How I Mix #8 Drums ...How Big is your Window?



Can you hear finite movements of your pan pot? From how many locations in your critical listening space can you do that? If it’s in a very limited area your listening window is small.

Headphones offer the biggest window and are the new standard for listening to recorded music. The problem of using headphones as a monitoring standard for mixing is this:

 You can make mixes made on big monitors sound big on small monitors, but it is difficult at best to make mixes on small monitors sound big on large monitors.

Simply said; big monitors, correctly voiced and placed for a maximum window width, will translate better to more consumer systems than will mix judgments made from small monitors or headphones.

Large monitor systems introduce a wide range of issues to your listening environment. First and foremost is leakage. Sound transmitting outside of your controlled listening space is not only unhealthy to your neighbors but also to the isolation of your sensitive open microphones.

Chips Davis ...World Class Acoustic Designer

Acoustical engineering is second only to aerospace engineering or something equally as abstract. To view a professional audio control room as akin to an electronic microscope for sound is to begin to understand the complexity of building a listening space so refined that any and all judgments made there will play on any system, anywhere and sound comparable. Big sentence, big responsibility.
We in North America live in a Left to Right world. This may be why it is awkward for some engineers to pan small toms to large toms as they are seen …Right to Left.
AKG 452's XY
Regardless ... It is important to phase your stereo capture instruments correctly. If drum overheads were recorded using an XY stereophony free field microphone technique, it is even more important to ensure a correct stereo placement in your mix (full L & R). If not, your stereo image will get very small regardless of your control room listening window size.

I receive a lot of stereo recorded kick drums to mix. What? I always wonder if I'm receiving a kick drum recorded through a stereo buss and panned for preference or … was I receiving a lazy engineer’s poor work habit or their lack of understanding in audio arts and science.
Nine out of ten times the two channels of kick drum I receive are Mono Left and Mono Right. Derive your own answer from that.
Do not underestimate the effect your room acoustics have on your final product. You can't fix it if you can't hear it. Just because the music you listen to in your space sounds good to you doesn't mean aural decisions made on it will transcribe well to other systems. An engineer's job is to make every system sound like a million bucks.


Next up …Snare Drum/Loudness

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