FXpansion BFD Premium Acoustic Drum Module Mixing with BFD - Manual (Page 35)

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Mixing with BFD www.fxpansion.com
8. How to approach mixing a song
If you’re feeling a little lost and don’t know where to start, perhaps these guidelines will
help you. Make sure you read the rest of the ‘Mixing with BFD’ guide first, as many of the
techniques described below have already been discussed in detail.
1. First steps
Start by setting sensible levels on all channels, in order to achieve the best mixing
headroom.
When starting a mix, do not use any panning, EQ, compression, reverb or any other
effects on the drums or on the other instruments in the song, unless if any effects are an
absolutely integral part of certain tracks. Lots of effects will make it very difficult to get the
basic mix right. Once you’ve got a decent sounding mix, you can then dial in the effects.
Stick to one of the mic buses in BFD for now: direct, overhead, room or PZM - whichever
of these you want to be the main focus of the drum sound. Turn down the rest. Again,
once the mix is done you can introduce as much ambience as required, in a similar way
to introducing reverb.
Get a rough balance between BFD and the other instruments.
Listen to how the kick drum and the bassline sit together. Ask yourself if they are clashing
in any way. Do the same for the mid-range instruments - for example, guitar, keys and the
snares and toms.
Try and build a mental picture of the different elements in the frequency spectrum, and
how you might need to adjust any elements’ frequency or dynamic range to achieve a
better mix.
2. Approaching processing
There is no point in making the drums sound amazing in isolation and later finding that
there is no space in the mix for the rest of the instruments.
When applying EQ or any other processing to a track, always do it ‘in context’ - you want
to be able to hear what it sounds like in relation to the rest of the tracks.
3. EQ
The first thing you need to do is to make the instruments at the lowest frequencies sound
good together.
Don’t add EQ at the same frequency to both the kick and the bassline. It’s good to decide
whether the kick or the bassline are going to carry the song, or whether they going to be
working ‘as one’.