Hi, just wondering if anyone can help me. I have the BFD Deluxe drum pack (recorded in Kentucky room) and am trying to mix an album with them using the Mod Orange kit (with the Sonar snare). I am going insane trying to get a decent mix happening.Don't get me wrong.... I love the kit. I love the room. The samples are the most playable of any sample pack I've used (dynamics wise etc). And of course I am a huge fan of Steve's sound/ approach/ aesthetic. The whole album has been recorded around these drums. I am now in the mixing stage.... and I cannot get a decent drum mix (for a rock mix, think Sonic Youth, Fugazi etc) What am I doing wrong? Every drum mix ends up lacking bottom end, feels muddy and cloudy in the mids, nasty 'whistling' between 1-2K, lacks sparkle yet feels harsh and brittle once I've scooped out the problematic lo mids...None of the kick drums seem to have much thump at 50hz, and I seem to always end up scooping a wide 12db at 300 and boosting 6db at 50 just to get them to poke through a mix, but even then I'm still mostly getting a muddy 200-500 kick rather than a solid thumpy low end kick. For jazz this would be OK (and I like 500hz in kick drums in a non-rock context). But in this context the drums are totally masking the guitars and bass in the low mid range.The room/ ambient mics seem very cloudy overall with a huge 'lump' at 250hz and a very 'papery' quality at 1k. When I cut the offending frequencies there is nothing left but harshness with no (usable) low end.Is there some magic formula for mixing drums in the Kentucky room that I'm missing? I've been referencing other albums which had their drums recorded in Kentucky (not studio B) and I hear loads of gorgeous low end and detailed, shiny top end with that slightly gritty adobe brick sound on top ... sounds great! Why can't I get something similar?!!! (not fair!)Sure, samples are a compromise (obviously), but mix wise they should not be THAT different to the real thing.May I ask ..... were the BFD sessions considered a success (within the limitations of sample libraries of course)? Where you generally happy with how the recordings came out? Am I trying to mix a dead horse, as it were? ....or is it 100% mixer error on my part?Anyone know of any other songs, drum mixes of (better yet) multitracks of any other Kentucky drum sessions on the web that I could use as a reference? (to compare sounds on a per channel basis).What are the normal EQ moves for the ambient mics for that room?What about compression, how much and where (channel, drum bus?) to get that wonderful roomy sound? I've tried all sorts of combos and nothing seems to work.Should I give up? I really, REALLY want to use these samples. ... I HATE most drum libraries with a passion, but these 'feel' great in terms of expression / playability ... but I just cannot get them to work sonically in a mix (other drum libraries sit in the mix much better sonically, but sound bloody awful in terms of expression - ie they sound fake). So I really want to persevere with the Deluxe pack. But after dozens of failed mix attempts I do not know what else to try.Any advice from anyone would be most welcome! ... including general tips about mixing drums recorded in that room.Sorry for long post.Cheers!

This is a total dumbshit suggestion and forgive me because you've probably already tried this...But yesterday I was mixing some practice demos (no samples but go with me here) and I was freaking out because the kick kept disappearing no matter now hard I maxed the fader or how much 80hz or 7k I added.Having tried everything, I flipped the polarity on the kick channel. THERE was my kick drum. So you've probably already tried flipping the polarity, but if you haven't I would say it's worth a shot.

ahoy! I moved this to the tech room, as that tends to be a bit more visited. The original topic is still in the studio questions forum in case, but hopefully someone can help out. Welcome aboard!Faiz

kind of an aside, but I don't have this issue with the Electrical EZ Drummer samples ("Alt Rock Pack"). In fact, I generally keep the sub-y bass drum capture pretty low or it gets too boomy for my liking (esp. after compression stages)Compared to other samples the EA ones have a more roomy sound (even in the close mics) and the overheads have a zingy high end that might get rolled off going to tape, so I keep 'em kind of low (or EQ'd) for ITB mixes at home. But they are the closest version of how I like to hear and record drums that I've found.Those BFD samples are a little older (10+ years), right?

are you using the preset as is or did you start tweaking the sounds in BFD3? most of the presets don't sound very good to me, but there are tons of parameters in BFD that you can change.

What are you using for monitors?

Out of curiosity, have you tried mixing them without any eq, dynamics or effects?

Thanks for the replies guys.Phase looks good. Flipping does not help.I am just printing the samples dry ('as is') and not doing any mixing inside of BFD. I am mixing the individual channels (kick, snare, OH etc) in Reaper as per a normal drum recording.The manual has minimal tracking notes from Steve ..... a bit of limiting on the OH's, an 1176 on the kick out mic, some minimal EQ on the snare etc. The room/ ambient mics sound like the MIGHT have some compression on them, but there is no mention of this in the notes. Maybe there isn't...In any case, even when I apply the most minimal compression to the room mics (just nudging the needle a bit) I still find I have to carve out around 9db from 1k down to around 250 which basically removes the entire mid range. Otherwise you get all sorts of nastiness and the whole mix is very fatiguing.It just seems a bit excessive. Typically I might just remove 3-6db of mud around 300-500 and that's about it.I wondered it this excessively pronounced lo/mid range (let's say 200-2k) in the ambient mics is a feature of the room .... I wondered if the venting to the basement had anything to do with it. In addition to the excessive mids I also seem to be missing a satisfying low end (50-100) in the ambients and the close mics. I've tried either cutting (high passing) everything below 100 in the ambients and relying on the close mics only, AND keeping it in - and either way I have no real sense of the lows in context of the full mix.I cannot tell you how many time's I've given up on theses samples and used some other drum library only to get a more conventional (and user friendly) drum mix ... but which leaves me bored to death and ruins the songs.So I guess I am committed to these drums because I've built the album around them and they just make the midi performances come alive (a lot of drum libraries do not).They just have me baffled .... they are not like mixing any other drums I've ever mixed. That's why I was wondering if the room itself has some sort of weird quirks about it...?To be clear - I am not dissing the studio acoustics, I am referencing other drums (real recordings) made by other bands in the same room and the drums sound perfect. This only adds to my frustration!

Boombats wrote:What are you using for monitors?Some ancient Alesis Monitor Ones (don't laugh, they rock!). It's not the monitors though, because I hear all the frequencies I want in my reference mixes (including other bands recorded in that room), and also in other drum libraries.These drums seem to have a very unique frequency 'footprint' from the get go (ie before any FX), compared to your standard rock drum recording. It feels like a code I need to crack or something, rather than your standard 'remove mud, add sparkle' kind of mixing formula.That's why I wondered if there was a secret formula for mixing drums recorded in that room.....

mhhh this sounds really strange. while I don t like many of the BFD3 presets, you should be able to get a great drum sound when you tweak the presets to your taste. have you tried using BFD as a plug-in in reaper? have you listened to the stereo mix coming out of BFD? does it sound the same as the single tracks you printed?there s a lot of parameters in the tech page that you can change and mix the sounds to your taste. for example the bass drum will only sound good with it s room mics. I disabled the snare / bass drum bleed as it added some annoying noise. it could also be that in the preset the dynamics are disabled which dosen t add to a lively drum feeling.I too use reaper but am using BFD3 simply as a stereo plug-in as I found the BFD mixer, effects and eq s work great and don t find it necessary to mix each track on it s own.I wonder if something went wrong when you printed the single tracks.