The best tom tip I ever got was from Nolly: Distort the upper mids and up

That ability to tune the EQ to the drum's fundamental and then automatically targeting the overtones is GENIUS. Consistent EQ curves for toms are always a frustration and this is a game changer! These AiXDsp plugins are super smart and sound excellent, you really do find awesome shit Glenn.

Love ya glenn you never stop learning. Learn so much from your drum vids. There is nothing wrong with trying to sound like the black album! Bob Rock created a masterpiece with the drum sound on that record.

"Wow, that really is trying very hard to sound like the black album." That describes that particular Avenged Sevenfold Record to a T.

This is such a HUGE help! I’m learning (and applying) much of what I’ve learned from you. I can’t thank you enough.

Watched an old video you uploaded from 5 years ago and wow! youre killing it with your diet glenn! Great video as always, thanks for the info!

Well, now I gotta replicate it with ReaEQ

Damn Glenn this was so helpful! I love your in depth videos and I always learn a lot about what to listen for. Not gonna let being hard of hearing stop me. Keep killing it!

This is such an underrated video. Glenn…you NEED to remind people that this video exists! We need a short on mixing TOMS.

The neatest thing was when you pulled each frequency band of the tom separately so we can hear the boxy and resonant bands and how that relates to the overall sound and punch. I run tape and analogue so plugs don’t really work for me but I found your tuning of the EQ to be very enlightening and I am excited to try it using a couple of parametrics. Your tuning really smartened up the sound. Thanks!!!

You are one of the most entertaining people ever. I love all your videos so please keep them coming, just for me!

A thousand thanks from an amateur producer (and bassist!), this tips made my toms sound awesome!!!

This really came in handy, as I'm currently working on a mix/recording that has a quite a thin tin-like Tom 2 14" and a too boxy, slightly muddy FloorTom. Didn't want to replace them by a sample.Was using the StudioEQ in combination with the Scheps Omni Channel to get quite a decent result, but the AIX that I just downloaded got a better result faster. Did buy it straight away. Thx for the tip.

Nicely done...like the difference this plugin makes!!

Mixing toms always baffled me. Thank you for "cracking the code." I don't know if I can get mine to sound quite like the thunder of the gods as you do though, but they'll be a whole lot more impressive. Thanks!!!!

Yeeeees! Thanks glenn that was awesome! Gonna need this in a future project. :D

walking away or "sleeping on it" is the single greatest problem-solving tool in ANY profession. I can't even count the amount of times I've been struggling to get the right drum sound or the right guitar arrangement and the solution is ALWAYS walking away.... even if just for a brief "smoke break" or whatever. if THAT doesn't work... I just start over. Take away all the mikes, retune the kit, swap cymbals, room placement, and re-approach the miking scheme... sometimes it's just a matter of reevaluating "which microphones are doing what" for the overall mix, especially once you've dialed in the sound you want in the room. Underrated.

Great vid Glenn as always man. Those folks at AIXDSP just sent me those plugins. I can't wait to try those out. Fantastic eq

Awesome tip, thanks for sharing, Glenn!

Wow! Sounds awesome

This is the way i eq my toms even without this plugin , but one knob moving the whole eq seems very useful. I actually start with a hi pass filter and i move it till i hear the bottom end going out then i dial it back and boost the low end there, now i know my fundamental (by filtering and boosting i have a precise low end like using a vog), then i multiply this frequency to find the harmonics , boost and cut accordingly for my mids, for upper mids and highs i boost at frequencies that give me that snap but also space for other boosted areas of other instruments, i set the floor and then copy the eq to the toms and i move the low and mids accordingly the high and high mids are the same almost in all toms so i have the same snap all around, and for more punch and ''body'' i parralel compress them using a overdrive or distortion and sometimes a plate before the compressor while having a high pass(sometimes set very high) to move out fighting frequencies of the mix

Thank-you. The learning never stops.

Well!! That slider is a nifty tool ain't it?! Damn! And here I am after 20 years, still closing my eyes when I adjust EQ parameters.

ive learned so much from you...youre an angel Glenn

Sir, you nailed the topic again. Scary, funny, wise, talented and informative video. So...thanks again

Awesome video !!!

Holy shit thats a great Tom sound! Thanks for the valuable information!

Thanks Glen for the inside info! they used to say that even the best (vinyl) records hardly came close to the sound in the master tapes (and more so I guess when all the equipment was top end and the engineer first class) but now those bad old days are fading with todays tools and song files.

Finally!! Something to go practice. At least for me cause I will forever suck at playing guitar, lol. Thanks, Glenn. 😁

Holy shit this sounded killer!

Just got audio interface. Came with Pro tools. I'm a classical guitarist with 0 computer skills. Let's see where this goes. Thanks for all you info on this stuff. I'll need it.

Looks like a very cool plugin. As for compression, I'm totally stoked with the Pulsar Smasher. It turns my drums into monsters! I'm also using rear buss compression on the rest fo my mix. Not on the drums though. You should check it out. It's an Andrew Shep trick that I learned from Chris Selim's channel, Mixdown online. Another source for great info. Thanks for another killer video, Glenn!

Thanks mang...great stuff as always. I've said this before, but your intro music ROCKS !!!! I actually gave up coffee and now I just play your intro 3 times a day !!!!! lololol

i am so lost mixing drums, but your videos are sending me in the right direction, couple good laughs during the drum vids you know me too well

Those AIX DS Plugins are sounding great. Fantastic Tom sound

Great Video!!! Great Set of Ears!!! Thanks

Great idea. It seems taking out 2 octaves above seems a sweet spot, so I think we can use that on our own Equalizers. but it looks really easy with that EQ!

Thanks, Glenn!

Well, the Drum EQ is a dynamic EQ, so it's completely different from the SSL one and allows you to do things SSL isn't even designed for. Though you're not using the dynamic part at all so i think it's fair comparison. It does have nice tools for those resonances etc. so it's clearly designed for drums... that's really handy! Thank's for the tip!

I'm a huge fan of the UAD Pultec EQP-1A on my toms, and my "secret" is an Andrew Scheps technique of bussing all my toms together then applying some EQ into some compression with a limiter at the end to keep the red lights off. I've been a huge fan of some FabFilter > EQP1A > CLA76 (then maybe) > FabFilter again to just clean up a spot or two the compression brought up. I sometimes don't even compress the Toms if they were recorded really well.

Helping me reconsider my workflow. Thanks for the insightful information Glenn. 🙏

Glen it occurs to me that this would be an excellent plug in to train the ears with for EQ in general. Focusing in on those frequencies, and matching them would be a great way to learn to pick the individual frequency assets or liabilities out of an audio tracks spectrum,

great tips !!

I’d love to hear an Eq like this in a cover of “Run to the Hills” because of the sick drum part in that song (specifically the intro to that song)

I use this method live too. I'll check the toms with a tunebot, write down the fundamental and go set all my eq's ahead of time. Boost fundamental and cut the two octaves above it. Simple math and amazing starting point every time. Depending on what type of top end snap you want, bump anywhere from 3.5k to 8k. And yes, I did learn it from Glenn haha! 🤘

Love it! Tried to figure out what's the secret to that snappy drum sound for a while.... and whooops there it is thanks!

Your the man Glen !!

Sweet toms - fat and punchy! Thanks!

I don't know anything about recording and mixing music, but when I get to the point in my life where home recording is a possibility I'll gladly rewatch any video.

on my old computer i had the CLA collection, and one of the EQ programs had a "metallica" EQ sound, i added it to the toms and room mics and holy fuck did it give me a hell of a sound! i'll probably try this program once i get back up to recording and mixing on my new comp :)

Righteous sounding drums.

Really nice EQ!! Holy shit!

You can achieve this with any graphic eq that allows you to sweep around manually after the resonance freq. Just turn it WAY up, an sweep around to find the frequency, then scoop off anything that doesn't sound like a cannon.

Damn I just tried YOUR EQ settings and was happy!!!! Still getting the plug-in tho. lol

The best trick that I've ever seen to make, not just your toms, but the entire kit sound great was the use of bubble wrap. You get those large rolls of bubble wrap from Walmart or such. You then leave it in its rolled form. For those larger drums, even the bass drums, you may need to get a larger roll. Then you unwrap the bubble wrap roll so that it fits really snug into the drum itself, unwrapping the roll as needed. Then you carefully push the roll as close as you can to the head. You may need to either tape it into place or leave more bubble wrap on the roll for a tighter fit. Your snare will take some disassembly and trimming to do this. This works every time and it's pretty cheap on top of that. When we did this to my neighbors kit it sounded absolutely amazing from my living room.

Sounds awesome and great heavy ass tune!

Hey, man, thanks for posting! Unrelated question: got any idea what crash cymbals Narada Walden used on the Gladys Knight, "License To Kill" 007 title? One of those sounds amazing! Thanks, bro for any help on this.

Great Job - Thx

Take off the water wings and dive into the deep end of knowledge. Creatures Of The Night drum sound sounds huuuuuge IMO. Thank you Glenn for the time and effort.

Hello from S.C.,U.S.A. Mr. Fricker, just wanted to say THANK YOU!, for this awesome tutorial video. Well done as always. I never miss any of your YT posts.I usually stay out of the “comment” section but this video was so killer I had to chime in. I’ve been in the “business” a loooong time and I totally understand and feel for you when you receive all the ridiculous text and comments from all the wanna be’s/posers in the world. It’s a tough business that most youngsters don’t have a clue at all about how much hard work, money and headaches it takes to get anywhere. I hope you and your family are well at this “crazy virus” time we all are trying to get through. Please keep up the great work and again Thank you for all that you do and have done with educating the masses on just how important production and engineering is to this business. Being a guitarist, I’m sad to say, musicians are a dime a dozen. It’s the producers and engineers that really define how your band sounds. Keep up the great work and, Thanks again.

Gorgeous

Remove to resonate heads, mic inside the toms, use a compressor, some eq, gated reverb and boooom 🤘

Decapitator! It's my secret (not so secret) weapon for toms - makes them sound huge a beefy. Sometimes follow it with an L2 if they're still too attack-y.

I'd really like to work with you on a recording project. I enjoy your passion, your tenacity, and your ear.

Do you have a preset for Drumq based on the sounds you got? I know I need to use my ears but with the way you can shift the eq for each drum a starting point would be amazing.

Fuck that is the tom sound from Hell. Love it

While its not as easy to do this specific thing, I have been using Infinity EQ by Slate for doing this because you can really dial in and the graphs are great.

I’d like to hear how the plugin works minus all the reverb. But that’s just me. Toms sound great both ways though.

This is what i was looking for holy shit

Im sure some A7x fan here has already told you but the goal with that album was to make an album that sounded like their influeces. Fantastic album.

Hey Glen, what mic are you using for your voice in this video? Thanks!

Sounds great!!! I just thought the kick drum needed a little more sub kick with a bit more attack on top . Just to get in the same family with toms and kick. Hear great kick drums with bad toms and the other way round. Just my opinion, but the tweaks you made were killer. New drum heads and tuning help..... Thanks for the vid...😎

Nice Sound

Hey Glenn, Looking for some advice relating to EQ/comp for toms. More specifically octobans/cannon toms. A song I'm mixing utilities 3 out of the drummers set of 4. I just can't get them to sound nice a snappy like you'd come to expect, there seems to be a lot of flubby low end ring after the hits. I've tried gating them but to no avail. Any ideas?

That’s a great trick! It’s almost as cool as using sampled drum sounds

was watching this video, and it hadn't even finished before I was on their site and bought the plugin. Downloaded it, tested it, loved it!

I might have to jump on this!

I guess I really don't like that kind of sound but you did a good job at emulating it.

All I can hear is "ticking" and "clicking." Lower the high-end EQ on that kick drum, geesh.

That Avenged Sevenfold album was mixed by Andy Wallace and has very characteristic A. Wallace Signature Sound. There is a great mixing session on Mixing with Masters where Andy Explains in details how he gets his sounds. The man who mixed Nirvana, GNR , Rage Against the Machine, Velvet Revolver and billion others -cant be wrong :) You would be surprised how much he is achieving just by using SSL desk only, with a few outboards exclusions: please Check Rick Beato's video on A. Wallace, Symphonic effect yamaha spx 90 mostly on bass( or a guitar -Come as You are-)and stereo bus- smart compressor C 2 . Anyways, when it comes to Andy its all about riding faders( including ambience tracks), shaving/shading frequencies. What i recall for the drums sounds is that he gets massive fills by riding ambient faders down so they are very dry and articulate. And yes , he is using samples - mostly kick and snare, described as kick that its punching in your chest on and a snare sample- mostly as a laye for that 80s snare white noise verb, My fav mixer of all time ! kzfaq.info/get/bejne/fJ9hacyguL3IpKc.html R Beato video , kzfaq.info/get/bejne/mL5mf8Zzkr2zkqs.html A. Wallace

sending this vid to my drummer now

Hey Glenn, I'm just curious. Will the Waves F6 (I believe is the name of the plugin I'm thinking of) do three same thing as the AIX plugin?

I actually really like the snare sound on the black album. But that is a great drum sound in general

awesome

their GATE is pretty amazing too!!!

I have 4 toms, 12x8, 13x9 (racks) 16x16, 18x16 (floor toms) I plan on using Sennheiser e604’s for the racks but thought to go Audix D6 for the floor toms. Would it be possible to get away with using a single mic for two toms or should I go one mic per Tom? I’m going to end up needing a 10 channel audio interface which doesn’t come cheap. But maybe I can find one used? Or learn more about possibly daisy changing interfaces if possible... thanks for going into the software side of editing. That helps a lot!

I just got it and i feel like that would be so sick If it also came with different presets because as a beginner with new software as well it’s tough to mess up

Hey FU Glenn! This video made me wonder; When you're working with clients and they have a certain sound in mind, how do you approach this? Im not talking about when someone is like "i wan my band sound like tis and this band", but more like in the general direction when it comes to mix, tones, timbres and stuff. Would you recommended getting some examples of songs that sound like that? And as a producer, are you thankful for those kind of informations, or do you feel like reproducing something?

I think you should fix your reverb on your drums, it has a lot of highs and long decay. Try Waves Rverb's Tiled Room preset and cut the highs up to 3khz.

My go too tool is Smack Attack by Waves. You get a great sound every time with very little fiddling.

Where did you get your reaper theme? It looks good!!!!

Are you putting this eq on individual channels, Drum Buss or both? Thanks!

have you tried the Steve Albini method ? 2 condensors per tom (in + out of phase Y'd on 1 XLR) no gate

Hey Glen. So I'm trying to record drums at my house, and I only have 3 mics due to budget restrictions. I can get a decent sound, but whenever I go to the hi hats, they are way too loud. Any advice on how to fix this? Thanks.

For your next Q and A: Not really a Metal Recordingthing but, how do i deal with hughe natural reverb in Recordings. I mean empty Church 1 Guy singing and playing Guitar massive Hall Scenario.

That EQ is a beast, definitely picking that bitch up !!

Just amazing, Glenn. One thing I noticed, too - those toms were tuned very well, and sounded like they had fairly new heads. It all works together, though - why, o why do you tempt me to spend more money on plug-ins?

Not related to audio at all. Noticed you have a good amount of camera shake in some of these shots. are you using a stabilization effect in your video edits? if not, it may help. I believe there's one built into Resolve, but i don't remember where it is or how to use it

One more question are artist ever concerned after hearing the final mix of their work that it’s not gonna sound like that live that it might be too overproduced in their opinion, does that come up?

Using a specific plugin is not really a trick is it? This is an EQ that adjusts all bands with a single knob so that you are always working in octaves. I'd say the real trick here is to use octaves on a parametric EQ. Just make sure every band you use is exactly double the frequency of the last one. Also might as well share my favorite trick for mixing toms: Copy the kick EQ and adjust the frequencies accordingly (and change the lowest band to a bell curve if you're using a shelf on the kick). Gives you very quick and consistently great results.