From the course: Real Recording School Weekly

Unique way to boost drum overhead mics - Pro Tools Tutorial

From the course: Real Recording School Weekly

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Unique way to boost drum overhead mics

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- [Narrator] I've come a across a helpful way to boost drum overhead mics when mixing time comes around. Often the the drum set will have a few louder parts in a song and in quieter sections certain details of the overhead mics will get lost when levels are set well to work on the loud parts. Sure you can compress the overhead tracks but what if you just want to boost certain sections without setting up automation that might disrupt the sound and the perspective of the drum mix. First I'll make a copy of the drum overhead mic tracks. In this case they were recorded as a stereo track which makes it easier to work with. So let's say I want to bring out the intro section more where it's just kick drum. Let's listen here. (drum track) I'll cut that section apart and I'll mute the rest of the nude duplicate track. (drum track) All this action can be under that previous sentence. Alright. So now lets hear these soloed. (drum track) I'll blend it in. (drums) that's going to give me a little boost right there. Then I can blend in the new track under the existing overheads. Maybe I only what the higher parts of the rim tone to open up, so I can apply I high pass EQ filter to do this. (drums) Let's hear how that works. (drum beat) So you get a nice little shift there if you want that. It's easier, you have a lot of control. Now let's look at the section before the end where the snare roll is. Right in here. (snare roll) I want to try something different here so let's move the remaining new audio to another stereo track and we'll separate the regions. Okay now the action. Now I have this section separated. (snare roll) Let's put some reverb effect on that track and blend it in under the existing overhead channels. (snare roll with reverb) Pretty cool. There you go. Now that section of the mix will expand, get wider without having to set up hidden automation. We can even add an EQ and cut the lows here as well (snare roll) Just getting that cool kind of top shimmer. And then with just a level boost we can make that whole section open up quite a bit more. (drum track) Spacey. I use these sorts of duplicate tracks in mixing all the time. It makes the dynamics between sections of the songs easier to control and it's more visible while you're mixing than hidden automation levels and sends and it allows the mixer to be creative and do exciting work.

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