Ok... got it set up... any of you aspiring engineers and producers who have any questions or are just seeking tips, this is the place! just post up your questions and I'll do my best to answer..

ok, so here goes. How do i get my kick drums to be punchy without making the mix muddy? do i kind of low pass every other track in the mix and compress the hell out of the kick? or do i just try to place everything below the kick volume?

hmm... anybody want a try at this first?

As per Benvesco.com:

These are three key elements that can be used to describe the sound of a kick drum.

Boom is where the low end thud of the kick drum comes from. You can find a cleaner, modern sound boosting around the 50-60Hz area. A more traditional, ringing boom will be found a bit higher, perhaps in the 100Hz range. I typically use a normal, peaking band for the boom but you can experiment with a low shelving band here if your kick drum is lacking girth. Be careful not to overdo it with the shelf though, things can get blurry fast in the sub frequency ranges.

Smack is the primary attack of the kick drum. This is the frequency range that helps the ear identify individual kick drum hits. I like to start my search for smack in the 3-5kHz range. Microphones specifically tailored to kick drums will often have a bit of a presence bump somewhere in this range. I always use a peaking band for the smack and keep the Q parameter in the 1 to 1.5 range.

Click is exactly what you think it is. At first thought you might not attribute click as a quality desired in a kick drum sound. Click works in conjunction with smack to help bring a kick drum through a dense mix. This is the sound of the beater actually hitting the drum head. You can find the click up around the 6-8kHz range. A peaking band works well on the click (Q around 1.5) but a high shelf can be used to enhance the bleed of the snare wires in the kick drum mic.

Mud is not one of the big three because it is a bad thing! We want the opposite of mud in our mix, especially on the kick drum. You remove some of the mud and clean up your kick drum sound by cutting a thin band in the 250-300Hz range. I will often use a peaking band with the Q set to around 3.

Kick drum big three eq quick chart

More boom (modern) +6dB at 50Hz
More boom (solid, classic) +6dB at 100Hz
More smack (attack) +7dB at 3.5kHz
More click (beater) +6dB at 6.0kHz

Kick drum eq recipes

Start here to get a solid, full kick drum sound with plenty of click

 

• Band 1: +6dB at 55Hz
• Band 2: -9dB at 275Hz (narrow)
• Band 3: +7dB at 3.7kHz
• Band 4: +8dB at 6.2kHz shelf

Start here to get a more traditional kick drum sound

 

• Band 1: +6dB at 100Hz
• Band 2: -10dB at 800Hz (narrow)
• Band 3: +6dB at 1.5kHz
• Band 4: +6dB at 7.0kHz shelf

Start here to get a ringy bottom end with less attack

 

• Band 1: +6dB at 100Hz
• Band 2: -5dB at 250Hz (narrow)
• Band 3: +3dB at 4.0kHz
• Band 4: +3dB at 10.0kHz shelf

Kick drum compression recipes

If I have a very consistent drummer with great dynamics then I often will skip compressing the kick drum at all. Sometimes you need to bring up the sustain or level out an uneven performance or you might be looking for the ultra compressed modern sound.

Reduction level is the amount your kick drum is being compressed. All good compressors have some kind of meter or way to gauge your signal reduction. This will sometimes be labeled gain reduction or will just be a meter that seems to work backwards, going down or showing negative values on each kick drum hit. You should be able to see the reduction increase (more into the negative range) as you lower the threshold of the compressor. I like to get about -3dB of gain reduction for subtle kick drum compression. I’m not afraid to get the gain reduction up to -10dB or higher when necessary though. You don’t have a reduction level control on your compressor. You adjust the threshold control until you are getting your desired reduction level.

Kick drum compression recipes

Subtle kick drum compression

 

• Ratio: 3:1 or 4:1
• Attack: 4ms
• Release: 200ms
• Threshold: adjust for about 3-6dB gain reduction

More “in your face” kick drum compression

 

• Ratio: 6:1
• Attack: 3ms
• Release: 200ms
• Threshold: adjust for about 8-10dB gain reduction

ok, so mr kennedy how dis one really go?

those are some pretty extreme eq settings!  I always cut instead of boost where possible...it can often create the same effect or allow you to boost less, thereby giving you more headroom in the freq ranges.  Try and carve things into their own ranges...Sometimes cutting the bass where u boost the kick, and vice versa can help clean up that low end.  Low cut every track except your tracks with deep bass content.  Make sure to listen to the tracks in the mix, as sometimes you can cut out quite a bit of the frequency range and still maintain the sound you need.  HPF and LPF has really helped me clean up my mixes...that and proper gainstaging have helped me more than eq and compression combined!  Especially when we are all working in fully digital environments.  I could write for days, and I still feel like there is sooooo much more to learn.

werd... I don't think there is a formula for eq'ing anything... your ears have to tell u what's going on and you have to know when to trust them.  gain stage is important resulting in good signal to noise ratio therefore giving you much more to work with. i think DrewBonez is on the money... clean is better to a certain degree of course depending on your tastes...

I'm afool... I'm moving this to the groups section... works better...  stay tuned