Inspecting the material - The Drums

Mixing Preparation

So now the next step in the mixing is, for me, it's still preparation. You actually inspect the material, start listening, and begin with the drums.

Evaluating the Track

This is more of a dancey track, so you'd probably expect less issues with timing and things. I'm going to play this now, go through, and listen to what each sound does. This will help me get a handle on what's there and what needs to be worked on.

Importance of the Groove

It's always important that the record grooves. Therefore, you should:

• Inspect your timing
• Make sure the bass and the drums, everything is in time

When it's a loop or sample-based track, everything sort of falls on a grid. You put your tempo into the session and, as you can see here, if we zoom in on the bass drum for example:

• This here is always on the one.
• Everything lines up nicely, which is the way it should be.

Avoiding Flams

If you have a bass drum there and the snare drum happens much later, you get a flam. This isn't great for dance and pop music unless it's intended.

When working with a live track, it becomes more complicated:

• The drummer might have played out of time.
• Sometimes things just flam.

It's worth going in there and shifting it to ensure everything is in time before you start the mix. This goes for the drums, bass, and percussion as well.

Editing Drums

Okay, just as a quick example:

This is a track where I've done loads of editing on the drums. As you can see here,

• Red is our drums.
• It's a live drummer, but he did go out of time a bit.

So, I literally had to go and move a lot of the beats to be on our grid. It's important that all the instruments actually fall together, especially on the downbeat.

Avoid Chaos in Your Music

If instruments hit one after another, it can create horrible flams that make the piece of music sound chaotic and undesirable.

Don't be afraid to do some edits!
If it doesn't sound good, fix it because no one else is going to do it for you at this stage.

As you can see, there are lots and lots of cuts.

Using Beat Detective

Now, I just want to demonstrate something that quite often helps. It's this little program here called Beat Detective.

• Hit Apple 8 and this comes up.
• It's a very useful tool if there is a drum track that's not in time.

To use Beat Detective:

1. Capture your selection.
2. Hit this one for clip separation.
3. Draw lines wherever somebody hits a drum.

Sometimes the hits aren't perfect, so you may need to adjust the settings a little bit. Hit analyze.

• Now we can see that all our lines are actually where the kick and snare drums hit.
• Press separate: this makes them all into regions.
• Use clip conform to move them onto the grid.

Fixing Gaps and Crossfades

There may be some gaps that won't sound good, which is why we have this function called edit smoothing. It fills the gaps and crossfades them. You can set the time here as well; about 5 milliseconds is pretty good.

Now this has fixed our drums for this section. If we listen now, they should sound a lot more precise and mechanical.

Final Thoughts on Timing

There's one more quick thing I want to mention about fixing timings. This is more of a production-related point, but it does come in handy when mixing.

• Loop or sample-based tracks: You can be quite rigid and ensure everything falls on the beat. This mechanical sound is great for that music.
• Live tracks: If musicians are great, everything doesn't have to fall onto the grid.

Embracing the Live Feel

In this case, don't be too strict about timing. Give it space to breathe and only fix major mistakes. Remember, even the greatest drummer sometimes plays in the wrong place.

Generally, if the musicians are great, you won't need to work on it too hard. You can let some things be and enjoy the way they groove.

Not everything is done to a grid, and it's not always mathematical music.

Complications with Mixed Tracks

Things get quite complicated when you have loops, samples, and live drums mixed together. You get the groove from the drummer, but the programmed sounds don't move with the drummer since they're static.

• You'll need to adjust the drums accordingly.
• Ensure that whatever falls onto the beat is moved onto the grid.

What's in between can be left free to let the groove breathe.

Recommendation:
Edit the drums and ensure all the bass drums always fall into the same place on the grid.