Drum sounds are not standing out enough

7

7thAct

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So everytime I put the bass, synth, and drum patterns together in a playlist drums (kicks, claps, snares) are never how I want them to be, they are never standing out or they are never on the same level as the other sound, they are always struggling behind I always try to EQ but I'd don't know if'm doing good.... I always use Venegance packs for kicks, snares etc.. P.S Is there any plugin where you can make your own kick, clap etc?
 
What kind of DAW are you using? Maybe the frequencies from the other elements (synth, bass, chops etc) are phasing out your drums and causing them to drown. You need better EQ and compression. Look into side-chain compression. Also, if your drum samples/one shots are lacking in quality to begin with, there's nothing you can do. Don't use shitty drum samples.
 
7thAct said:
So everytime I put the bass, synth, and drum patterns together in a playlist drums (kicks, claps, snares) are never how I want them to be, they are never standing out or they are never on the same level as the other sound, they are always struggling behind I always try to EQ but I'd don't know if'm doing good.... I always use Venegance packs for kicks, snares etc.. P.S Is there any plugin where you can make your own kick, clap etc?
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That's because you do not side chain compress the drums, the transients of the drums get burried in the mix and then smashed by your master bus processing. You need to handle the signal as both rms and peak, both technically in the thought process, but also in terms of how you dial in the side chains. When the mix passes a certain density, you might want to limit that from happening, so that sound sources like drums are free enough to exist inside of the mix, especially during more dense parts of the mix, like in the choruses. Heavy master bus compression can also cause sound sources to collapse inside of the sound field, in some cases even the sound field itself.
 
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Depends on what the drums are. Despite what the billion videos on youtube might tell everyone making music isn't easy. Making a track isn't just putting some stuff together. Getting a piece of music to work with more than 2 tracks isn't easy... and it gets very hard as you add more tracks. Sounds rarely go together. Sample packs might sound great on their own but often that means that they are actually harder to mix. This is because things that sound good on their own often fill the mix on their own; leaving little space for other things.

To answer your question, and to echo what was already said, getting drums to sit and have presence is largely to do with their transients.

Constructing your own loops will always be better for lots of reasons; including because you can build everything from the ground up. If your kick needs 10ms more transient you can tweak a decay on an envelope, instead of trying to get a compressor to guestimate it. Side-chaining can only give you so much, maybe a dB or two space to poke through before it becomes pumping or becomes an effect. Plus you can't just key a side-chain off all your drums because the side-chain would just be pushing down all the time.

You have to consider the frequency content of the drum and how that interacts. You have to consider it's transient and it's tail... reverb.

And you have to remember this is mostly a zero sum game...one thing is more then something else has to be less. If something is at the front something has to be at the back.
 
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7thAct said:
So everytime I put the bass, synth, and drum patterns together in a playlist drums (kicks, claps, snares) are never how I want them to be, they are never standing out or they are never on the same level as the other sound, they are always struggling behind I always try to EQ but I'd don't know if'm doing good.... I always use Venegance packs for kicks, snares etc.. P.S Is there any plugin where you can make your own kick, clap etc?
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I have this same problem too sometimes. Like OP said, you may need to look into sidechain compression for your kick and bass (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8F2tK-vyspM just a start). All it really does, for example, is compress the bass or 808 a little every time the kick plays leaving the kick a little louder and stand out more. Also, look into different eq techniques, but I can tell you now that there's no set formula for it. You would have to play around and tweak it to your liking. It's better that way in my opinion, because you'll get to sculpt your own sound. Hope this helps.
 
This might be a stupid reply but everyone is saying things like eq, side chain, compression. Have you tried the simplest thing, raising the volume level of the drums or lowering the volume level of everything else?
 
Compression definitely helps, the crisper it sounds the more it stands out. Or alternatively you could add reverb to the other track!
 
I use Fl Studio, I always use Venegance sounds, and I always use EQ, I don't really understand how the Sidechaining works but i get the idea so i just copy what they do on yt tutorials and it does get better, I never really use compression cause i don't understand how to use it, i found long ass explanations everywhere but i need a simple one :D... also discovered that one of the problems is Mono/Stereo thing, I never played with Mono/Stereo, I usually left it on default but now i see it actually does improve something... Still not sure how to use it

I would love to construct my own loops, but I don't know how, how do I create kick sounds, claps etc? Is there any plug-in for that or?
 
Don't stress about compression or side-chaining and you don't have to jump right into creating drum sounds from scratch.

You could start by taking those loops and slicing them up. Just copy and paste chunks of the audio in the timeline. Rearrange things. Play with the length of each chop. After you've done that a few times it's just a short step to doing the same thing with single-hit samples rather than sliced audio loops.

Then start to play with making your own sounds. Practically any synth can make some kind of drum or percussion sound. A sine wave with a rapid drop in pitch is a kick drum. Slower drops give you other sounds. Add distortion to get a different style. A burst of noise gives you a snare.
 
Mind the Eqs on all the other elements, make room for your drum parts , high pass the lows , use notches and boost individual frequencies till you find the annoying frequencies and cut them (in your other instruments.

Use compressors and harmonic exciters (izotope ozone 5 does a great job at that) for your high mids and highs to cut throw your mix.
 
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