Drum BUS - how does yours look like?

[_leras]

BD Bus
Bass Bus
kick and.bass buss

SD All, with SD reverb if needed
R All, with a more cohesive eq, compression and reverb for all other rythym elements, this will usually contain Adams groups for eg HH so these, with multiple similar elements can be treated together and then levelled together.

I might also have some more fx like hits in an fx group e.g. some large space reverb for some hits.

It sounds complicated written our like this, but for me it actually makes any processing and balancing simpler and gives me quick access if I want to change eg HH level when mixing.

All of that said, getting your drum sounds right at the start is probably more important anyway. Also, layering and envelopes can be very good things.

This approach wouldn't work so well with recorded or acoustic drums.

[kritikon]

I probably only use a drum bus 50% of the time, with no particular reason for why outside of whether I can be bothered or not. If I do use a drum bus then it's mostly any old compressor, with a bus reverb/ambience - generally Valhalla or impulse of some tasty room. I recently used some freebie that has a mix of 4 "classic" comps. I thought it was a ridiculous idea but actually found it sounded quite good when I wanted to squeeze the bejesus out of my drums until they bled (though changing the proportion of each of the 4 comps didn'treally change the sound that much if I'm honest). Can't for the life of me remember what it's called...

[junostar]

EQ -> Saturator -> Compressor
EQ: General boosting (problematic frequencies are usually cut at the individual sound level)
Compressor and Saturator are configured to glue the sounds together.
Bonus: sometimes I use a reverb send fx with small/medium room settings and adjust each sound accordingly to get it to “sit” together (you also don’t have to apply the reverb to just drums you can also apply it to other instruments to get them to sound like they were recorded together)

[Samiver]

I am only a hobbyist but for house/techno I tend to group things into frequency bands so kick, snare (if I use one) and Tom's/other mid freq perc, then claps and top frequencies (hats, shakers, rides etc) with then each of these groups feeding into a master drum bus which just has light glue compression. I also will send these to One or two verbs to put them in the same space.

I find this helps me process each bus separately as required in the track.

The above might be completely wrong but seems to work OK for me.

[Caine123]

thx a lot guys, so this is how my DRUM bus normally looks like
EQ (mostly not needed as i EQ single elements before)
Comp
Saturator (by Taste)
The reverb i got as a send where i send each elements by taste

i tried different Compressors, like Townhouse, Presswerk, Pro-C, SSL Bus Comp. but all sound pretty identical. i let the GR be max at -3 dB.


if anyone got some improvement tips i would appreciate it

oh another Compressor i found pretty well to experiment is SUPERCHARGER GT as it got also its own additional character and saturation controls.