Drum Mixing For Live Sound

Get better mixes, faster with my 3-step guide to perfect EQ:
www.offshoreaudio.no/eq
Drums can be challenging to mix. They’re loud, and they’re more of a collection of instruments than just one. You can use just 3 mics or 12 and nobody seems to know how to tune them.
Getting a good drum sound doesn’t have to be difficult, there’s a lot that’s down to the drummer. But we as live audio engineers need to be confident micing up and mixing a drum kit to get the best out of a great drummer.

[@Soundengineer-ny2ij]

One kick gate trick I learned over the years is using the kick-in mike to key the kick-out mike and then use the keyfilter to open the mike-out . There is always 1K to 2K sounds coming from the kick-in mike whenever played loud or soft. This gives you the opportunity to shape the kick-out mike with eq and gate attack/release times to youre taste or style. Works with metal and jazz... Love your channel, You deserve more subscribers. Untill then, keep up the good work.

[@viincentfonkert2870]

Definitely gonna try this out, thanks man! Any way to get less bleed at the tom mic? It's mostly snare bleed

[@DeathByHumbuckers]

Andrew! Even though I only do some home recording and have no ambitions to do live sound (other than sorting out PA in rehearsal rooms), I absolutely love your channel. Thank you!

[@OffshoreAudio]

Aw thanks so much. I'm super grateful that you're just chilling with me on this corner of the internet. Always welcome :D

[@thesurgepartybandnj5426]

Happy new year! I just subscribed. Thanks for sharing your knowledge with us. Perhaps you can make a video on how to trigger the gate by using the side chain and EQ for a snare drum. I find the floor tom can trigger the snare mike at times. Thanks again

[@joshuam.m.2886]

i Absolutely love your channel. The best content

[@OzifyTutorials]

Such good information man, you deserve a lot more views

[@OffshoreAudio]

Thanks so much, I appreciate that!

[@eduardomarchant785]

HpF on the reverb and a little boost on 10khz on the reverb

[@scottfahy5468]

Nice video- some great tips. (FYI Those are 904's not 604's) I delay the inner kick mic to line up with the outer mic then play with polarity and blend.

[@tabiaslbr7316]

Thanks for charing this with us😀 where do you place the 91a? directly in front of the batter head or more towards the middle?

[@OffshoreAudio]

I usually go for the middle.

[@stephancarroll7260]

Takes a lot of power to even amplify the drums live , for small spaces

[@DavidDiaz-jt2km]

Hi Andrew I've learned a ton from you watching your videos. I live in a 55-and-over community and I'm involved in mixing infrequent bands that come in to perform for the members of our community. We just purchased a subwoofer. I'm just asking you when you feed instruments into a subwoofer do you generally remove the high pass filter from them? Like the bass guitar, kick, floor toms maybe keyboards.

[@OffshoreAudio]

Great question. No I don't. I guess it's more of a tonal thing. A pro level sub will go down to about 30hz and I don't strictly need that much down there. It's important to remember that filters aren't total cut offs and, depending on the filter, if you filter at 50hz then there's still sound immediately below it, it's just reduced.

[@DavidDiaz-jt2km]

Thank you, Andrew. In the middle of January a group will be coming in with approximately 23 inputs into my mixer they will also be coming in with a monitor rig snake. Can you explain the signal path from the instruments and mikes to their stereo in-ear monitors and front-of-house? How would that work?@@OffshoreAudio

[@OffshoreAudio]

It depends, sounds like they are bringing their own mixer for their IEMs? In that case they would probably have an analogue split. Meaning you would connect the mics into the splitter then one set of outputs would go to your mixer for the front of house mix, and the other set would go to their IEMs. If they're expecting you to mix their IEMs then you would connect the outputs of your mixer/digital stagebox to the input of their IEM units instead of/ as well as to your wedges. Then mix the IEMs like any other Monitor. I've got a video on In ear mixing I think

[@DanielReyes-tj3hs]

I have a drumset i want to set up with a sm57 under the snare and an audix d6 for the kick for an outdoor show. Do i plug these into an interface then directly into a speaker or do i need a mixer? Im new to everything!

[@peterldelong]

Try a Telefunken M80-SH on the snare top. Your SM57 will end up lonely in your mic trunk once you hear the M80.

[@ToddWCorey1]

Do you recommend applying snare verb to the top mic, bottom, or both?

[@OffshoreAudio]

I've never thought very much about it but probably just the top.

[@mohamedali-ju3ye]

We need mixing in midas pro x or 5

[@OffshoreAudio]

The techniques in the video shouldn't change based on your mixer. What is it about mixing on the pro x you need to know?

[@3xAudio]

Is that the fricking MaryWallopers woohoo

[@Thompsonkeyz]

Thanks for your vi the sir please

[@OffshoreAudio]

Afraid I've never used a vi series if that's what you mean. All these drum tips should work on any console though.

[@thesurgepartybandnj5426]

Happy new year! I just subscribed. Thanks for sharing your knowledge with us. Perhaps you can make a video on how to trigger the gate by using the side chain and EQ for a snare drum. I find the floor tom can trigger the snare mike at times. Thanks again

[@OffshoreAudio]

Happy new year! I just released a video about gating tips and there's a little in there about side chaining. I've got one coming in about a month that will go really in depth on gating so I'll make sure to demo that properly.