A List of things to consider when mixing.

Here is a list of things to do when mixing:

1. Before you start soloing tracks and tweaking, get a decent mix with what you have. Then when you want to start tweaking individual tracks, start with the worst sounding, most troublesome element.

2. Don't get too caught up in details. Look at the big picture. Keep going back to your highs and your lows. Are they balanced? Can you hear the lead vocal? If it makes you want to tap your foot and sing along then you're half way there.

3. Cleaner and clearer aren't the ultimate goals. You can tweak the vibe right out of a song. The overall purpose of the record is to evoke and emotional response from the listener. Not to impress them. Keep that in mind.

4. Take frequent breaks and leave the room.
Maybe pop into another room and listen to the TV for a minute. It re-tunes your ears and when you walk back in that room you'll hear what you've been missing.

5. Listen to your mix from the hall.
This is good because it takes the stereo aspect right out of it. All the sounds get smashed up together before it gets out to the hallway. And frankly I think this is more how your average listener hears music anyway.

6. Compare your mix with songs you think sound great.
You can do this by running a cd at the same time as your mix and A/Bing them. I have a post in the archives that gets more detailed into this.

7. Mix at low volumes 75% of the time.
I mean LOW volume. You should be able to carry on a conversation over it. If you can make the mix sound balanced and exciting at a low volume it'll sound good at any volume. It doesn't seem to work the other way around.

8. If the mix sounds messed up and you can't figure out what is the problem, start taking out elements. Start with all the drums. Then try the guitars. Then try keys and so on.

9. Listen without looking at the computer screen. Listen in the dark.

10. If something sounds really bad, and everything you do to make it sound better doesn't work, then flip it and try to make it sound worse. You might be surprised where it'll take you.

11. When tweaking, be bold. If the vocals are too quiet, instead of turning them up in tiny increments and spending hours pondering if it is right, try turning them up too loud and move backwards instead.

12. Don't be afraid to pan far left or right. It makes things interesting and can be easier to fit other sounds into the mix. People used to pan whole drum kits to one side and we all thought it sounded fine. However, I advise to keep lower frequency sounds more centered.

13. Use 2 sets of speakers and alternate between them. Even if one pair is your home stereo speakers. It gives you something to compare to.

14. Use distortion. A little bit can really help on vocals and drums. A LOT can help bass, especially on rock stuff.

15. Please please don't use auto tune. Dear God please. If you need to tune any vocals try Melodyne instead.

I'll probably think of a few more things to add later, so check back.....

Keys & Beats Interviews Billy Hume

Check out my interview by Keys & Beats!

--> Keys & Beats interviews Billy Hume

Re-posted from Keys and Beats:

KEY FACTS

• Billy Hume is the owner of The Zone studios in Atlanta, where the biggest hits from the South are created
• The Zone studios was originally a home that was later converted into a studio
• Billy Hume mixes both Rock and Hip Hop tracks, and gives tips on both in this interview

KEYS: We are talking to Billy Hume, owner of The Zone studios in Atlanta. Thank you for taking the time to speak with us. How are you today?

Billy Hume: Thanks. Doing great! Working a lot on a bunch of really good projects.

KEYS: Now you’re the owner of one of the more popular studios in Atlanta. How did you get started up?

Billy Hume: Long story really, here’s the short version. I’ve had that studio forever it seems. I used to live there (it’s in a house) and I had the main studio in the basement while I lived upstairs. The studio had functioned for years as my private studio for my bands, my wife's band and local rock and country bands that I knew. 15 or so years ago this air conditioner repair man, who saw my studio when he was working there, convinced me of 2 things (he is a very convincing dude and a friend to this day):

a) That I should fix the studio up and expand to the upstairs with a B Room.
b) That I should get into mixing and producing rap music. I had done only rock and country up to that point. I thought , “what the hell? Might be fun!” And from the first session, with Bone Crusher, it was! The air conditioner repairman, Chris Vermillion, then talked me into doing a compilation of local rap artists and producers. We called it Full Contact Sports. It had Bone Crusher, Lil' Jon, Mina Mina Goodsong, L Roc (now producer for Jermaine Dupri) and a bunch more up and coming artists on it. We had Polow Da Don from Jim Crow and all the BME crew hanging out. We never made much money from the CD, but everybody in urban music in Atlanta heard it and heard my work. Lil' Jon and Smurf/Mr. Collipark ended up booking me constantly and bringing all sorts of people through. I worked so hard I don’t even remember some of those sessions. But at some point I suddenly had several songs shoot up the charts that I had either recorded or mixed or played guitar on and man.... the rest is history.

KEYS: So what are some of the day to day activities of running the studio?

Billy Hume: First we’ve got to clean up from the night before. Backing up data is now a major task. We do it pretty regularly. Staying in touch with clients is very important. Maintaining the gear. But mostly it’s about coming in and working and making sure that everything I do sounds amazing, no matter what it takes. You live and die by the quality of your work.

KEYS: I know you’ve got wide variety of musical influences. What do you think you’ve been able to extract from your eclectic taste in music and put into your own projects.

Billy Hume: Mainly an understanding of music and the realization that there are more things in common between different music genres than most people realize. All music is about the communication of an emotion. You are trying to convey to the listener what you felt at some point and to see the world or a certain situation through your eyes. Yes, I’ve had to learn the different engineering and mixing styles for a wide range of music, but it is the vibe that counts more than anything. Now on a more technical level my eclecticism manifests itself in my putting 808 kicks and snares in rock and country songs, using mandolins and banjos in Hip Hop tracks, not using samples and being hired to replay or re-create samples.

KEYS: As a producer, how does your approach differ from working with Rock bands and Hip Hop artists?

Billy Hume: Now that is a good question that is worthy of a whole article. But here are a few things: With a Hip Hop artist you just set up the time and they come in and we work. With a rock band you really need to meet with them, get to know them and discuss what we are going to do in the studio. A Hip Hop artist tends to view his art as his job, his career. He doesn’t really care what I think about him or what anyone else does for that matter and he is on a mission to dominate the world. He is ready to accept criticism because the bottom line is making a hit song. No fooling around with ego when it comes to this which is strange considering how much ego is projected publicly by Hip Hop artists. Because of this background he never takes anything for granted and wants to get things done quickly and move on the next thing.

A rock band on the other hand takes their music very seriously. Sometimes too seriously. It is truly viewed as their art and thus tied directly to their souls. And their ego is wrapped up in every detail of their music from the melody to the amount of echo on the guitar to the type of drum head we’re using on the toms to whether we are going to cut the intro in order to get to the hook quicker. The typical band is also like a club you might have had as a kid with your friends in a tree-house with a sign by the door saying “No Girls Allowed”. They are suspicious of outsiders. And where my role working with a rap artist is more like a partner because I am helping create the music or if I’m mixing I am actively enhancing the mix to take it to another level (which IS expected in Hip Hop and Pop), in rock I am taking music that has already been created and performed and is viewed by the band as something akin to their child, and changing that. A bands first assumption about a producer is fear and suspicion that he will mess it up and change the bands identity much the same way many guys are fearful that their girlfriend is going to try to change them. Now this sounds pretty negative, but it is actually something I love about bands because through that tension arises great timeless music. I wish that bands could adopt a little of the practical business attitude of rap artists and Hip Hop artists would take their music a little more seriously as a true art form which it is.

KEYS: Which artist is more difficult to work with?

Billy Hume: Well, I guess that kinda ties in with the last question. Both can be difficult, but in different ways. Hip Hop artists are usually late for sessions. Rock guys often don’t want to put in the hours that a Hip Hop artist will. Over all it’s about the same to me.

KEYS: Speaking from a technical point of view, how does the mixing of a Rock track differ from Hip Hop?

Billy Hume: Drums man... drums. You might spend a lot of time getting the low end and kick drum right on a Hip-Hop record, but on a rock record it is the whole kit you have to address, which may have 20 tracks just for drums alone. You might have 4, 6 or more guitar tracks as well. And since they’re live and not sample they are not static, so one setting on EQ may not work for the whole song on an individual track. The focus on mixing Hip-Hop tends to be on the beat and the vocals. With rock it is about the music, mainly guitars and then vocals. The band tends to get really involved in the mix with each member putting in his 2 cents. In Hip-Hop the artist rarely has much to say about the mix. Over all I’d say mixing rock is definitely more of a challenge.

KEYS: As an engineer, you’ve had the opportunity to use both methods (digital vs non-digital) of working on a track. What is one thing that you enjoy about each method?

Billy Hume: I dig digital because what you record in is pretty much what comes back out. I can edit easier. Analog did some of the work for you with tape compression. You were also forced to make decisions and commitments about your music.

KEYS: What is one thing that you dislike about each method?

Billy Hume: With DAW’s you can have too many choices and take too long to get things done. With analog you would actually lose your high end the more you ran it over the play back heads. The tracks would sound different (and each track had it’s own characteristic to some degree) weeks after you initially recorded it.

KEYS: Personally, I know that I struggle a lot with getting a good overall mix on a track. What tips would you be able to give to people for getting better mixes?

Billy Hume: I think the most common mistake people make when getting into mixing is that they start looking at every detail in the mix and lose sight of the overall sound. Your average listener hears music as one big sound. Most people want to tap their foot and sing along, so address the rhythm and the melody. Don’t get me wrong, I love to tweak details and I’ll do it for hours sometimes. But you have to stand back and address the over all sound. Go stand in the hallway and listen to your mix for instance. Also, mix at a low volume. I spend most of my time mixing at a very low volume. We could have a conversation with out hardly raising our voices at the volume I mix. I do put it up on big speakers periodically to see how it’s going to pump, but 90% of the time it’s low. Almost anything sounds good really loud. Make it sound exciting at a low volume and you will sound good about anywhere.

KEYS: What would you say is the best/most affordable way to sonically prepare the room that you are going to be mixing in?

Billy Hume: Make sure your speakers are at least 2 feet from a wall. You sitting position should be the same distance from each speaker as they are from each other... the 2 speakers and your head should form an equilateral triangle. Put a diffusor behind you. You can check these site out to get info on that: http://www.ethanwiner.com/acoustics.html or http://www.canuckaudiomart.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=8456 . At the very least you can put a bookshelf behind you and put randomly sized books on it. My friend Rodney Mills who does a lot of mastering in Atlanta did this in his studio.

KEYS: With the rise of the “digital method”, we’ve seen a lot of people having the ability to make music and put it out there. What do you feel about this?

Billy Hume:
It’s killing the major labels. Kinda sucks in some ways for me as I got a lot of work from them in the past, but I always kinda saw them as the enemy, so I say R.I.P. My only reservation is that I have seen the quality of recording and mixing go down, which is why I started my Workshops and consulting business.

KEYS: It’s probably fair to say that the song “I Ain’t Never Scared” was your introduction to the urban world. What was the process like for making that track?

Billy Hume: Well, I don’t make the track. It was done by Avery Johnson, however I did replace some drum sounds. I did mix that track and it changed my life.

KEYS: You’re probably one of few people who can say that they truly helped to create a style of music – Crunk - what do you think is the next “sound” that’s gonna’ be dominating the airwaves?

Billy Hume: Ha! If knew that I could control the music industry! I do think there are 2 things moving right now. One is this European thing, the new techno/rave sound evidenced on the new Lady GaGa songs. Also, live music or music that can be performed live is important. Much of the income in music will be connected with live performances. And I think people are ready for something more ‘real’.

KEYS: What was your most memorable moment working with a Hip Hop artist?

Billy Hume: I’ve got a bunch of them.... David Banner carrying an Uzi into one of his first sessions with me. Laughing so hard at Kaine from Ying Yang Twins that I almost passed out.. he is such a clown. 3-day mixes with Polow Da Don and thinking were about to wrap it up when he jumps up out of a dead sleep and starts reprogramming the drums. Getting in a Ying Yang Twins video (I Yi Yi). Working on a mix with Will Smith (he really gets it).

KEYS: What projects are you currently working on?

Billy Hume: I’m working with the Vistoso Bosses. They are signed to Collipark / Interscope. Awesome artists, great album. The single drops this July. Working with my writing team Marv and Cash. Also working with Demun Jones from Rehab on his solo album.

KEYS: Before ending off, I’m going to throw out some phrases, let us know what your first thoughts are.

Best affordable microphone

- Audio Technica AT 4033

Best affordable monitors

- Not sure if this is the best, but for the price... Event 20/20.

Favorite song out

- I’m completely biased of course but the Vistoso Bosses “Delirious” produced by St. James, which has started getting some early plays. I also like this song called “The Climb”. I was suprised when I found out it was Miley Cyrus! Well, I gotta give it to her... she’s really doing it.

Up coming rock band to look out for

- Rehab, Jesse Harper.

Dream project to work on

- Getting paid to work on my own music! Ha Ha! But if not that it would be U2.

Links:

My blog - http://billyhumeworkshops.blogspot.com
Vistoso Bosses - http://www.myspace.com/thevistosobosses
Demun Jones - http://www.myspace.com/demunjones
St. James - http://www.myspace.com/nalstjames

Being Prepared 101

Last week our local Recording Academy (NARAS, Atlanta) held a "Meet and Greet". The purpose was to give our student and non-voting members a chance to meet the people who are on the board, voting members and other industry folks, as well as to get new-comers interested in joining. I drove down there with another producer friend of mine, Dan Hannon. Now Dan's a real straight shooter and he is going to tell you exactly what he thinks. At one point during this event I walked up to him as he was talking to some youngster and heard him say "Well that's 2 strikes against you! First you don't have a cd of your music. Second you don't have a business card and there is going to be a third if I don't have a drink in my hand in 2 minutes!" He was only kidding about the drink, but his experience was not uncommon. We talked about it on the drive back and we'd both noticed that there was not one single person there (that we'd talked to) who had their music on a cd or flash drive. Only a few had business cards, and almost all of them tried to get us to memorize their myspace address! This is something I've been noticing more and more the last couple of years. I get cd's sent to me with NOTHING written on them! I've had people hand me cd's at shows with NOTHING written on them! Are you kidding? One of the most basic rules I was taught as I came up in the business was that you always had your music with you and you put your name and contact info on EVERYTHING! Be prepared!

Now let me tell you about Ricky. Ricky is 8 years old. I first met him a couple of months ago at one of my son's birthdays parties that we had at my studio. I had all the kids in there wearing headphones and banging out some crazy music. After they had finished with that Ricky came up to me and said he wanted to record a new song on piano. I hooked up my midi keyboard and he played out a couple of A and B sections, not too bad actually. I thought it would end there, but no, he then wanted to add a bass. I got him a bass sound on the keys and he laid that down. Next he wanted drums and strings. After those were done he wanted to start editing and had very specific ideas about when certain instruments should come in and out. I asked him what the song was and he said it was his version of a live version of a remix by Daft Punk. He then went on to describe how he gets tracks off the internet, puts them in Garage Band and does remixes. Pretty cool. I've been told he has a blog going as well.


This last Sunday I had another birthday party for 2 of my other boys and Ricky was there. I asked him if he had done any new songs. He said yes. And before I could ask him to email it to me or ask where I could hear it he told me "I have it in my pocket!" He then pulls out his iPod, hands me the head phones and says "Tell me if it's too loud". Now talk about prepared! This 8 year old was more prepared than those 'producers' at the NARAS event of the previous week!

I don't think he was thinking that he might run into someone in the music industry that he might want to play music for. He was just keeping what he loves and is passionate about close by. If you're not that prepared and that passionate about music, then you shouldn't be doing it for anything more than a hobby.

Be prepared.

Audio Hallucinations

Audio Hallucinations

25 years ago I ran sound for bands on the road. I cut my teeth in audio during those couple of years. Once I dealt with the obvious problems that every live mixing engineer deals with, my biggest problem was typically the club owner/manager. There were the usual complaints about volume, but often the owner would have suggestions about my mix. I would always consider the suggestion first, but often they were just plain wrong. In those situations discussion is not an option, so I started to keep a few idle faders pushed most of the way up so I could make a show of lowering them for the owner. Every time I did this the owner would be very happy, convinced that his change had been made.

Years later when I started mixing and producing major label work I would often get input from an A&R or even the label head on a lot things, but mostly the mix. I know these guys want to feel involved and have some sort of creative input, but the fact is that usually it was just plain bad input. Once again argument and discussion will get you no where except not getting hired again. So what did I do? Just sent them the same mix again and thank them for their input. They would hear it and give me the thumbs up convinced that the changes had been made.

It’s funny how people can be convinced about changes in sound and how much we imagine that what we are hearing is changed or better or different. But can we fool ourselves?

Cut to last night. I’m mixing something and I want to automate the echo send on the vocals in this one section of a verse. Somehow I screwed up and ended up adjusting the volume automation instead of the send automation. Listening to that section several times I really thought that the 2 db boost I thought I was giving to the echo was just what it needed! Ha Ha! What I was really hearing was the vocal getting louder (and a little more echo because as I usually do my send is post-fader). Louder always sounds better. It took me a few minutes to catch what I did and not until I had done something else and come back. I’ve even had situations where I’m just tired and pushing myself and I grab the wrong EQ and start turning stuff, convinced I was doing something to the track I was targeting. Yet all I’m really hearing is something being EQ’d and my ear/brain fools me into thinking it is happening to the track I think I’m on.

I call this Audio Hallucinations. We all have them from time to time. Take master clocks for example. For a while it was the rage (Audio Fashion) amongst the producers and mixers I was in touch with to get one for your rig. I bought 2 different high priced models for my 2 main rigs based on suggestions from other engineers who said that using a particular model would be “night and day” compared to not using one. At first I thought it was making a difference. I had to! I'd just spent a good deal of money on these things! But after much A/B testing, changing word clock cables (I actually witnessed a heated discussion between 2 fairly successful engineers over the difference in tone your word clock cable makes!), re-checking the manual and phone calls to the manufacturer to make sure I was connecting and using it right I came to the conclusion that any difference it was making was so small that I frankly just couldn’t hear it. I’ve kept the one master clock in my A Room because it has a lot of pretty lights and it makes my clients feel like I’ve gone the extra distance, but it really is smoke and mirrors. I was at an industry function last night and and related my master clock story to several engineers in attendance and every one of them laughed and agreed. They had the same experience!
One of the engineers went on to describe an experience at a gear shoot out he'd been to at a major studio here in ATL. The guys that were doing the shoot out were interested in finding out how people were influenced by what they heard and how they made decisions in choosing what ‘sounded’ better. They found that when A/B’ing 2 pieces of gear or 2 microphones that if one was louder then the other by even .5 db that almost everyone would just choose the louder one. And these were all established engineers!

We all can get so caught up in sound and what we believe ‘sounds better’. We obsess over the smallest tweaks yet we lose sight of the most important thing. The one thing that you cannot fool yourself or anyone else into thinking is good. And that is the MUSIC and the VIBE.

Years ago when I started doing more hard rock stuff I had an artist that I was developing who had some great songs and a voice that just caught peoples attention. We had no decent amps or guitars. All the songs were recorded with a cheap Crate amp, played on a fake Les Paul and mic’d thru my Soundcraft Ghost console. We really struggled to get it even listenable. I was convinced that I had done at best a mediocre job on the songs. But when we played the stuff for people everyone went crazy over it. I was told that it sounded amazing and the mixes were great. But what they were really responding to was the good songs, the great vibe we had and his voice. I still put those songs on my mixer/producer reels and I’ve gotten work from those songs specifically! I have a couple of other songs that I used to put on the reels from another band I did 3 years ago that I KNOW I nailed the sound on. Truly the best drum and guitar sounds I’ve ever gotten. Probably some of the best mixes I’ve ever done. All the audio components came together perfectly. But the band was in a weird funk and the songs were weak. I stopped putting the songs on the reel because I actually got negative comments on them.

I know I’m going to get emails from engineers saying that tweaking IS what they do for a career. That those minute tweaks and differences is what makes their specialization valuable. Yes that is true, but people are buying music, emotion- the soundtrack of their lives.

I just think the subject is interesting, funny and informative. Anyone have any good Audio Hallucination stories?

The Magic Pipe

Here's a quick clip of a current project. The sound is a bit over powered by his triggers, but this gives you an idea how his instrument is set up. He (he goes by the name That One Guy) invented this instrument, which he calls The Magic Pipe. It plays like a stand-up bass but also employs triggers. He is playing additional drum sounds with foot pedals.

Notes On Recording Live Drums

I’ve been recording drums all weekend for an artist named Christian Lewis. Really good stuff. I think I got some of the best drum recordings I’ve ever gotten here in my studio, The Zone. I get a lot of compliments on my drum sounds so here are a few notes on what I did:

(I'm not going to get into head tensions / tuning and drum heads. That is a whole other subject)
I started by mic'ing up the drummer Andrew Faletti’s kit, and recorded some short clips for him to hear. After he approved the drum sounds we had, I started replacing his drums with mine- starting with my Ludwig Black Beauty snare drum. This model of snare drum has been called “The most recorded snare drum in history”. I don’t doubt it. Almost every time I compare this snare with whatever my clients bring in, the difference is obvious. I mic’d the top with a Shure SM57. I have a couple that I always use for snare as the SM57 can be a very inconsistent model of microphone: they all sound a little different. When using this mic it is good to try a few (if you have more than one) and pick the best one (I write on the side of the mic with a sharpie after I find one I like for the application I’m using it for). The mic was placed about 2 inches or so above the rim of the snare pointing down to just off center on the head (where Andrew was hitting the drum. I ran that mic into an API 512C and then an API 550b EQ which was eq’d at 10K + 4db and 8K +2db. From there I ran it into an Empirical Labs EL8 Distressor compressor at a 4:1 ratio, slow attack, quick release and 4 or 5db of gain reduction and then into my AD interface.
I usually mic the bottom of the snare with an AKG C 414 B which works great, but I wanted a little more snap, so this time I used something I’ve never used for mic'ing a snare: a Josephson C24, which I ran into an API 512C (remember... flip the phase on bottom mics) and then ran into another Distressor with the same settings as the top snare mic’s Distressor. The bottom mic was set at the same angle and distance from the bottom head of the drum as the top mic was from the top head.

With the toms I started by using my toms, which are Bearing Edge drums. These are some of the best drums I’ve ever heard. I mic'ed the toms with Sennheiser MD 421s which I ran into my Soundcraft Ghost console (a pretty good sounding board for the money). I usually pull some low mids out and boost a little highs and then some lows in that unique sweet spot for each tom (using a narrow bandwidth. The tom mics are about 3 to 4 inches above the heads, at a 45 degree angle to the head and pointing to where the drummer strikes the head.

The kick drum was the drummer's AHA Custom kick which is made here in Gainesville Georgia. On the kick drum I mic’d the inside with an AKG D112. I keep the mic almost centered inside the drum, with the mic pointing right at the point where the beater from the kick pedal is hitting on the other side of the head. That mic is run into an API 512C and then into an API 560 graphic EQ with 500hz pulled all the way down and a boost at 125hz and 4K. The outside of the kick drum was mic'd with something a lot of engineers call a Sub kick, which (in my version at least) is just a speaker hung on a couple of cables suspended in front of the kick, and wired to a XLR plug (a speaker in reverse, and mine is still low-impedance). This works better than any mic I’ve ever used. You can buy a factory version of this - the Yamaha Subkick, but having used their version I have to say mine gets better lows. I think the lack of a shell and all that housing lets it breathe more. It was placed about 6 inches (tho I've often placed further out) from the head and off center. The sub kick I ran into a Chandler Limited Germanium with the “Thick” button in. (I gotta thank Producer Matt Goldman for the suggestion that I get one of these. Matt knows a lot about gear).

On my overheads I used a pair of Earthworks TC30Ks. These are omni-directional microphones. I’ve tried so many mics for overheads, but something makes me keep coming back to these. They just make everything sound soooo big! I also like the way I get better coverage on the cymbals this way. With directional mics I always feel like there is one crash cymbal that isn’t as loud as the others. I placed my overheads about one drumstick height or so above the cymbals. I also make sure that they are over the edge of the cymbal and on the axis of the cymbal's rotation when they are struck (meaning that when the cymbal is pivoting or swinging after being hit, the mic is over the part that isn't moving up and down. That would be 90 degrees around the edge of the cymbal from the spot they are being struck. This gives a smoother sound).

One of the biggest parts of the sound is my room mic. What I’ve been doing lately is putting an AKG C 414 B straight over the snare drum up about 9 feet and run that into my Ghost console. Then I turn up the gain on the top of the channel until the red overload light is on. Then I turn it more right up until the distortion is crazy, then I dial back just a bit. I might EQ it, bit not always. (check phase!) This track gets gated and is keyed off the snare. Just a tiny bit of this in the mix will give the drums a very muscular sound and make the snare sound like you added a few inches of depth to the shell.

I used a couple of spot mics as well. One Josephson C24 on the high hat and a shure SM57 on the ride. I don’t always use them in the mix, but I get them just in case.

Here are a couple of clips I made from the session. These are the raw tracks just after we recorded:

You might notice from the sound clips that the drums are very ‘ringy’ and live sounding. I rarely muffle the heads and when I do it is very little. Many engineers will get a little freaked out by all the ring and over tones they hear as they are getting the drums dialed in, and start to muffle the drums. The problem is that by the time you add a lot of other instruments to the production your drums will actually start to sound small and thin, so you'll then start reaching for reverbs and other tricks to make your drums big again. If you just let the drums ring a bit you’ll find that you need less or no reverb in the mix.

And finally, a good drummer and good drums cannot be overlooked and in fact are the biggest part of the equation. I've had drums set up in the studio and put a different drummmer on the kit to have it sound like a whole different kit.

Well that’s about it.

Recording "Party Like A Rockstar"