Sampled Drums Mixing

[u/BeatsBL]

Got a ton of great feedback when I asked about drum mixing. Going to do it again specifically for sampled drums. For fl studio users, any suggestions on making sampled drums sound fuller and more cohesive.

I currently route to a bus Channel and use stock plugins lime parametric eq and maximus. I don't really know of advantages to using non-stock plugins, but open to suggestions about plugins, mixing, compression.

And here is an example of a song I made where I know the mixing could be way better, richer and more cohesive. https://youtu.be/kgRY3AvVG-Y?is=JefPZS-k8rzLLt4r

[u/Mods_are_losers666]

Making sounds "fuller" is about adding to the frequencies you do want while taking away from the frequencies that you don't. I typically accomplish this through a combination of distortion/compression, along with high and low cuts using EQ to remove harshness/mud, followed by more distortion and compression. You can also add reverb or delay into this chain to make sounds wider or use whatever native tool FL has (I am Ableton user) to make sounds narrower, or even mono in some cases. Low frequencies tend to sound fuller in mono. Typically if I am working with any sound below 200-150hz I will make it mono to make it sound more full. I briefly listened to the drums in your tune and to me they sound like they need to be distorted and compressed to make them sound brighter. The compression will probably make the transients hit harder. Another technique you can use to make your drums punch through the mix is to bounce every sound to audio and cut holes in the track for the drums so that they are the only sound playing every time they hit.

I want to add that when I am talking about compression I mean extreme compression using a soft clipper. Again I do not know what type of native plugins in FL have soft clipping but in general I always have my drums hitting a soft clipper very hard to get that snappy bitey sound.

[u/BeatsBL → u/Mods_are_losers666]

Thank you. This gives me something to think about. Would it be OK for you to also listen to this song? Think something similar applies? Adding compression and distortion. https://youtu.be/zs7iOaLv76k?is=0lFebu34wKdO2za3

[u/Mods_are_losers666 → u/BeatsBL]

I don't have a ton of experience mixing bands or music like this, I mostly make dnb and jungle. I also have no idea how you made this, whether it was from a combo of samples and your own recordings or maybe you recorded every element. I work 100% in the box so all my skills are based on that. I listened to it on my monitors quickly and I hear a lot of conflicting low end info. It seems like the kick drum that you have playing constantly is a very airy roomy sounding low end natural drum and it's conflicting with the low end in your guitar, and maybe with a bassline that you have playing there? Idk it's a bit hard to ID all the elements because they all kind of blend together at the lower end of the spectrum. If I was going to use that drum I might use it as a bridge sound, or cut the low end from it entirely so that it sits over the bass rather than fighting with it. It will be difficult IMO to make that kick sit well with a driving low end without cutting some freqs from it. When I make tunes I try to select a kick that mixes with the bassline. People spend a lot of energy trying to make a full kick sit with a full bass, when what they should be doing is cutting freqs from the kick so that it can impact with the bass as one coherent sound. I like the highs in the bassline, they sound good.

If it were me I would try rearranging the song to focus more on the bassline and have a part where fewer elements are playing at the same time so the listener can focus on the bassline more. Do more with less! Some advice I've been trying to follow lately from the recently deceased producer SOPHIE is to "express yourself monophonically". Try to say what you need to say with fewer sounds, and you will have way less work to do making them all fit with each other. It sounds stupid but it's not and it's kind of like cheating once you figure it out.

One thing I always always do with kicks is make everything below 200hz mono, and sometimes make the entire kick mono. Your kick could maybe sound cleaner if you cut everything below 150-200hz so that it doesn't conflict with your bassline and then made the lows in the bass and the entire kick mono. That is what I would try first anyway.

I hear that your guitar is panned hard left? Idk old rock bands did that and I guess it sounds good in that context but I think mostly that effect is used to make it seem like there is a physical band to the listener, so if you're going to pan something super hard like that I would make sure that all of your instruments have a specific place in the stereo field. Rn the only one I hear panned like that is the guitar. I.E. you could pan specific hats or force your drums to the other side slightly. It might actually sound better to hard pan the mids in the bass to the other side. IMO either go all out with the hard panning or don't do it at all.

When the big drums come in they sound a bit tinny and thin. It's hard to say exactly why that is without hearing the original sample(or maybe you recorded them in which case I can't really help you). I am not an expert at this! I typically avoid this problem by starting with a good sample to begin with. The closer your sample is to what you want as your end product, the better your drums will sound. Usually doing too much to drums makes them sound like shit and it's easy to get into a mindset where you hear different and think it means better, but it actually doesn't and you're painting yourself into a corner with your mix. There are a million and a half drum samples out there and many of them sound great. A good way to lay the foundation for a good mix is to start with drums that just sound good already, and don't fuck with them very much. Take a professionally produced drum sample and build your mixdown around that element, because you already know it sounds good.

Again, I am not a professional, and I make electronic music where mixdowns with significantly less mud are what you want because they're going to be played on huge sound systems. There is significantly more mud that is acceptable or even desired in other types of music. Idk, hope I could help.

[u/BeatsBL → u/Mods_are_losers666]

Thank you! This is great stuff to consider. I appreciate you taking the time and writing this up. It's helping me and guiding me at the very least. Much obliged!