The drums as a whole are one of the most important elements as they are collectively the backbone of your mix. They represent the tempo, rhythm, and energy. If the drums aren’t mixed well, an otherwise perfect mix will still greatly suffer. This is why it’s generally a good idea to begin your mix by focusing on the drums and getting them sounding their best before you move on. With that in mind, I’ve put together this complete A to Z guide on how to mix drums.
How to Mix Drums
Let’s go by each piece in the kit, one at a time, beginning with the anchor of your mix: the kick drum.
Kick
As I just mentioned, the kick is your mix’s anchor. Along with the snare and lead vocal, it’s one of the most important individual tracks in your entire mix. I put together an entire overview on mixing a kick drum, so let’s get into it.
First, remember that the kick is one of the few elements which should be mixed right down the middle virtually 100% of the time. I’ll talk about panning the entire kit at the end, but the kick works best when it’s mono and centered.
Kick EQ
Moving left to right, start to finish for every plugin in your processing chain, it’s a good idea to start with EQ.
This allows you to remove the frequencies which aren’t adding to or are even detracting from your overall kick drum sound and keeping what does.
Here are my recommended kick drum EQ moves taken from my cheat sheet.
Going left to right, low to high, every EQ begins with high passing to remove the lowest frequencies (even on your kick drum).
Normally this is done on other tracks to create space for the kick drum, prioritizing the lowest frequencies for it (see my low end mixing guide), but the human ear can’t hear below 20Hz, so it’s not a bad idea to scoop these out with a 24dB/oct high pass filter to create mixing headroom. This allows you to create a better sounding, competitively louder mix and master.
While this will vary slightly from kick to kick and depending on its recording, the body of the kick exists around 50-80Hz, typically right in the middle around 65Hz. With an EQ with a spectrum analyzer like the FabFilter Pro-Q 3 (my favorite plugin in general), you should be able to see the loudest frequency point of the kick – that’s your fundamental.
You can give this a small boost to add to the thickness and “meat” of the kick. If your kick is inherently lacking in this area, don’t bother boosting what isn’t there. We’ll talk about how to enhance your kick’s body with another method in a moment.
Part of the aforementioned low end mixing tutorial is getting the bass and kick to work together. I like to make a small cut around 150Hz to create room for the bass. We’ll talk about how to return the favor on the bass in just a moment.
You can clean up the sound of the kick, removing some of the mix mud and boxiness with a small cut around 400Hz, as well.
If the kick isn’t poking through the mix enough even after you’ve gotten your level set where you want it relative to everything else, it can benefit from a small boost at 3.5k to bring out more of the transient of the beater on kick surface, drawing the ear to the kick in the mix. If your kick is likewise lacking in transients here, I have another trick to help supplement that in a second.
Sidechain Your Bass to Your Kick
We just made a small cut in the EQ for the kick to create space for the bass, let’s return the favor on our bass (string or synth-based).
I put together an entire tutorial on sidechain EQ for getting your bass to duck out at the fundamental frequency of your kick but only when the kick triggers, so refer to that to seriously get your low end working together and sounding better.
Just getting it to pull down a few dB when the kick triggers leaves the rest of the bass intact, making for a very transparent solution to create space for the kick on its most similar frequency competitor in the bass.
Pultec Trick on Kick
You can add thickness and energy to your kick via the Pultec trick.
Grab a free pultec EQ plugin like the PTEq-X if you don’t already have one to simultaneously cut and boost at 60Hz:
This is a dirt simple way to add some very pleasant thickness to your kick in seconds after the rest of your EQ moves.
Kick Compression
We can bring out a bit more sustain and fatness from our kick via compression.
Taken from my kick compression guide, apply these moves to your compressor of choice after the EQ and Pultec to properly compress your kick:
The dynamics of the kick are very simple, so you can get away with a hard knee of 6dB or less. I like a 5:1 ratio which is an average if not slightly aggressive degree of compression, though you can lower that for more punch and higher for more energy/compression.
Keeping the attack at 15ms is more than enough time to keep the transients intact, and a 20ms hold paired with a 40ms release creates a natural off ramp for the compression.
As always, make sure that you have the same level POST processing as you do going in. This can be adjusted with the output gain controller on virtually every plugin, but it’s especially important with compressors which typically have the greatest impact on the level of the track itself.
This maintains gain staging, a practice of keeping all of your tracks targeting -18dB on average to get the best results from analog emulating plugins/processing.
This also keeps your entire mix at a responsible level which in turn allows for naturally and better sounding louder mixes and masters in the end.
Note that I won’t be mentioning this with every element of your drums, but it’s something you should be keeping in mind with every track and with every new plugin you add to the chain (even adding a gain plugin at the start to ensure you’re closer to that -18dB target at the start of your processing chain).
Sine Wave Trick
I alluded to this earlier, but if your kick is lacking in body either as a product of the microphone, miking, or drum itself, you can supplement it via a trick.
As I demonstrate in my sine wave kick drum tutorial, you can create a midi track in your mix and drop in a long, constantly playing sine wave with a gate attached to it.
The gate is linked to and opened by the kick drum, so when it triggers, the sine wave plays for a split second with the followed settings:
The sine wave should be at or around a C2 note. You can switch this to the closest note which matches the key of your song, but this is the frequency range of the actual body of your kick in that 50-80Hz region I cited earlier.
When played alongside the kick, it sounds exactly like the body of a kick, so it’s a great way to supplement your kick’s fundamental when it’s otherwise lacking or you just want some more meat down there.
Kick Transients
If there’s not enough inherent transient sound of beater on kick drum surface to bring out via EQ, you can artificially add it in after the fact.
Doing the exact same thing as the sine wave trick but with white noise in place of a low frequency sine wave is a great way to add audio transients to a bottom heavy kick which isn’t cutting through the mix enough.
Simply create a long clip of white noise (which your DAW likely has samples of, otherwise you can grab one online) and attach a gate which is sidechained to open when the kick triggers to instantly simulate a realistic sounding percussive noise of the beater on the kick surface.
This helps your kick to cut through the mix by drawing the listener’s ear to it without your having to turn it up louder than it should be in the mix.
Note that you can do this just as effectively with the snare to add some more top end. Speaking of the snare…
Snare
The snare is the main driver of energy in the mix, and just like the kick it’s essential that it’s mixed well to get your mix, let alone the drums, sounding good.
Snare EQ
I put together an entire snare EQ tutorial on how to clean up and shape your snare, starting with a high pass filter:
A high pass filter at 70Hz removes the low end frequencies and conflicts for a start.
The body of the snare exists around 150-200Hz, so a small boost here can add some thickness to your snare. Conversely you can make a small cut here to add clarity via subtractive EQ.
Cut at 400Hz to remove the boxy, muddy mix noise to also add clarity without having to boost the top end.
800Hz is where the snare ringing typically occurs, so if you’ve got that problem on your snare due to poor miking or tuning, try a cut there to mitigate that sound.
I like a dynamic EQ to proportionately cut when that problem acts up more on certain hits and not cut more than necessary otherwise as 800Hz is also the frequency where the pleasing roundness of the snare exists.
I also like dynamic EQ to cut at 3-5k if snare buzzing is an issue to mitigate that effect without killing the transient or removing too much clarity.
If you want a bit more transient punch, try a boost around 5k, and don’t forget you can supplement your snare’s transient “crack” sound by adding some white noise and a gate which is controlled by the snare, just like we did with the kick.
Ringing or Buzzing Snare
Just to mention this again in its own space, the two unwanted artifacts you’ll commonly hear on a snare are ringing or buzzing.
If your snare is ringing, try a small adjustment via dynamic EQ at 800Hz:
The buzzing is more prominent at 3-5k, so try a small dynamic cut around 4k to smooth out the buzzing without taking away from the clarity and transients of the snare:
Snare Compression
Similar to the kick, compression on a snare helps to add thickness and sustain on the back end.
Here is a snapshot of my preferred settings via my snare compression tutorial:
At 6:1, I like a slightly more aggressive ratio than with the kick or on average. I also keep a shorter attack, but 5ms is enough to keep the transient “crack” of stick on skin coming through clear. We’re also using a hard knee of 3dB because the dynamics of the snare are pretty static with not a lot of change (as compared to something with a lot more complex range like a vocal).
Setting the threshold 10dB below the peaks helps to bring up a lot of the tail of the snare to give it that thickness and energy we’re trying to get out of the compression.
A hold of 20ms and release time of 80ms likewise creates a nice off ramp for that compression to return to normal.
Lastly and as always, make sure the output gain matches the level which was going into the snare at the start.
Snare Width
Reverb and delay can both work for giving your snare some more size in the mix.
My favorite type of snare reverb in general is plate (shown is the ValhallaPlate):
It keeps your reverb clean, especially when you EQ it with the onboard controls, Abbey Road Reverb trick style, filtering out everything below around 600Hz and above 6k. Keep the reverb relatively short, as well.
Gated Reverb on Snare
As a subset of reverb on snare, gated reverb can make your snare sound huge. The idea is to control the reverb via a gate so it only triggers while the snare plays. As soon as the snare is silent, the gate closes and the reverb closes with it, keeping it tight and eliminating the tail:
By keeping the tail non-existent, the reverb doesn’t step on any transients or muddy up the mix.
Snare delay is a popular alternative to using reverb as it’s much cleaner but can still add width to your snare:
Here we want to keep the delay time under 40ms so it sounds like an extension of the initial sound while pushing that snare a little bit wider.
The snare itself should be centered in the mix panning-wise so that wherever the listener is standing relative to the speakers, the snare is constant, but the delay can add some positive width to the snare.
Snare Saturation
Saturation adds some harmonic distortion to your audio to essentially add frequency information where it didn’t exist before.
This makes it a great way to fill out the sound of your audio over EQ sometimes when there’s not enough to boost.
The snare is a great candidate for saturation for thickening out its sound. I like Soundtoys’ Decapitator (one of my favorite plugins in general) to do just that:
When a boost in the low mid frequencies isn’t enough or isn’t getting the job done, use some saturation to add some welcome body and fatness to your snare.
Reverse Snare Sound
Reverse snare is a nice little ear candy/aesthetic effect which can create suspense and make a certain part of a song hit harder.
I put together an entire tutorial on how to create a reverse snare sound, so refer to that but essentially it involves taking a snare sample, reversing it, but aggressively compressing it so that its tail is prominently featured:
This can then be added ahead of a chorus to lead into the actual first snare of that part or just on its own for a little momentary anticipation.
Tom Drums
The toms share frequencies with the kick and snare, depending on the size of the drum itself. This is reflected in the EQ settings which we’ll cover first.
Toms EQ
As I just mentioned, EQing your toms is drum specific, so the toms EQ guide accounts for this:
You can generally high pass at 50Hz on the floor tom and go slightly higher for the rack toms to create space for the kick drum.
The body of the floor tom is typically just ahead of the kick around 70Hz or so, but use a visual spectrum EQ or sweep to identify where that peak fundamental body frequency of the floor tom is on your specific drum. Wherever it exists, you can boost there to add richness or alternatively cut to reduce boominess as the situation calls for.
The rack tom’s fundamental is around 250-350Hz, depending on the size with smaller rack toms being higher up. Likewise, boosting around this area adds body to a thin rack tom but cutting here reduces the muddiness.
A dynamic cut at 400Hz reduces ringing and 600Hz reduces boxiness on your floor and rack toms, respectively.
The transients of the two drums exists around 5k and beyond, so a small boost will bring out more of the percussive sound of those drums and help them assert themselves through the mix better.
Toms Compression
We’re looking for more sustain via compression on our toms, just like with the snare, and again without sacrificing transients.
My tom compression guide covers my preferred settings for getting the benefits of the compression without taking away from the track:
The tom compression settings are very similar to those of the kick drum because the dynamics are similar but I’m looking for a little less compression than with the snare.
With that in mind, I like a 5:1 ratio, setting the threshold 5-10dB below the peaks, a hard knee of roughly 6dB, a 5ms attack, and 40ms for the hold and release each. We’re looking to achieve 3-5dB of gain reduction at max.
Hi-Hat
Now that we’re getting into the cymbals, our fundamentals are shifting higher, so we’ll be more aggressive with our high passing to clean them up and remove bleed as the focus moves to the high end, and a lot less compression will be necessary.
Hi-Hat EQ
As I just mentioned, we’re much more aggressively high passing our hi-hats.
Here is the overall hi-hat EQ cheat sheet:
A very conservative place to start is 150Hz with your high pass filter on your hi-hat. This removes a lot of the bleed from the snare and rest of the kit so this microphone can primarily focus on the hi-hat itself.
400Hz is where you’ll find the body, so you can adjust this with a cut or boost to thin out the body and emphasize the top end, or conversely add body, respectively.
Depending on the hi-hat, you can get a lot of harshness in the 4k region, and this extends to sampled hi-hats, as well. A dynamic cut can tame an abrasive or harsh hi-hat here at 4k.
A bit higher up, we can add some crispness and sizzle to the hi-hat at 7k. Aside from top end clarity, this brings out more of the percussive quality of the hi-hat and all without the sensitivity our ears have lower down a few thousand Hz.
Hi-Hat Compression
While I like a more all-in-one or hybrid style compressor like a FabFilter Pro-C for the previous drums, I prefer an optical compressor like the CLA-2A from Waves on my hi-hat compression:
The 2A is incredibly simple to operate; you simply set the input level/threshold and adjust the peak reduction to achieve the amount of gain reduction you want. I like to aim for a very gentle and transparent 1-2dB.
The “Hi Freq” dial in particular is great for smoothing out the higher end harshness we just addressed with the EQ as this emphasizes more compression on the high end (versus flat which demonstrates compression evenly).
Overhead/Cymbals
I generally don’t compress my overhead microphones/cymbals. The closest I come to that is parallel compression which we’ll talk about when we talk about processing the drum bus as a whole in a moment, but we’ll still EQ our cymbals.
Cymbal EQ
Taken from my cymbal EQ cheat sheet, here are the moves I recommend making for EQing your cymbals:
200Hz is another conservative spot to begin high passing and removes lots of frequencies which aren’t relevant to the cymbals. If you’re using these microphones to get the full kit sound you may want to go lower, but that’s your prerogative.
Boost around 300-400to bring out the cymbal’s body or, similar to the hi-hat, cut if your cymbals are too thick and lacking clarity.
A cut at 400-600Hz can help clean up a boxy sounding snare which is bleeding into the microphone here; a dynamic cut once again works well just like we used on the snare itself in this range.
Like the hi-hat, we can tame out the harshness around 4k with a cut or dynamic cut.
I like to aim a bit higher for the sizzle and crispness on my overhead cymbals with a small boost around 10k, or you can thin out some overtone harshness with a dynamic cut here.
If you do want to compress your overhead microphones, I’d recommend using a 2A style compressor again for something subtle and transparent (with that added advantage of some top end smoothing).
Reverse Cymbal
Similar to the reverse snare, we can use a reverse cymbal sound to create tension or suspense as well as set up the next part.
Check out my reverse cymbal sample tutorial on how to make one, but it’s a very similar process as the reverse snare.
Simply take the tail end fadeout of a cymbal after a big hit, cut it, reverse it, and aggressively compress it as necessary to get as much runway as you need.
Like the snare, you can lead this into an actual cymbal hit, or just use it on its own to add energy going into a chorus or other impactful moment in your mix.
Drum Bus
I like to add a bit of processing to my drum bus itself (make sure you HAVE a drum bus by using my mixing template) to clean things up a bit, add a little more control, and add a little cohesion to my entire kit all at once.
As always with any bus processing, less is more because we’re affecting multiple tracks at once, and that will be reflected in these moves.
Drum Bus EQ
Taken from my drum bus EQ guide, here are my recommended moves when EQing your drums as a collective unit:
Most of these moves will look familiar based on everything we just covered in terms of EQ for the individual pieces of our kit.
Others are just about broad stroke moves for inching the collective kit sound here or there, like adding energy to the kit as a whole at 1k, or adding a bit more body to the snare at 200Hz.
Glue Compression
I mentioned bus processing is all about cohesion, well that’s what glue compression is all about.
I like Waves SSL G Master Buss Compressor for tying things together and making the kit play together as a whole:
Most VCA style glue compressors are set up like this, with static positions for the various parameter options.
I like an average ratio of 2:1 (or 4:1 for more energy at the expense of dynamics), an attack of 3ms, and an automatic release for the complicated dynamics you generally get from summed bus audio. The threshold should be adjusted to achieve 1-2dB in gain reduction (3dB in gain reduction on the meter at the busiest/loudest times.)
These settings will just nudge things a little closer together, sacrificing a touch of dynamic range for a net gain in terms of energy.
Parallel Compression
Speaking of energy, parallel compression is one last bit of processing I like to blend in to create a subtle but very welcome boost to the overall energy of the drums.
I like using parallel compression for the same purpose on a lot of tracks in my mix, so it makes sense to just drop it on its own Aux/Return track with these settings:
These are pretty stock parallel compression settings where the idea is to absolutely crush whatever you feed to it so you just get a fat sausage sound of audio for that track.
The idea with parallel compression is to blend this unnatural sounding, aggressively compressed audio alongside the actual track.
In this case, we’re taking our pancaked compressed drum signal from this Aux/Track and blending in a quiet level of this via the send dial alongside the un-parallel compressed drum bus.
The common technique is to bring up the send dial/level until you can just hear the parallel compressed drums, then back it off a 1-2dB. There is no wrong or right answer here; if you like to hear more of the sound of the crushed drums alongside your dry drums, mix it like that.
The more you add, the more energy you’ll hear out of your drum kit. If you had a room microphone track which recorded the drum kit as a whole, as well, you might use some squashing compression on that for a similar effect, as well.
Drum Panning
Way back at the start I mentioned how you generally want to keep your kick drum in the center of the mix and that I’d address panning in more detail later.
Here is my drum panning guide, detailing where I like to pan every piece of my kit relative to the stereo field:
The short version is to keep the kick and snare in the center, pan the hi-hat left or right for the drummer or audience perspective, respectively, pan the overhead microphones 75%-100% left and right against each other for lots of width, and finally the tom drums left and right of center to create a natural spread, particularly on tom-heavy fills which will showoff that spread.
Mixing Drums Recapped
As I mentioned in opening, the drums are the backbone of your entire mix, so it’s essential that they sound their best to have a good sounding mix, and it’s a great place to start before you move on to anything else.
The two most important aspects of processing any track in your mix are EQ and compression, so here is a complete drum EQ chart to show every move in one handy resource:
… and a complete drum compression chart for the equivalent in compression moves in one snapshot:
Speaking of which, don’t forget to grab my ULTIMATE EQ cheat sheet and my ULTIMATE compression cheat sheet for all-in-one charts showing the moves to make for every single instrument in your mix in both EQ and compression.
Lastly, don’t forget to check out the dozens of drum tutorials here on Music Guy Mixing dedicated to making your drums sound as good as possible.
Happy mixing!
