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How do you clear out the low end to make your drums massive?

Like some have suggested earlier, I would think of this as something similar to making a kick more prominent:
1. Use the low end drum as an input to side-chain compress other low end elements. If you have a multiband compressor or Dynamic Equalizer, you could choose to side-chain compress the low end of these instruments only, versus full band.

2. Give the low end elements some top end to cut through the mix.

3. Take out really low frequencies (say 30 Hz or so) with a HP filter, on all bass(y) instruments. Adjust the slope to taste.
 
So many awesome tips! Some of these have already been mentioned...

  • Side Chain Multi-band Compressor.
  • Some subtle harmonic distortion in the lows (Spectra by WavesFactory is worth a shout).
  • Use an EQ to roll off the low end and make it MONO (if it's a stereo source) using an M/S EQ like FabFilter ProQ.
  • Boost some of the Highs to make them cut.
  • Use a compressor with a side-chain filter to compress the high end and bring it out more.
  • Waves Aural Exciter can work magic on percussion used sparingly.
  • Good old sine-wave / gate trigger trick.
 
You know, this is MIDI. I left out the most obvious answer: layer the drums with others.

Actually, I left out an even more obvious one: raise the level.
 
Like some have suggested earlier, I would think of this as something similar to making a kick more prominent:
1. Use the low end drum as an input to side-chain compress other low end elements. If you have a multiband compressor or Dynamic Equalizer, you could choose to side-chain compress the low end of these instruments only, versus full band.

2. Give the low end elements some top end to cut through the mix.

3. Take out really low frequencies (say 30 Hz or so) with a HP filter, on all bass(y) instruments. Adjust the slope to taste.
No. 3 is a great tip. It should've been me who suggested it:)
I've setup medium to large sound systems for various events in the past 20 years and despite those large monstrous sized speakers you might be surprised that many of them can't reproduce below 40hz. The trick to get them pumping is a hard highpass around 40hz and sometimes even as high as 50hz. It really helps the speaker have more power and impact on those low frequencies that it "can" reproduce. The same effect can be done in a mix. Unless your doing hip hop and trap or super bassy 808 music then highpassing at 30hz or above will help allot.
 
Everything much below about 80Hz is all rumble. You roll off extra stuff that's just eating VU, but it's not the kick in the chest range I think this thread is about.
 
ut here's the catch: if you plunk the percussion out directly as the sidechain signal, you're going to get a reaction to the overall volume, which will undoubtedly mess up the overall compressor response.
Could you clarify this? Are you saying that something like a short burst of sound is a lot cleaner and consistent to send into the side-chain vs a trailer hit? For example, the actually transient of the hit only happens for a short period of time and so you can adjust your noise or whatever accordingly?
 
Could you clarify this? Are you saying that something like a short burst of sound is a lot cleaner and consistent to send into the side-chain vs a trailer hit? For example, the actually transient of the hit only happens for a short period of time and so you can adjust your noise or whatever accordingly?

Some plugins will allow you to set how exactly they react to the sidechain signal (peak, RMS), but mostly they react to peak. Bass eats headroom with ease. So if you send the entire kick as the sidechain signal, its whole level will trigger the compressor, rendering your attack and release values useless for carving out the low end under the kick. If you instead use a signal that just 'pings' whenever your kick plays, you can get much more control over that space as you can now use attack and release controls since the area that they're operating in is undoubtedly shorter than the entire kick (because the ping is just that - a very short burst of.. whatever).

I personally like using white noise from a synth, as extending its duration is just a matter of extending the MIDI note in case I want to add a 'hold' factor to it as well—release determines how long until the compression effect fades out once the signal is back below the threshold, so if you only have a short ping, the moment it's over, the release comes into effect. If you need it to be longer, you just extend the ping, and during that period the compression is in full effect because the signal continuously stays the same above the threshold you set. So you decide when do you want the release of the compressor to kick in with your MIDI note length.

Also, don't forget to minimize the release and attack controls inside the actual synth, since you want (or do you?) the noise to play fro the exact momement the MIDI note starts to the exact moment it ends (give or take a few ms to prevent the clicks, depending on the synth).
 
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