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Kurt Ballou dialing in drum samples

Turbo charge those drums!

Kurt Ballou shows how he chooses, mixes and fine-tunes the drum samples from his signature Room Sound library in “I Can Tell You About Pain” by Converge in this clip from his Nail The Mix!

Kurt Ballou dialing in drum samples on Converge “I Can Tell You About Pain”

Kurt Ballou shows how he chooses, mixes and fine-tunes the drum samples from his signature Roomsound library in “I Can Tell You About Pain” by Converge.

Get instant access to Converge multi-tracks and Kurt’s full mixing session here!

Nail The Mix is our online mixing school that gives you REAL multi-tracks from REAL bands, plus a mixing class from the producer who recorded it. Past guests include Periphery, Gojira, Meshuggah, Machine Head, A Day To Remember and Bring Me The Horizon. Join now for instant access!

Unboxing Periphery “Prayer Position” raw multi-tracks

These drums!!!

Eyal Levi takes you on a guided tour of the raw multi-tracks for “Prayer Position” by Periphery, as seen in Nolly’s Nail The Mix from 2016.

Periphery “Prayer Position” raw multi-tracks [UNBOXING]

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Here’s a few things to note as you watch the unboxing:

Some truly sublime drum tracks courtesy of Matt Halpern. And note that (as far as we can recall) no drum samples were used in the final mix of this song. So if you are thinking about adding a bunch of drum samples to this one, consider instead watching Nolly’s Nail The Mix and see how he got that tight, super punchy sound without samples!
Nolly’s bass tracks come as DIs and amped tone – Spencer Sotelo’s vocals have some processing done on the way in (recorded with the help of Taylor Larson), but there’s still lots to work with
And of course, plenty of guitars to work with from Misha Mansoor, Jake Bowen and Mark Holcomb
Some fun extra stuff including a little Moog and viola

Want more? Click here to get instant access to these multi-tracks and Nolly’s full mix session!

Unboxing Gemini Syndrome “Anonymous” raw multi-tracks

165 tracks?! Oh yeah!!

This month on Nail The Mix we’ve got Kane Churko mixing “Anonymous” by Gemini Syndrome— you know him for his work with bands like Papa Roach, In This Moment and Five Finger Death Punch among many others.

And holy crap, this is a big session!! It’s got well over 150 tracks (and if you think that’s excessive, then watch and find out why it isn’t) including over 60 layers of vocals alone.

Gemini Syndrome “Anonymous” raw multi-tracks [ UNBOXING ]

Eyal Levi takes you on a guided tour of the raw multi-tracks for Gemini Syndrome’s “Anonymous” in Pro Tools from their album “Memento Mori” produced and mixed by Kane Churko. This session is a BEAST, with well over 150 tracks (and if you think that’s excessive, then watch and find out why it isn’t).

Working with such a big session has its own challenge, and it’s worth signing up for this month just to learn how to deal with so many tracks (and this month includes a mini-lesson specifically on how to manage the massive session).

But more than that, it’s a master class in arrangement – you’ll see exactly why every single track in the session serves a very specific purpose – this isn’t size for size’s sake.

The huge vocal stacks are key to that huge, radio rock sound; the synths are subtle but add tons of size and depth, and the samples and other elements give it a slightly electronic touch without ever losing sight of the fact that it’s a rock song…

Kane is truly one of the very best in the business when it comes to production and arrangement, and after watching this you’ll see why we say that!

Want more? Click here to get instant access to these multi-tracks and a front row seat for Kane Churko’s live mixing session.

Massive Radio Rock Leads! w/ Bullet For My Valentine + Carl Bown

So simple, yet so NOT simple!

Carl Bown is known for being an incredibly meticulous engineer who goes to whatever lengths it takes to get it right at the source- spending days and days getting the tone during tracking rather than shrugging and deciding to fix it in the mix.

But his maniacal attention to detail doesn’t stop there… even with tracks as ridiculously clean as these (if you’ve dropped this session in your DAW you know what I’m talking about), there’s always room for improvement – there’s always a way to squeeze that extra 1% out.

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Watch Carl Bown mix the lead guitars for “Over It” by Bullet For My Valentine. He takes a very deliberate, meticulous approach to mixing these lead guitars in Pro Tools, starting with some notch EQ and Waves F6 Dynamic EQ.

Here’s just a small clip of the massive, 10-hour NTM session where Carl dials in the fine details of the lead guitars for “Over It” by Bullet For My Valentine… THIS is what it takes to get the kind of hyper-polished mixes you know Carl’s studio for!

Mixing one of the best drummers in metal [ft August Burns Red]

This man is a straight up BEAST!

Shells, rooms, mics, heads… all of that stuff definitely matters, but when it comes to drum sounds, the biggest factor is and always will be one thing: the player. There’s simply no substitute for a great player laying down a great performance – all the samples and editing in the world can’t replicate it!

I’m not gonna say that a session like this mixes itself, because that it’s true, but it DOES change your job as a mixer. Instead of being a turd-polisher who spends a huge chunk of your time and energy on cleanup, editing, samples, and the usual workarounds that we use to make the most of a subpar performance, you’re spending your time on CREATIVE DECISIONS – on taking something that’s already awesome and bringing out the best of it to turn it from good to great.

Mixing metal drums ft/ Matt Greiner of AUGUST BURNS RED + Carson Slovak

Mixing metal drums is a lot of fun, especially when you are working with tracks from Matt Greiner of August Burns Red — one of the very best drummers in metal! Aside from getting great source tones, the key to getting powerful, punchy, modern metal drum sounds is in making the RIGHT mix moves – not piling on plugin after plugin.

And AUGUST BURNS RED’s Matt Greiner is without a doubt one of the best in the business – this man hits HARD, with the kind of fury few drummers can bring, and all with the kind of tight, super clean performances that sound better than most people’s edited tracks. See for yourself in this clip from Nail The Mix with Carson Slovak and Grant Mcfarland…

Anyhow – my point here is not to fangirl over Matt, the point is that I want you to understand a) how critical the player is in drum sound, and b) to underscore the thing we’ve said so many times, which is to GET IT RIGHT AT THE SOURCE.

Of course you should feel free to use samples, editing, and whatever other tricks you have in your arsenal, but never try to fix it in the mix — because the truth is that just doesn’t cut it when you want to deliver a truly world-class mix!