room mics of the room of the
kick and the snare and the tombs without the symbols,
you know, eating up all of that space as well,
you know, So I give myself a lot more flexibility,
which for some people, like I know, friend of the
Show Nick Nagirka, I know, like this is like the

(18:08):
total opposite way of how he would try drums. But
this is also just like a very different style of music,
a very different approach. Yes, and this allows me to
be as curated as.

Speaker 1 (18:20):
I can with Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. Yeah,
that's really interesting because I'm mostly working with like singer songwriters, right,
and you're working on like pop, so it's like a
totally different goal. Like the goal for what you're doing
is like honed in fidelity and like getting that perfect
sound that supports the song obviously the part two, but
like the sound is almost more important than for what

(18:40):
I'm doing, where if I get a live drummer, it's
about getting the human touch, Like I won't edit my
bass too much, right, and they'll have them play along
with my bassline. And then it's about rather than the fidelity,
which is also obviously important, but it's it's more about
the you know, how are they interacting with that live
bassline and that live guitar list, you know what I'm saying,
Like more on the knick side of the spectrum.

Speaker 2 (19:00):
I don't think that our goals are that different, actually,
because I would say, like I am not like, I'm
not an audiophile, I'm not really an like even I
barely call myself an engineer right when it comes to tracking,
especially like I'm never the one actually tracking it. So
for me, it's less about the sound that I'm getting
and more about having the ability to control it and

(19:20):
to make it intentional. And and that's that's really it's
the it's the intentionality that I really want to preserve.

Speaker 1 (19:25):
It's about like where you place that intention It's where
you place it.

Speaker 2 (19:28):
And if anything, it's like the reason that I want
to do live performances of crashes and high hats and
like the different kicks and stairs is that even if
I end up layering them with the you know, with
the electronics sounds as well, Like I want every questionable
to have a little bit of a texture difference. I
want every snare note to sound a little bit different.
I want those things so that That's what I was
going to say, Like, we're both actually going after a

(19:52):
very similar goal, but from different perspectives and for like
kind of different representations of what that outcome actually does
and sounds like. But I think we're both trying to
add some humanity into it and retain that we're trying
to keep the intentionality of the parts themselves and like
making sure that we're doing things that support everything else,

(20:16):
you know. So like I think we're on the same
page there. It's just the way that we do it
and the specific you know, sonic result is very different.
But I think, yeah, fundamentally, like emotionally, I think we're
going up to the same thing.

Speaker 1 (20:27):
Yeah, that's great and I and I yees. It's like
it's like the entry point to where it comes in.
And I guess like the same way we mix with
like you know, different gain stage points. You're recording drums
in a way that you have different gain stage points
of drums.

Speaker 2 (20:41):
Yeah, I can gain stage. How much of the crashes
are going into the crash mic?

Speaker 1 (20:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (20:46):
The big thing for me that I do a lot
is when I'm doing those live drums, I really want
to make sure that I have the like the snare
bottom mic on for everything. So I have like the
snare bottom micl on when I'm recording kick when I'm
recording It's how because like, ultimately as a drummer, right,
the thing that instantly to me makes something sound like

(21:07):
a real kit versus not a real kit is the
sympathetic vibrations of the snares. Right. So I've even reamped
electronic drums before through a snare drum, you know, reapping
electronic kicks electronic toms like through you know, the old
old school way of like taking a guitar amp, putting
it on its side, putting a snare drum under you know,

(21:29):
upside down on it, and like micing that. I would
do that with electronic drums. But the reason I like
to do that, and the reason I want to make
sure that I have that nice and present is that
I have the control of having as much of the
kick sympathetic vibrations as I want in the mix. Same
thing with the toms. I can get the toms to
have that buzz that they actually do when you're sitting

(21:51):
down in a drum kit when you're in the room
with the drummer. So like all of those things that
we subconsciously associate with a live drummer, I'm also using
my process to add that in, not just through the
little nuances and variations in how loud of crash symbol
was or like where on the high hat I hit

(22:12):
it with what part of the stick. It's also just
like some of the like the more the things that
people are never gonna notice, but they'll feel the difference,
like the snare sympathetic vibrations.

Speaker 1 (22:24):
There's a plugin for that now. Also they even I'm
forgetting which company did it, but it's supposed to do
like emulate snare vibrations. No, I mean got into it
for people listening and not watching you you're seeing like.

Speaker 2 (22:37):
N I've tried it, and like if you don't actually
know what it's supposed to sound, like, it's great, you
know what I mean, But like if if.

Speaker 1 (22:46):
You're it's not a real thing.

Speaker 2 (22:49):
You know, it's not a real thing, and like there's
something about like the room because then you can also
like capture the room sound of it getting reamped and
like it's just a different beast. And I know, it's
weird because I'm usually so in the box about everything
you know, and but for some reason, like there's something
about that approach, just I don't know, it's worth it

(23:12):
to me. It's a lot of work, it's a pain
in the ass, but.

Speaker 1 (23:15):
Yeah, it's worth it. But sounds like you love it,
so yeah, it's a labor of love.

Speaker 2 (23:19):
Yeah. One of the things I've noticed over the past
twenty years being in the industry is that audio school
usually leaves most graduates completely unprepared for entering the industry.
I mean, sure, you learn how to rewire a patch
bay or sleep, but they probably won't teach you how
to stand out and attract the kinds of artists that
fuel your passion for recording. I appreciate what you bring
to the table, let alone pay their rates. You want

(23:40):
to get paid and YouTube university is full of people
telling you that their way is the right way, and
it doesn't help you apply things to your unique struggles,
personality and ideal clients. So I've been building studio land
to fill those gaps. We use structured learning paths, weekly
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(24:03):
the right rates. Try it out for free the links
in the show notes.

Speaker 1 (24:08):
So, Carl, why don't you I started with with the
production of drums, You're gonna start with the the mixing
of drums. What's your you know, big picture approach to
getting a drum kit to sound amazing in the context
of a mix.

Speaker 2 (24:22):
My approach is use your ears, not the gear man. Yeah, bro,
make it sound good. If it sounds good, it sounds good.
I'm trying to think of like every possible like non
answer to that question.

Speaker 1 (24:34):
Well, no, obviously there's no exact answer, right because every mix,
every song will have a slightly different situation. But maybe
you could like give us an archetypical rundown of what
you do, an archetypical rundown of like a typical kind
of song that you're working on, So like not everything,
Like obviously you might be working on some like metal stuff,
or you might be working on some like bubblegum pop,

(24:54):
but like something that's like a typical Carl song, like
an indie pop sort of aggressive, dirty, dirty sounding kind of.

Speaker 2 (25:02):
Yeah, typical Carl mixing that kind of music tends to
be I'm trying to think of how to phrase this,
Like the music that I like to work on tends
to either be weird music that has a lot of
pop love in it, or pop music that has a
lot of weird experimental love in it. That's where I
have the most fun. So generally speaking, when I'm mixing drums,

(25:24):
I am ninety nine times out of one hundred probably
either going to be reinforcing the kick drum that they
send me or replacing it outright. And that is because
the relationship that I have with my clients, This is
not something that I would just do to like a
total random stranger, but I don't like even somebody that
is a first time client, Like I have a lot
of these kind of conversations with them because I want

(25:45):
to make sure that, you know, if I hear something
that I think is going to help get closer to
the goal and the vision that they're describing to me,
I want to make sure that I have the flexibility
to do that. And usually this is just because I'm
a drummer. I've been a drummer for la la time,
and I'm a little bit better this is not meant
to be like a kno quote. Any of my artist

(26:06):
clients is just like I objectively spend way more time
than they have crafting drum sounds. So like I probably
am gonna get a better sound, or not better objectively,
but like a better for the goal sound. So that's
usually where I start. And it's like getting the kick
and the snare to have the vibe that we need

(26:26):
get sonically and like textually having the vibe that we
need for the song. That is where I start. So
in a way I will. I would almost say I
start my drum mixing with production choices, but if I
can get the production to sound right, I always look
at it this way. I could try to eq and
excite and compress and limit and add whatever things to

(26:50):
a kick drum sound that's not that exciting, or I
can just find a better sound. And ninety nine point
nine nine nine percent of the time I'm not working
on music where the live drums that were originally recorded
are meant to be as is, you know, not reinforced
not like that's just not the kind of music that

(27:10):
I work on. So I'm not saying that the way
that I do it is right I'm just saying that
the way that I do it is right for the
kinds of music that I'm working on and for the
artists that I'm working with. So getting the kick in
the snare to feel great, I would say nine times
out of ten I got to remove some of the
sub from the kick because you go on splice and
get a kick drum sound, it's always overhyped. So almost

(27:33):
always getting rid of some of the sub in a
kick drum, almost always getting rid of some of the
top end of a kick drum, and pretty much always
getting rid of some of the top end of a snare.
And again, if you're this is probably like the opposite
of working with just a purely recorded you.

Speaker 1 (27:50):
Know, right in your room. You have to hype it up.

Speaker 2 (27:53):
You have to hype it up, and you know, samples
are always overhyped.

Speaker 1 (27:57):
So samples are overhyped, and like real drum kits are
mid ring.

Speaker 2 (28:00):
Yeah, so I'm trying to was it Da Vinie that
said that, you know, the statue is already inside the marble,
and he's just you know, that's the way the excess
It's like that. It's like, Okay, I look at the
original sound as like the block of marble, and it's like,
what can I remove. I don't want to have to
add anything. I want to try to remove the things
that we don't.

Speaker 1 (28:19):
I had somebody say that, give me that example once
about microphones. He said, like with a condenser microphone, it's
about removing the marble, and with the dynamic microphone, it's
about choosing the right statue.

Speaker 2 (28:30):
Yeah, basically, yeah, which is interesting. So once I have those,
then you know, it's really the kick and snare and
then getting the base feeling good. And I usually get
the base feeling good with kick and snare before I
even do the rest of the drums, because that's like
that to me is where everything is. Because then usually
especially in the styles of music better work on a
lot of like pop and pop adjacent stuff. All of

(28:53):
the rest of it is very much secondary, you know,
like the high hats, the percussion, all mins, like the
shakers or whatever, and like drum loops and things like.
I'm usually more often than not having them pretty quiet
in the mix because knowing that any sort of bust
compression that I do, any sort of mixed bus or

(29:14):
like you know, mastering chain stuff is going to be
bringing everything up, So I know that if I start
out with everything sounding balanced, then it's gonna sound way
too squoished by the time it actually gets through to
the end of the song. So I intentionally start by
preemptively compensating for that and just keeping all those things down.

(29:36):
And I know my high hats are probably gonna be
a little bit too pokey, a little bit too bright,
you know. I tend to do the isotop impact module
from the new Ozone and kind of taming some of
the transients because again, like most samples are going to
be overhyped, too bright, too full and deep, probably also

(29:57):
too loud and dynamically compressed, and also probably too transient.
Like every possible characteristic of US sounds, these sample makers
try to like turn every single characteristic up to eleven.
So it's like I don't need a ton of punch
in high hats, or at least if I have a
ton of punch in one layer of high hats, I

(30:18):
don't need a bunch of punch in six different loop
layers that they you know, kind of composited together to
make a to make the vibe. So by that point,
I'm just really trying to remove things I'm not trying
to add much other than like rebe reverb, you know,
or if I'm adding, I'm adding using the black box,
I'm adding using omnipressor, I'm adding using like some sort

(30:40):
of sort of dynamic processing that's also like got its
own kind of color to it. But I'm I'm very
rarely like adding, you know, I'm not doing like EQ moves,
like when you see an EQ when you see an
AD for an EQ plug in, and it always looks
like some kind of crazy like you know, like an
earthquake happened on their frequency spectrum.

Speaker 1 (31:01):
Like that's not me, Like usually anyone do that. It
shouldn't be anyone.

Speaker 2 (31:06):
Yeah, So yeah, so that's that's really it's like getting
those feel good and then that way, by the time
that I'm adding everything else into the mix, I'm mostly
just adjusting.

Speaker 1 (31:13):
Volume, so not so much.

Speaker 2 (31:15):
Yeah, I try to do as little as I can.
I just try to get the sources right. I'm either
minimizing top end bottom end transience or in the case
of maybe a loop or something, I might try to
reduce the dynamic range. But I guess that's also like
what you know, removing the transience is kind of is that.
But yeah, but I want to hear your process now

(31:38):
because I know that not only is our approach different,
but also like the source material that we're working with
is just so different. So like there's I really want
to hear your.

Speaker 1 (31:46):
Yeas to it. Well, I don't know if I'm so different.
I'm not trying necessarily to do a lot. I'm trying
to just do what I have to do to get
what I want what I hear in my head. So
it's really about when am I given and where do
I want to go, so that will inform what I do.
And yeah, I'm using I might. I don't usually sample
fully replace. If it's a live drum kit like I'll often,

(32:09):
but I don't want to say like ninety nine percent
like you like. I will often add like an extra
kick or something, or an extra especially a kick, like
to kind of give it that solid base you need snare.
I'll usually try to work with what I'm given, and
I can usually eq a snare how I want it.
I don't know. It's like I find like drums and
electric guitars, you could just eque the fuck out of
them and get what you want. Now, you can't do

(32:31):
that with every instrument you can't do with acoustic guitars,
you can't do with vocals, you can't really do it
with bass either, But with with like kick drums, snares,
electric guitars, I find that I could use a heavy
hand on EQ to get what I envision in my
head and get away with it. So I will do
that if I have to. Also with kick drums and sample,
if you're like replacing it, you want to make sure
like it's like phase lined and feel the phase feels good,

(32:54):
So I'll mess with that a bunch. Also if I'm
doing that, if I am working with a sample, I
will also sometimes cut sub or cut high end if
it's too hyped, or I'll add if I feel like
it needs it and it's like very it really is
source dependent.

Speaker 2 (33:07):
I'm gonna jump in real quick and say that that
reminds me of something that I always do. I am
a crazy person when it comes to just like check
in the phase of things. Like yes, maybe not as
crazy as some people, but at least you know knowing when.

Speaker 1 (33:17):
I Well, you were talking about that on our template episode.
How you have it? You have it and the plugins?

Speaker 2 (33:22):
Yeah, I have it on all of my drum tracks
like by default, just bypass, so I can just go
boo boo boo and just like test it out. But
especially when I'm layering anything together, whether it's me reinforcing
the kick drum of you know, the original thing, or
I maybe finding two different kick drums that when I
combine them together it ends up being like the perfect

(33:43):
sound that I want to Especially with sample based music,
there's so many inconsistencies when it comes to the star time.
And I think it's also why whenever I'm choosing sounds
and actually putting them into the production, like during the
mix stage, like when I'm doing that replacement, I always
do it with the actual wavefile, not with me, because

(34:03):
I want to be able to see, like if there
is a little gap of silence before the sound hits,
like I want to be able to see that. If
it's just a MIDI blip, I'm not going to be able.

Speaker 1 (34:12):
To see that totally. I do that also, by the way,
and if I have two kick sourses, I will like
nudge the sample to match the original, just even like
the waveform, like like the first wave that goes up
right then I'll try to like have that wave go
up on the other one and I'll nudge it until
I think it feels it feels really good. Yeah, like
that waveform is important. I'm with you one hundred percent

(34:32):
on that.

Speaker 2 (34:33):
Sorry for interrupting you, but I would just it's such
a huge part of it for me, and I even say.

Speaker 1 (34:39):
It, Yeah, that's totally huge. And if it's a live
kit like then that's not happening usually, but that's definitely
a thing that I try to look out for as well.
And I would say, just like you, I'm always focused
on the kick and drum and getting those sounds sort
of right and like locking in with the bass because
I think the kick, drum, bass is the foundation of
the mix and if they feel good those three elements,

(35:00):
everything else will be easy. Like I really, I really
believe that, Like, if you have a foundation that feels
really solid, you don't have to do psycho, you know,
you don't have to go crazy on every little guitar part,
Like you could kind of almost leave guitar parts almost
the way they are without doing so much more if
your foundation is good, like the walls don't need to
be fancy, if your floors are solid, so kick and

(35:21):
snare is basically where I really make sure everything is
fine tuned. Like I go through that with like, you know,
as fine a toothcomb as I can, and make sure
that those are are locked in, and then with like
you know, once I get to overheads or Tom's, I'm
not necessarily as as detailed, right, I'll I'll just get
to a point where it feels good and I'll move on.
If something else, you know, juts out to me or

(35:41):
like I need to fix the balance or whatever later,
then I'll get to it. But like overheads, I might
have a high pass on, I might dip out some
like low mids. I might raise the you know, the
top end if it needs a little extra sparkle. But
I probably doing three eq moves on overheads, and I'm
probably doing like three eq moves on a tom track,
you know, like high pass. Maybe find a resonant frequency

(36:03):
that feels good and a slap frequency that like will
help it cut through. That's basically what I'm doing on Tom's.
Obviously some compression also on Tom's, but basically I'm doing
the line chair of the work on the kick and drum,
just like you kick and snare and the kick and
snare yeah, just like you, and the toms and the
high hats and the room mics will usually go pretty quickly.
I might compress the hell out of the room mics,

(36:24):
but I might not, And it kind of depends. And yeah,
I do a lot of like full panning. When it
comes to like overheads and stuff like that, I usually
do drummer position for panning. I don't know about you.
That's basically it. And I think I was trying to
say this at the beginning before I realized we're going
to talk about production, was that everything has a track

(36:44):
stack in logic, which is like its own auxiliary. So
like I might have a few kicks, but they're going
into the same kick auxiliary, right, I might have a
few snares that are going into the same you know,
snare auxiliary. Might have two overhead mics and they're going
into the overhead mic thing. And sometimes the high hat
will have its own track and something as a halot
will go in the overhead kind of compartment depending on
what processing is needed. So I kind of like I

(37:06):
dole it out. I have like places where I could
get in there and do what I need to do.
But just like you, the line share of getting it
to sound really good. Is the kick in the snare.
I don't know, maybe I should talk about, like I guess,
like drum bus processing. I do often put the drums
through the black box as like my saturator there to
give it like extra oomph, and the Steven Slat tape

(37:28):
machines does something special to drums. Something I often do
also is decapitator nuke setting and then like mix it
in on the drum bus like like I don't know,
five ten percent or something just to give it like
an edge that it wouldn't have otherwise. And that kind
of does a lot of work that you don't have
to do on the actual individual channels. Once you've done

(37:50):
that kind of like maybe what you were talking about
with with the black box and the density, it just
gives extra depth or it brings like some of those
those things forward, and like I guess, the opposite of
depth less depth. It brings things forward and it gives
the drums extra smack and punch to cut through the
mix the way you want it to. And those are
basically things I usually do. And then there's things that

(38:10):
are like per per song.

Speaker 2 (38:12):
Yeah, I have a similar question that I ask myself
when it comes to the like the drum buss, and
it's you know, how much of that depth do I want?
Or how much of like the deep things do I
want to be able to be felt and heard? You know,
like how much do I want? And is it a
question of side chaining to like bring those background parts

(38:33):
up by keeping the kicket snare in front? Is it
a question of like upward compression or like really aggressive
you were talking about the nuke setting on Decapitator. I
would usually use Devil Luck Deluxe because I like the upward.

Speaker 1 (38:46):
Compression and amazing Also, yes.

Speaker 2 (38:48):
I have Deuble Lucked Deluxe on every lead vocal I've
mixed in the past probably four years, five years.

Speaker 1 (38:54):
That's crazy.

Speaker 2 (38:55):
Yeah, it's you're crazy, man, But I mean like barely
doing anything, but like it does it does some some
tasty things.

Speaker 1 (39:01):
One percent you hear it, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (39:03):
That's what I mean. Well, it's like it depends on
how you gain stage it.

Speaker 1 (39:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (39:06):
Usually it's like gain staging it right, crush at zero,
crunch at zero, and the mix at like thirty percent.
But oh man, it does some amazing things for vocals,
but on drums too, Like it could either be really cool,
or it could be too much, And I found myself
using Devil Luck Deluxe on my drum bus pretty much
never anymore. But what I do use would either be

(39:27):
even Tide omnipressor, which is like the upward and downward
depression that could sound really really really good unless you
have crush stables. I feel like the only time that
really just sounds awful to me is like when there
are a lot of crashes, because it.

Speaker 1 (39:39):
Just does the omnipressor sound a little bit like OTT
to you, or it's a totally different kind of.

Speaker 2 (39:43):
Sound, different different thing to me.

Speaker 1 (39:45):
Yeah, okay, just because I know OTT is is simultaneous
upward and downward.

Speaker 2 (39:49):
Yeah, I'm not a fan of OTT personally, but I
know it has its place and the.

Speaker 1 (39:53):
It has its place with a very low mix.

Speaker 2 (39:55):
Yeah, it has its place, but like for me, it's, yeah,
this is not that place that like it. It's great
on since or like guitar busses sometimes, but it's usually
i'm the pressor or. I've also been experimenting recently, like
with the black Box, especially with the density, but depending
on the vibe and depending on how big of a
bottom I need on the drums, the sketch cassette two

(40:21):
and like really cranking the compression on there and then
just bring in like the compressor mix down a bit.
That could be really cool. It can totally blow out
your kick drum and just make it sound like a
wet fart if it's if it's going in with too
much subs. So it really depends on the vibe that

(40:41):
you're going for. But sometimes that can just be such
a cool color. But I think that's that's it for me.
It's like I want it to be if I'm gonna
do any sort of dynamics processing, I want it to
be a colorful thing. I'm not trying to do like
transparent dynamic control. Like that's no fun, you know, it's
not interesting. Like I want to have a couple of

(41:02):
different things at my disposal that can do that. If
I wanted to be a little bit more transparent, I
do love the upward compression module on the ozone maximizer,
So if I do want it to be a little
bit more transparent, that's what I would go to. But
usually it's either depressor or the sketch cassette, you know,
and it's it's like intentionally really trying to bring out

(41:25):
some quirkiness out of the drum.

Speaker 1 (41:27):
Yeah, there was a period I was using Sketch cassette
on drums a lot. About two years ago. I was
like using that a lot, and yeah, the color is
amazing and definitely a cool plug for people to check out.
And I was going to say, I agree with you
when it comes to drums. I'm i gues if I
want something transparent, I'll maybe use like a VCA style compressor,
but even on drums, they're less transparent than on like vocals.

(41:48):
But decapitator is such a great compressor for drums. Like
I'll often also use decapitators on kicks and snares, and
in which case I'm probably not mixing it in. I'm
probably just like compressing it and it just adds this
perfect grit and color. And that's like, there's there's a
reason why people use to capitators on drums. It's just
like such a it's such a great compressor to bring
out the grid of a drum and also the punchiness

(42:09):
of a drum. And so drums you're usually trying to
like you're not just trying to compress them, You're trying
to compress them and give something else.

Speaker 2 (42:17):
Yeah, you know, I'm trying to emphasize some quirky texture
within the drums. Yeah, you know, And it's just a
matter of which of those possible options does the best
job of bringing out the texture that I want, bringing
out the quirk that I want.

Speaker 1 (42:34):
Yeah. The last thing I would say about like compressing
drums is like attack and release times and just like
don't sleep on that, like, don't just like put up whatever,
Like you gotta get the right of it if you
want to like mess with the amount of punch and
the amount of attack, Like, yeah, attack and release settings
on your drum compression is extremely important. So yeah, that's it.

(42:55):
I don't know, I'm done.

Speaker 2 (42:56):
Yeah, yeah, I was gonna say.

Speaker 1 (42:58):
Uh, we went super nerdy, and on this one.

Speaker 2 (43:01):
We went way nerdier then I'm used to doing. This
is one of the very few topics where I'm like, yes,
let's let's get nerdy because.

Speaker 1 (43:10):
We should do this for other instruments or sources at
some point, like maybe like a vocal version of this
or guitar version of this or something.

Speaker 2 (43:19):
So listeners, let us know if you actually liked this
kind of an episode and if you want us to
dive deeper into our approaches for maybe an individual instrument
or an individual situation. I think you know. Obviously, Bet
and I could go on for ages about based production
and mixing, or like vocal production and mixing, because we

(43:39):
have such different approaches. But if this is not as
interesting to you, we don't want to do it, and
then you know we're wasting your time. We don't want that.
We want to make sure that it's something that you're
really interested in. So let us know, Yeah, let us
know what you like? What do you guys and guys like?
Tell us what do you like? What do you love?
What do you hate? Yeah, about us about the podcast,
not just any.

Speaker 1 (43:58):
Tell us about our human flaws, and we will go
home and cry, but it will be constructive criticism. So
you know, a month later, when we crawl out of
our existential crisis, we'll have learned something.

Speaker 2 (44:11):
There's no end to an existential crisis.

Speaker 1 (44:15):
Okay, Carl, this is post podcast banter. We'll talk about
that afterwards.

Speaker 2 (44:19):
Okay, Ben, I realized we never said hi Ben hi
Carl at the beginning. What is going on?

Speaker 1 (44:25):
Oh my god? What was this episode? It is not
high Ben Hi Carl.

Speaker 2 (44:29):
Does that mean that we have to just like delete
it and pretend that it didn't happen.

Speaker 1 (44:32):
No, no, we can't do it was too good, and
rather than a high, we're on downers today.

Speaker 2 (44:38):
So do I still say? Bye Ben? I'm gonna do it.
I'm gonna do it. I don't care. Bye Ben, by Carl.

Speaker 1 (44:45):
We hope you enjoyed this conversation as much as we did.
If anything here resonated with you, please share this or
your favorite episode with a friend.

Speaker 2 (44:52):
And as always, we love to hear from our listeners,
so find us on social media at Secret Sonics.

Speaker 1 (44:57):
At Ben Wallace Music, and at Carl Vonner.

Speaker 2 (45:01):
Until next time, Bye Ben.

Speaker 1 (45:03):
Bye Carl. That was good. I think the outro is great.

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#247 - The Drummer's Divide: Two Wildly Different Approaches to Drum Production

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}#247 - The Drummer's Divide: Two Wildly Different Approaches to Drum Production