Recording the Drums – Part 5: It’s All In the Mix – Audio Premium

In this week’s Audio Premium content, Bobby Owsinski concludes his series on recording and mixing the drums. This final part is full of techniques, hints and tips from an industry professional.

To learn more about what you get as part of Audio Premium, read this. To take a peek inside this tutorial, hit the jump!

Here’s the last part of my series on drum recording, but this time it’s about what might be the most important topics of all – drum balance and that elusive relationship between the bass and drums.

The act of balancing the level of the individual drums is many times taken for granted, but it shouldn’t be. Here’s how important drum balance is – if your kit isn’t properly balanced, you can never be sure if it’s sounding good while you’re recording. You can really have the sounds dialed but it they’re out of proportion to one another, how can you ever know?

A common drum recording flaw that I frequently see is an engineer working harder and harder on the kick drum sound, EQing, compressing, adding multiple mics, yet never taking into account how it relates to the rest of the drum kit. That’s why I think it’s imperative that every engineer do two things before any serious drum miking begins…

Table of Contents

  • Drum Balance
  • The Drum Mix
  • Where to Start From (3 techniques)
  • The Crucial Drums and Bass Relationship
  • EQ Tips and Tricks (for snare, kick, bass)
  • The New York Compression Trick (Parallel Compression)

Existing Premium members can log-in and download. Not a Plus member? Join now.


Workshop #88: Two Heads by Vestis

At Audiotuts+ we irregularly put up a reader track for workshopping and critique (find out how to submit a track). This is how it works: you upload your song, and every week or so we’ll publish one here and step away from the podium. The floor is yours to talk about the track and how the artist can fix problems in and improve upon the mix and the song.

This track has been submitted for your friendly, constructive criticism. They have put their track (and their heart and soul) in your hands to learn and get useful feedback.

  • Do you enjoy the song or track itself? Does it have potential?
  • Can the arrangement be improved?
  • How did you find the mix? What would you do differently?
  • What do you enjoy about the rhythm track? What can be done to improve it?
  • Is the choice of instruments relevant and effective for the style/song?
  • Are the lyrics (if any) effective? Does the style, arrangement and genre of the song suit them?
  • Can you suggest any specific techniques that might improve the track?
  • Do you have any other constructive feedback?

Two Heads by Vestis

Description of the track:

I have recently begun the process of building my own recording studio in my apartment. After some time we have finally gotten pretty serious about it and this is our first project. I am interested in feedback on how to make it better!

Download audio file (01TwoHeads.mp3)

Terms of Use: Users can stream the track for the purposes of giving feedback but cannot download or redistribute it.

Have a listen to the track and offer your constructive criticism for this Workshop in the comments section.

Submit Your Tracks for Workshopping

Need constructive criticism on your own tracks? Submit them using this form.


Open Mic: How Do You Make Money From Your Music?

The dream of making music has created a few millionaires and many paupers. Do you make money from your music? Let us know how.

Each Tuesday we open our mic to readers and lurkers alike to come out of the woodwork and tell us your thoughts and opinion, your experiences and mistakes, what you love and what you hate. We want to hear from you, and here’s your chance.

Making music isn’t easy – or cheap. It can take years to learn an instrument, audio gear can cost a fortune, writing a good song is difficult and elusive. And rejection is a whole lot more common than success.

Do you make money from your music? Do you make a wage, or pocket money? Do you make your money from recorded tracks, live performances, sheet music, or some other way? Do you have any other comments about making money from music that might help our readers?


More Than 350 Free and Premium Wood Textures


Texture resources can come in very handy, especially if you just want to add some subtle grain to your designs or photographs. This article showcases a compilation of over 350 wooden textures, both free and premium.

Free Wood Textures

A great collection of free wood textures from across the web.

20 Grungy, Dirty Wood Textures (20 Textures)

Tree Bark: 10 Free, High Res Textures (10 Textures)

Free Hi Resolution Wood Textures (9 Textures)

14 Wood Textures (14 Textures)

Wood Texture Pack 1 (6 Textures)

3R Stock Wood Textures (6 Textures)

Wood (5 Textures)

Wood Texture Pack (9 Textures)

Wood Panels Texture Set (9 Textures)

Woodwork Texture Pack (9 Textures)

Wooden Tiles Texture Pack (8 Textures)

Old Wood Texture Pack (3 Textures)

Six Wood Textures (6 Textures)

Wood 01 (3 Textures)

Wood Texture (12 Textures)

Wood Texture Pack (3 Textures)

Wood Textures (15 Textures)

Wood Textures (45 Textures)

Dark Wood Texture Pack (11 Textures)

Wood Uncut (10 Textures, Seamless)

Wood Uncut 2 (10 Textures, Seamless)

Wood Uncut 3 (10 Textures, Seamless)

Wood Package 2 (8 Textures)

Texture Wood Pack 01 (3 Textures)

Wood Pack 1 (3 Textures)

Wood Board (10 Textures, Seamless)

Tileable Wood Textures (3 Textures, Seamless)

Wood Textures (4 Textures)

Premium Wood Textures

A small collection of premium wood textures, for those of you who don’t want to use textures that are found all over the graphic industry.

Colorful Wood Texture Pack (6 Textures – $3)

6 Tileable Wood Textures (6 Textures, Seamless – $5)

Dark Woodz Textures Volume 1 (12 Textures, Seamless – $3)

Wood Textures Pack 1 (8 Textures – $6)

Cool Wood Textures (26 Textures – $8)

Seamless Wood Patterns (8 Textures, Seamless – $5)

Wood Textures Pack II (8 Textures – $6)

5 Different Colored Wood Textures (5 Textures – $4)

6 Wood Textures (6 Textures – $5)

5 Wood Textures (5 Textures – $5)

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