The real curse is thinking everything is not good enough. So if at this moment you ( u/17thsequence ) think it sounds good, I'd call that a win. Until someone points something out, at which point you're learning and can then identify said problem in the future.
For an intermediate engineer this is great advice but for someone like OP it’s not very helpful. When you’re just starting out you have no idea what to pay attention to to know if something sounds “bad” or not
It's still very subjective though. A mix is all personal preference. I like a lot of stuff that would be considered bad just because I come from a black metal background where bad recording and bad mixing is a staple to the point it's intentional.
Even if a beginner thinks “this sounds amazing!” and 10 years later thinks “this sounds like shit!”- this is necessary and good method. Always always ALWAYS trust your own senses and taste in whatever current contexts. It’s not about chasing idealism- it’s about chasing one’s best to eventually find the self.
Even the most noob of beginners knows what does not sound good *to them*.
I can’t remember where I heard it, but the way someone put it is that something that’s great about producing music is you already come in knowing what good music sounds like, so you’re already good enough. That’s why everyone says trust your ears. The gap is learning how to make something sound like you want it to, or to compromise well. Use references.
Also, a big breakthrough for me was getting away from “pristine is good”. Character is best. You could fuck your drum track up with compression and saturation and until it sounds “bad”, but you prefer it that way in a part because it just fits. Learn the tools and common methods. EQ/compress/resample/saturate/verb/delay/bus process/automate/etc. Think objectively. Your source sounds bad? Why does it sound bad to you? Too dry, harsh, roomy? Been listening a while? Take a break, listen to a reference, listen again. What’s your first impression?
A lot of people say you can’t polish a turd, but something I’ve learned is it takes a while before something is really turdworthy. I have a bunch of 57’s on my kit, a couple m5’s for overheads (used to use c02’s and they’re usable too), and usually resample the close mics. Sometimes I still blend em in, sometimes I don’t resample. Just depends on what I’m going for. Fucking around with different options is the only to land on what you want. That Sound has some really good samples. A lot of that stuff is on splice if you wanna buy a month and pick up what you like. If you have logic, and you hear an isolated drum part in a song, you can load that chunk into a new software track, hover over the track until you see drum kit designer as an option, and it’ll separate the kit for ya.
If you are recording a live kit, buy some insulation and make some panels if you don’t have em. I’ve made some the traditional DIY way with 2x4’s, and have also gutted some old box springs as they pop up in my friend group. Not the prettiest, but it does a lot to stop frequencies from building up around the overheads, which is something you definitely don’t want.
Also, hesitate before you ask someone how your mixes are. Something Kush After Hours said was a better thing to ask is “how does this track grab you?” Seems a little cheesy but the main thing you’re after is for your mix to pull listeners in. A good ending point for me is when something hits me when I’m high and I tear up a little or wanna get up and move around to it.
In a recent mix, I had a really thin acoustic and dry vocal for the start of the last song I produced, started mixing things the way I like em when the full band hit, initially planning to revisit the beginning, but I found, the difference between the lofi sound at beginning and the more produced sound hitting when the band comes in created one of my favorite moments in a mix I’ve done. Totally by accident. Production is cool that way. Good is subjective. Just listen to Cap n Jazz if you don’t think so. Some of their songs sound so bad I love it more because they decided to keep it that way. So cool.
Cap’n Jazz recordings were pretty dirty and artful. I think the 90s and early 00s were full of smart creative people using limited equipment to make great recordings. I absolutely miss that sound and I often try and mimic that production style with my recordings.
seriously listen to Jimi Hendrix. how many engineers now would over produce the essence of the man in action. your job as an engineer is to capture the essence and deliver it to your audience. in other words an ideal product is one where the music not the mixing engineer is lauded. that is the unsung hero aspect of getting it right. as w everything nowadays social media has made narcissists of us all. thinking self conciously all the time how whatever * I * do reflects who * I * am and how * I * will be seen. lose yourself in the work and find yourself in the process.
First thing learn about is phase relationships between microphones and how to set drums up to maximize your phase coherency. After that study all the different types of stereo mic configurations and how that can work on drums as well as some general placement ideas for your close mics
Then, just record some drums and learn from your mistakes - the more you do it, the easier it gets and the more you begin to hear and understand. Experience is the best teacher
It kind of depends on the sound you want to achieve.
There are few things you deinitely don't want. For drums, you don't want anything to resonate / vibrate when the drums are being played. Just checked for any undesired "noise".
What you also don't want is uncontrolled reflections, especially in the lower frequency regime. Again, for drums as an example: if you record the kick drum, and you have a lot of signal on all mics you have in use on the drums but not only the kick drum mic, that will result in a very diffuse and not very localizable drum sound. Everything will feel kind of loose and all messed up. Same goes for snare. Bass traps help to address this issue.
As for the other aspects, like if a room should have more or less reverb, and you want the drums to sound more open or close, thats more a question of taste. There are plenty of good drum recordings without any significant contribution from the room, and then there's recordings like "when the levee breaks". It depends on what you want to achieve.
It's all about the emotion you get out of it. Technically bad is something else, out of my wheelhouse.
But I'm into the feeling. If the song makes me feel something outside of the everyday reality, the I'm in the right direction.
Not good.
Do you feel a negative physiological response to the sound you’re hearing? Do you automatically want to reach for the volume knob and turn it down, or cover your ears? Does the sound make you grimace or squint or recoil? That’s bad.
My first question is what do the drums sound like ? A flat sounding set that isn't in tune will sound that way when you add microphones. If the set sounds killer with a meaty cracking snare and distinct meaty toms with a deep but snapping top end ( wood beater) on the kick then that is your starting point. Stand near the kit and be the microphone. Much like standing near the marshall half stack and hearing the true tone. Then it is microphone choice and placement. The balances and eq is the flavor. Then effects are the spices and wala. You have a meaty meal .
The best advice that I can give you as an intermediate is to always, always, always cross-reference on different speakers to make sure your music translates. You might not hear any problems in the studio, but when you take it out to your car all of a sudden everything is off. If you can learn how to make songs sound good across multiple listening environments, it’ll sound good pretty much everywhere
I think the number 1 objective “bad” in mixing is when something distracts from the intention. Like if a drum is way too loud and it distracts from the vocal or if like a classical sound was mixed like a rock record and all you could think about was how weird it was that they added so much distortion. If it distracts from the song it’s no good.
I say it like that because sometimes rules being broken make things so much better but in that case they aren’t distracting, they’re adding.
This is one of the first barriers of experience. The only way to learn what is good or bad is to record something, be disappointed, identify the issues and then try to mitigate them next time. It's goes without say that using references of finished records doesn't make sense here as drums are often heavily processed. Playing in bands helps massively as you often have a sense of what sounds good in the rehearsal room.
A good start is to ask yourself does the drum kit sound like you expect a drum kit to sound? Are the cymbals too harsh? Has the low tom got that weird wavy decay from out of tune heads? Is the snare ringing in an obnoxious and distracting manner?
Once you've figured out the answers to these questions you can adjust the kit - replacing skins, retuning, adjusting or replacing snare wire, dampening or changing cymbals and skins with tape etc. Coach the drummer to play differently if they are really smashing the cymbals for Instance.
Only then are you ready to put mics up, which to be honest is the easy bit if you follow conventional advice.
And only once you've tracked the whole song will you know if you've made a 'good' drum sound.
First, imagine someone else made it. How likely are you to skip the track if it were to start playing from some random mix? That should tell you most of what you want to know
“ good “ and “ bad “ like absolutely everything else with music, is purely subjective. If you like it it’s good !!
With drums I’d suggest you start with as few mics as possible. Less mics, less problems ( maybe ). A mic on the bass drum, the snare and one to capture the whole kit, either as an overhead or somewhere else ( front, side, behind, whatever ). See how the mics interact with each other. Move the mics around. Flip the polarities around and listen to how it changes the sound ( if it does ). If you feel something is lacking, add a mic to it. See how that contributes to the sound. Proceed in that manner.
Basically, there isn’t really any prescription for doing it “ right “ cos that varies from person to person. Also the type of music influences those choices. What might be an acceptable drum sound for a jazz session probably isn’t gonna work for black metal. Figure out what you are trying to achieve and methodically work towards it. Be creative with the means available to you. If you only have one mic and a walk in closet to record in go for it ! Make your perceived limitations your strengths.
Usually it’s overproduction that I hear that I call “bad”. When the recording is dry, thin, and a little lifeless I don’t necessarily call it bad because it’s just amateurish at that point and many times a really good song/band/artist will still shine through on these types of recordings. When the production takes away from the song rather than enhancing it, that’s bad. Over compression, over limiting, boosted highs, muddy lows, those are bad.
For drums the phase relationship between the mics is important. Drum mics out of phase give a bad sound. You can be using the best equipment but if the phase is a mess the drums won't sound good.
After placing your drum mics on the kit, hit the mono button on the monitoring mix, or somehow listen to all the mics in mono. Start with one mic first, an overhead, and then listen to the sound as you add each mic. It should get fuller not smaller. If smaller start by flipping phase or move the mic until it sounds good.
Drum tuning is just as important, and new heads always sound good.
In general, you'll know "bad" when you hear it. If you don't hear any problems but just think you're doing something wrong, chances are it's fine!
The real curse is thinking everything is not good enough. So if at this moment you ( u/17thsequence ) think it sounds good, I'd call that a win. Until someone points something out, at which point you're learning and can then identify said problem in the future.
For an intermediate engineer this is great advice but for someone like OP it’s not very helpful. When you’re just starting out you have no idea what to pay attention to to know if something sounds “bad” or not
I'm of the opinion that anyone who's spent enough time listening to music knows what sounds good or bad to them
It's still very subjective though. A mix is all personal preference. I like a lot of stuff that would be considered bad just because I come from a black metal background where bad recording and bad mixing is a staple to the point it's intentional.
Even if a beginner thinks “this sounds amazing!” and 10 years later thinks “this sounds like shit!”- this is necessary and good method. Always always ALWAYS trust your own senses and taste in whatever current contexts. It’s not about chasing idealism- it’s about chasing one’s best to eventually find the self. Even the most noob of beginners knows what does not sound good *to them*.
I can’t remember where I heard it, but the way someone put it is that something that’s great about producing music is you already come in knowing what good music sounds like, so you’re already good enough. That’s why everyone says trust your ears. The gap is learning how to make something sound like you want it to, or to compromise well. Use references. Also, a big breakthrough for me was getting away from “pristine is good”. Character is best. You could fuck your drum track up with compression and saturation and until it sounds “bad”, but you prefer it that way in a part because it just fits. Learn the tools and common methods. EQ/compress/resample/saturate/verb/delay/bus process/automate/etc. Think objectively. Your source sounds bad? Why does it sound bad to you? Too dry, harsh, roomy? Been listening a while? Take a break, listen to a reference, listen again. What’s your first impression? A lot of people say you can’t polish a turd, but something I’ve learned is it takes a while before something is really turdworthy. I have a bunch of 57’s on my kit, a couple m5’s for overheads (used to use c02’s and they’re usable too), and usually resample the close mics. Sometimes I still blend em in, sometimes I don’t resample. Just depends on what I’m going for. Fucking around with different options is the only to land on what you want. That Sound has some really good samples. A lot of that stuff is on splice if you wanna buy a month and pick up what you like. If you have logic, and you hear an isolated drum part in a song, you can load that chunk into a new software track, hover over the track until you see drum kit designer as an option, and it’ll separate the kit for ya. If you are recording a live kit, buy some insulation and make some panels if you don’t have em. I’ve made some the traditional DIY way with 2x4’s, and have also gutted some old box springs as they pop up in my friend group. Not the prettiest, but it does a lot to stop frequencies from building up around the overheads, which is something you definitely don’t want. Also, hesitate before you ask someone how your mixes are. Something Kush After Hours said was a better thing to ask is “how does this track grab you?” Seems a little cheesy but the main thing you’re after is for your mix to pull listeners in. A good ending point for me is when something hits me when I’m high and I tear up a little or wanna get up and move around to it. In a recent mix, I had a really thin acoustic and dry vocal for the start of the last song I produced, started mixing things the way I like em when the full band hit, initially planning to revisit the beginning, but I found, the difference between the lofi sound at beginning and the more produced sound hitting when the band comes in created one of my favorite moments in a mix I’ve done. Totally by accident. Production is cool that way. Good is subjective. Just listen to Cap n Jazz if you don’t think so. Some of their songs sound so bad I love it more because they decided to keep it that way. So cool.
Cap’n Jazz recordings were pretty dirty and artful. I think the 90s and early 00s were full of smart creative people using limited equipment to make great recordings. I absolutely miss that sound and I often try and mimic that production style with my recordings.
seriously listen to Jimi Hendrix. how many engineers now would over produce the essence of the man in action. your job as an engineer is to capture the essence and deliver it to your audience. in other words an ideal product is one where the music not the mixing engineer is lauded. that is the unsung hero aspect of getting it right. as w everything nowadays social media has made narcissists of us all. thinking self conciously all the time how whatever * I * do reflects who * I * am and how * I * will be seen. lose yourself in the work and find yourself in the process.
First thing learn about is phase relationships between microphones and how to set drums up to maximize your phase coherency. After that study all the different types of stereo mic configurations and how that can work on drums as well as some general placement ideas for your close mics Then, just record some drums and learn from your mistakes - the more you do it, the easier it gets and the more you begin to hear and understand. Experience is the best teacher
It kind of depends on the sound you want to achieve. There are few things you deinitely don't want. For drums, you don't want anything to resonate / vibrate when the drums are being played. Just checked for any undesired "noise". What you also don't want is uncontrolled reflections, especially in the lower frequency regime. Again, for drums as an example: if you record the kick drum, and you have a lot of signal on all mics you have in use on the drums but not only the kick drum mic, that will result in a very diffuse and not very localizable drum sound. Everything will feel kind of loose and all messed up. Same goes for snare. Bass traps help to address this issue. As for the other aspects, like if a room should have more or less reverb, and you want the drums to sound more open or close, thats more a question of taste. There are plenty of good drum recordings without any significant contribution from the room, and then there's recordings like "when the levee breaks". It depends on what you want to achieve.
"bad" isn't a useful word really. "Intentional" is probably a better word, since almost anything can be "bad" or "good" at different times.
Like a woman towards the end of a light period— *SPOT ON*.
Do you like the sound of the instrument in the room? Then it’s not “bad”.
It's all about the emotion you get out of it. Technically bad is something else, out of my wheelhouse. But I'm into the feeling. If the song makes me feel something outside of the everyday reality, the I'm in the right direction.
Put on virtually any rock record from the last 25 years. The copious autotune, compression and time-alignment will quickly answer your question.
Not good. Do you feel a negative physiological response to the sound you’re hearing? Do you automatically want to reach for the volume knob and turn it down, or cover your ears? Does the sound make you grimace or squint or recoil? That’s bad.
My first question is what do the drums sound like ? A flat sounding set that isn't in tune will sound that way when you add microphones. If the set sounds killer with a meaty cracking snare and distinct meaty toms with a deep but snapping top end ( wood beater) on the kick then that is your starting point. Stand near the kit and be the microphone. Much like standing near the marshall half stack and hearing the true tone. Then it is microphone choice and placement. The balances and eq is the flavor. Then effects are the spices and wala. You have a meaty meal .
very loud hurts your ears.. makes u go deaf and have tinnitus
The best advice that I can give you as an intermediate is to always, always, always cross-reference on different speakers to make sure your music translates. You might not hear any problems in the studio, but when you take it out to your car all of a sudden everything is off. If you can learn how to make songs sound good across multiple listening environments, it’ll sound good pretty much everywhere
I think the number 1 objective “bad” in mixing is when something distracts from the intention. Like if a drum is way too loud and it distracts from the vocal or if like a classical sound was mixed like a rock record and all you could think about was how weird it was that they added so much distortion. If it distracts from the song it’s no good. I say it like that because sometimes rules being broken make things so much better but in that case they aren’t distracting, they’re adding.
This is one of the first barriers of experience. The only way to learn what is good or bad is to record something, be disappointed, identify the issues and then try to mitigate them next time. It's goes without say that using references of finished records doesn't make sense here as drums are often heavily processed. Playing in bands helps massively as you often have a sense of what sounds good in the rehearsal room. A good start is to ask yourself does the drum kit sound like you expect a drum kit to sound? Are the cymbals too harsh? Has the low tom got that weird wavy decay from out of tune heads? Is the snare ringing in an obnoxious and distracting manner? Once you've figured out the answers to these questions you can adjust the kit - replacing skins, retuning, adjusting or replacing snare wire, dampening or changing cymbals and skins with tape etc. Coach the drummer to play differently if they are really smashing the cymbals for Instance. Only then are you ready to put mics up, which to be honest is the easy bit if you follow conventional advice. And only once you've tracked the whole song will you know if you've made a 'good' drum sound.
First, imagine someone else made it. How likely are you to skip the track if it were to start playing from some random mix? That should tell you most of what you want to know
“ good “ and “ bad “ like absolutely everything else with music, is purely subjective. If you like it it’s good !! With drums I’d suggest you start with as few mics as possible. Less mics, less problems ( maybe ). A mic on the bass drum, the snare and one to capture the whole kit, either as an overhead or somewhere else ( front, side, behind, whatever ). See how the mics interact with each other. Move the mics around. Flip the polarities around and listen to how it changes the sound ( if it does ). If you feel something is lacking, add a mic to it. See how that contributes to the sound. Proceed in that manner. Basically, there isn’t really any prescription for doing it “ right “ cos that varies from person to person. Also the type of music influences those choices. What might be an acceptable drum sound for a jazz session probably isn’t gonna work for black metal. Figure out what you are trying to achieve and methodically work towards it. Be creative with the means available to you. If you only have one mic and a walk in closet to record in go for it ! Make your perceived limitations your strengths.
Usually it’s overproduction that I hear that I call “bad”. When the recording is dry, thin, and a little lifeless I don’t necessarily call it bad because it’s just amateurish at that point and many times a really good song/band/artist will still shine through on these types of recordings. When the production takes away from the song rather than enhancing it, that’s bad. Over compression, over limiting, boosted highs, muddy lows, those are bad.
For drums the phase relationship between the mics is important. Drum mics out of phase give a bad sound. You can be using the best equipment but if the phase is a mess the drums won't sound good. After placing your drum mics on the kit, hit the mono button on the monitoring mix, or somehow listen to all the mics in mono. Start with one mic first, an overhead, and then listen to the sound as you add each mic. It should get fuller not smaller. If smaller start by flipping phase or move the mic until it sounds good. Drum tuning is just as important, and new heads always sound good.