Drums EQ and Compression
First of all. The death freq. (frequency, Hz) for Drums that have skins (Kick,snare and toms) is 500 Hz. So you need to scoop out 500 Hz on kick,snare and toms. All the skin drums have the same EQ freq shape (red line). The input wave form plus (summed) to EQ (yellow line) equals the gray shape in picture below. I added the Red line to show the shape we wanted to end up with. Depending on the kick mic that you have and the placement of the mic (microphone) you will have a different Frequency shape coming into the mixer (mixing board, Desk) on the input channel. You want to shape the input channel EQ to get it to the red line shape on output of channel strip. You use the red line shape for each drum put you move the center of the low boost frequency hump (blue line).
Kick mic low hump frequency is 50Hz.
Floor tom low hump freq is 75Hz
Rack toms low hump freq is 100Hz
Snare low hump freq. is 195Hz
Compression and Mics
Kick (Audix D6, Beta 52a or AKG D112) needs a 4:1 ratio compressor with a db reduction of around -6db. This is to fatten it some and to make it consistent. Attack of 3ms
Toms need a 6:1 ratio compressor with a -6db reduction and Attack of 10ms. I have never liked a verb on the toms. The best way to make them ring longer and fatter is a compressor. The compressor cuts the top of the hit and leaves a longer wave form (like what a verb would do). To get a fatter rack tom sound, the increase the Q of the lower boost frequency (75Hz -100Hz) and boost. The natural ringing sounds is a lot better. I like the Sennheiser MD421 mics ($400 each) the best. When I use them, I say to my self, “Thats the way a Tom is supposed to Sound”. The next best is the Sennheiser e604 clip-on mic ($100 each) or Audix D2 and D4 and then my last pick is a SM57 by Shure ($100).
Snare can use a 4:1 ratio compressor and 6db of reduction. I use a top (SM57) and bottom mic (SM57)for the snare. Remember that the distance of the top mic to the bottom skin of the snare, needs to be the same distance that the bottom mic it to the bottom skin (and phase of 180 out of phase for bottom). If the snare is thick then use 4 inches distance from bottom head. Using 2 mics for the snare sounds a lot better than one mic on the top only. The bottom mic picks up the snares and the top mic picks up the meat (195hz) of the snare sound. For the bottom snare mic you can use a high pass of 700Hz.
OverHeads use a Condenser mic like a Shure SM81 or Audix F9 . The trick here is to have both over head mics be the same distant from the top snare mic. The reason for this is if the distant is not the same, the snare bleed will get to the two over head mics at two different times. When you mix them together, it will muddy up the snare sound. You can put them in a cross (on top of each other but in a shape of a cross X-Y). One mic pointing to the left (cymbals next to snare) and the other pointing to the right side of cymbals. If you don’t have them on top of each other then make sure the distant is the same from the snare (even if it look uneven). Compress the overheads and roll off the 6K for EQ. The overheads mics is what makes the drums sound like a kit.
Mixing Drums
I put all the drum in one sub group and then put a compressor with a 4:1 ratio and get around 6db of reduction (I like the API2500). The compressor does two things to the drums. First it makes the drums fatter sounding and then second it makes the drums hits more consistent. To get a better sounding drums, some people use a drum crush or smash sub group with a lot of compression 20:1 and mix it with a dry (or a little compression) drum mix bus with it. This is called the New York compression (This got its name because most of the mixers in New York used this type) or Parallel drum compression (this is the most common name). This makes the drums fatter and have more meat (low end). On most digital consoles (except Avid) special care needs to be to be taken for how you patch the buses so that there is not any latency different for each bus path (clean and crushed).
Reverb on Drums
I stick a plate verb on snare to taste and some on the mix drum bus to push it back a little bit if needed.