Mixing Drums in Logic Pro X
Logic Pro X is a powerful tool for mixing. In this tutorial video series, Eli Krantzberg demonstrates how to use Logic Pro X to mix drum tracks and get a polished professional sound.
Videos
• Introduction (03:35) - A short description about what this series is about.
• Timing & Phase (04:40) - Watch as the exterior room mic track is time aligned with the rest of the drum kit tracks.
• Overheads EQ (09:07) - Follow along as I use Logic’s Channel EQ separately on the left and right overhead tracks.
• Overheads Compression (04:50) - Hear how the Classic VCA compression model is used on the bussed overhead tracks to even out the attack and body of the drum kit.
• Kick Drum Mics (06:45) - See how to EQ, and compress the kick track, and how to “fake” a second kick drum mic positioned closer to the batter head.
• Creating a Sub Kick (03:19) - Learn how to generate a sub kick sound using the test Oscillator and Noise Gate plug-ins.
• Snare Drum (04:00) - Hear how the attack of the snare drum is enhanced with the Enveloper plug-in and some FET style compression.
• Snare Parallel Processing (03:04) - Blend over-the-top gating, transient shaping, distortion, and compression with the original snare track.
• Hi Hat (03:24) - Apply filtering and EQ to bring out the hi hat’s upper mids.
• Small Tom (05:23) - Explore various ways of dealing with leakage, unwanted resonant ringing, and general sweetening.
• Floor Tom (03:41) - Use noise gating to remove leakage; apply EQ to kill the muddy mid frequencies; and create a tom bus with compression on the two toms.
• Outer Room Mic (05:02) - Explore ways of manipulating the sound from a mic placed outside the drum room, so that it adds a stereo ambiance to the drum sound.
• Hi Hat & Tambourine Sidechaining (02:56) - Hear how the feel of the groove is subtly influenced by using a compressor on the tambourine track triggered by the hi hat.
• Creating a Drum Room Ambiance (04:38) - Use Space Designer to create a natural sounding drum room ambiance.
• Drum Reverb (02:47) - Set up a reverb specifically for the snare and toms to place them in the mix with more space than the rest of the drum kit.
• Secret Sauce (04:57) - See how parallel compression and mid/side EQ can beef up the drum mix.
• Kik Drum & Bass Sidechain Compression (04:18) - Subtly duck the level of the bass every time the kik drum is played, using sidechain compression on the bass track.
• Folder Stacks & VCA Groups (05:22) - Explore two ways of managing the overall drum mix, via either Folder Stacks or a VCA group.
• Drum Mix Summing Stack (05:32) - Learn how to save your drum mix setup as a Summing Stack, and then as a patch that can be easily called up in future projects.
• Bonus Tip & Playback (04:55) - Learn how to set up and use the Toggle Hide Group key commands to view different components in isolation in a big mix.