Help with my drum mix?

[Masoo2]

Hey guys, I've been working on a full cover of Glass Cloud's Ivy & Wine for the past week or so and I'm currently focusing on the drum tone.

Got the guitar tone down, bass works (though I might be buying a new Dingwall NKI soon), but I'm still not sure about the drums

[SC]https://soundcloud.com/masoo242/glass-cloud-ivy-wine-mix-test-3[/SC]

(First portion is whole mix, then it goes to drum/bass where the toms come into play)

Just using the Avatar kit in Superior 2 with no samples added except an x-drum of a second snare for layering. This is the first time I've really tried to create a good sounding drum mix with Superior (or should I say Superior samples, as all processing is down in my daw).


What exactly do you guys think needs to be changed on the drum mix?

Tame the overheads a little? Increase/decrease room (or whatever its called in superior, I think it was ambiance)? I just can't help feeling that the drums are making the mix too thin .


Thanks


(The mix might be pumping a little, so try to ignore that)

 

[Hohomaru]

One thing I can say is that you should try to humanize your drums a bit, they sound way too robotic. Play around with the velocities on fills and quantize them with a 3-5 swing. You could probably use a little more ambience on the overheads. Guitar tone/bass tone sound good though.

 

[Masoo2]

I did consider humanizing the velocities, but when I tried that everything just seemed to "fall apart" in a way.

Kick and snare lost their punch, and everything overall just became weaker.


I do know it sounds robotic, but I guess I'm going to have to deal with that unless editing the velocities by 3-4 is fine.

I'll try putting some reverb on the OHs to see if that would smooth them out a little.

 

[shnizzle]

i´d say the overheads are too loud and too harsh. and there´s actually way too much
room mic in the drum mix. it makes the lower mids super mushy. that and the OH
together also drown the guitars. i´m also not hearing much low end oomph on the kick.
seems to be drowned by the bass.
and the robotic feel doesn´t sound too pleasing to the ears. i think your drums loosing
punch when humanizing could be because they are then drowned by everything else.
good volume balance and compression is important here to keep the punch and presence
up.

 

[Hohomaru]

Quantize small parts at a time, for example: if you have a part where your snare is hitting consecutive 1/4th's quantize the snare part in 1/4. For fills, zoom in and just drag the midi slightly. It doesn't have to be spot on in the grid.

As for velocities, really think about what should be hitting harder. Maybe listen to some other drum mixes and try to replicate what someone else is doing until you get the hang of it.