Mixing Midi Drums - Everything You Need To Know

Here is my complete break down of how to set up Midi drums for mixing within your DAW, how to adjust your programming for more authenticity and how to process midi drums to get them sounding the very best they can be!

(00:00) Getting Set Up
(05:53) Better Programming
(12:06) Optimising Settings
(18:02) Mixing
(19:40) Drum Bus
(25:44) Kick
(29:33) Snare
(32:27) Toms
(33:57) Overheads
(35:34) Rooms
(39:42) The Mix
(41:47) The Blueprint

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[fletcher]

Spent best part of 15 years trying to make MIDI drums sound like real ones for a living (economies of scale) right back to EXS, Battery and BFD. Hats off to you and your chops! Your viewers can count themselves lucky - this is the best content I've come across on this subject. Keep up the excellent work!

[MrHighlyEvolved]

I just found your channel today, and I've already watched a handful of videos and learned a lot! You have a fantastic presentation style and a real ear for this stuff. I've subscribed and I'm looking forward to learning more! Thanks for the hard work on the content!

[buddyscaglini]

Was looking for a good video on this! Thank you!!

[craigpollock]

Best midi drums mixing vid I have seen in 10 years. Great job mate!

[Simeon_Harris]

one tip to add some feel to midi drums, is to select all the snare hits and simply move them back behind the beat a little bit. not so good for metal styles like this, but for almost everything else, it's like magic. i've spent days programming midi drum parts in the past and this simple little trick makes such a huge difference. try it - program 4 bars of a simple, perfectly quantised beat and then grab all the snares and budge them back behind the beat a few ticks.

[studio.thelivesessions]

Man... Studio guy from Germany here... I discovered your channel shortly and have to say a big thank you! You are so much on point to the topic, no bullshit talking half the video, great topics over all... learned a lot of detailed nerdy stuff. I just do not need Prod Like A Pro, marc daniel nelson, kohlekeller, ... and so on and on ANYMORE :) This means a lot! This one here was real great as I produce quite often stuff with programmed drums (XLN Addictive Drums) and i got some nice little ideas here to build it up very nicely. To keep it short: New fan here. Bye

[Sandesnor]

Holy shit! This is what I tried to request a while back. You're sick!

[wereallthinkingit]

Best midi drum video
No contest

I love how you don't just do stuff but actually explain what you're doing

[akeyzstudio]

you are a life saver and this is free wooow been trying to be good with midi drums mixing been really struggling thank you so much

[plague]

Great video! I just finished a punk rock track and used EZD3. I’ll use your approach on my next track. So helpful!!

[AndreiBachmanov]

Thanks for an awesome tutorial! Haha BTW, I was mixing midi drums based on your live drums tutorials and liked the result a lot!

[honest_noise]

Holy crap when you added the compressor on the drum bus, they just sounded so much more realistic. Wild

[nicka]

Awesome video just what I needed! Keep up the good work.

[BrianCharles]

Hey man, been using both Slate drums and Slate plugs for a few years and love seeing a new way to mix them. You’ve got some different approaches compared to what’s out there and really simplified it. I wish you had this out 5 years ago. Thanks. I applied some of your ideas (some, not all) to a mix I’ve been working on using SSD and it was like an adrenaline shot to my drums. Thanks man!

[stephenmenor]

Hey man this is absolutely amazing! I've been struggling with mixing programmed drums and this is such a huge help. I hope you keep making these in-depth tutorials!

[rome]

My process is to use Logic's AI drummer and find a beat that's close to what I want. Then I convert that to Midi, tweak the part where I need to, and copy and paste it into Steven Slate drums. It works pretty well.

I'm currently working on a song that's pretty tom-heavy though. And I've been struggling to find a tom sound that works in the mix. The toms are generally way too boomy and have too much of a defined note. You might have just solved the problem for me by showing me how to adjust the sustain and room sound.

[KimSunHo]

Thanks for nice video!! It's so helpful

[BrandonWells]

I just picked up your one shot sample pack. supplementing your room shells with the slate kits has things sounding great without even doing any processing on the individual channels

[EricDoesMusic]

Love your videos, you have a great way of teaching and presenting information. Cheers from Canada!

[edwardkenemorales]

Thanks for this jam-packed tutorial. Learned a lot! You outdid yourself in this video mate!