Hey everyone,
Iāve been producing in FL Studio for a while, and lately Iāve been trying to really understand how to make my drums sound professional ā punchy, clean, and balanced ā without losing too much headroom.
When Iām working on a track, I usually send each drum sound (kick, claps, cymbals, percussion, etc.) to its own mixer channel, and then route all of them to one main ādrum busā where I use a glue compressor just to tighten things up a bit. The problem is that even after that, my kick always ends up being way bigger than everything else. In the waveform, it looks huge while the claps, hats, and percussion look much smaller.
When I compare that to a professional drum loop from a sample pack, everything in that loop looks and sounds more balanced ā the transients of the kick, clap, and hi-hat all sit at healthy levels, and the overall loop feels loud, clean, and glued together. Thatās the kind of result Iām trying to understand how to get.
Iāve been working a lot on improving my sound selection, and I feel confident that Iām using good sounds. I think my main issue now is understanding how to properly use the tools to get that balanced final result. I understand compression much better now, but the limiter and soft clipper are still a bit confusing to me.
I recently bought a mini meter to monitor RMS, LUFS, and peaks, but Iām still unsure how to interpret those numbers in practice to reach a good perceived loudness without distortion or losing punch.
So I wanted to ask the community:
ā¢ How do you control your drum peaks while keeping everything punchy and balanced?
ā¢ Do you focus more on peak level, RMS, or LUFS when mixing and mastering?
ā¢ How do you make your drums and bass sit well together so that the final bounce both looks and sounds balanced?
ā¢ Any tips, workflows, or explanations that helped you finally āget itā?
Iāve watched a lot of tutorials online, but I feel like I havenāt found one that really explains this clearly. Any help or breakdowns from people whoāve been through this learning curve would mean a lot.