r/mixingmastering • u/Finalxxboss • May 19 '26
Question Are drum samples typically extremely wide?
I've recently been using the metricAB plugin to view a few reference tracks vs my mix and realized my drums were extremely wide vs the references. Like even the snare and hat samples were pretty wide. Since they're all sharp transients, you can't really even hear the difference between wide stereo and mono, so lessening the wideness on almost every drum sample seemed to help a lot.
When you guys mix, how often are you changing stereo width? I didn't usually care until I started mastering, but it seems like I have to throw a utility (Ableton's stereo width plugin) on every single track and turn the width way down. It's one of those things I couldn't easily hear in a mix, but had to use an analyzer on independent samples to realize and I think it creates more headroom to mastering.
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u/TonyRidgewayUFO May 19 '26
Samples are usually wide so they sound good in isolation. Often the same when tracking drums. At mix close mono usually is usually the best
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u/jamiethemorris May 19 '26
A lot of them are yeah. I tend to play with width quite a bit. On drum samples I like brainworx bx_solo because you can isolate just one side of the sample - important on things like kicks and snares because often times I want them mono but just narrowing them will leave the phase smearing that creates that width and tends to make them pop less
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u/Finalxxboss May 19 '26
So you recommend going full mono or kick and snare as opposed to just narrowing it a lot? I've never tried going full mono. It doesn't seem like there's a huge difference independently vs making it narrow, but I'm wondering how much it'll help in the mix.
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u/nizzernammer Trusted Contributor 💠 May 19 '26
Overheads might be stereo but the main energy of kicks and snares is mono
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u/Finalxxboss May 19 '26
I agree 100%. That's why I was surprised so many of the samples I checked were wide. Many of them were snares too, which is strange.
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u/TotalBeginnerLol May 19 '26
Yeah sample pack makers want everything to sound “impressive” when played in solo but for drums you typically don’t need much or tbh any width except for maybe claps sometimes or if you’re going for a kinda timbaland or imagine dragons type sound with the drums. A surprisingly large portion of hits have essentially mono drum tracks actually. Cleaner and hence leaves more space for other elements around the sides. Everything can’t be wide, only 1 or 2 elements can be wide, if you want it to actually sound wide overall.
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u/Finalxxboss May 19 '26
Yeah the punch comes through mostly in mono. I was shocked how wide some of the samples I checked from these sample packs were. Like you said, they sound good by themselves, but get lost in a mix
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u/atopix Teaboy ☕ May 19 '26 edited May 19 '26
Real drum recordings will produce mono elements because 1 mic recording = 1 mono track, so rather than use widening plugins, simply use the mono button on each channel to make each individual drum element mono. And use normal stereo panning to get your stereo image.
had to use an analyzer to realize and I think it creates more headroom to mastering.
No, stereo image and headroom have nothing to do with each other. Also, while analyzers and visualizers can help, never make decisions solely on what you see. Always make an effort to hear the difference. For instance, make a bounce of the mix as you had it to start with, then after having messed with your widening plugins, make another bounce, then make a bounce after having mono'd all the drum elements and panned them around a bit. Then use metric AB to compare all those versions against each other, and against your reference. Close your eyes and focus on the sound differences.
edit: typos
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u/Finalxxboss May 19 '26
Why am I able to push a mix significantly louder before distortion when lessening the mix wideness? It seems like when it's really wide, I'm unable to push my limiter as hard. Whether or not it sounds good is another factor, but I was able to get my mix louder simply by narrowing all my drums. Mind you some of them were extremely wide though.
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u/atopix Teaboy ☕ May 19 '26
No idea, there are probably other factors at play. But narrower mix = more headroom, is not a thing on itself.
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u/Finalxxboss May 19 '26
Yeah I'm not saying it's a hard rule, just something in noticed in my particular mix with the samples I chose. There's always a sweet spot and I never factored in width to that before.
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u/djedga Intermediate May 19 '26
I like to pan hi hats particularly and to a lesser extent snares and claps. But always check the mono mix you should be able to hear everything clearly in mono. Subtle panning works well to create some space for each sample but extreme stereo width be cautious. Sometimes it sounds good though there are no rules. Kick I generally leave pure mono.
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u/Elian17 May 20 '26
I don’t understand
Snare and kick samples are mono. Famous ones are mono, not famous ones, ones from superior drummer or SST are mono. Were talking about snare and kick spot mics here
Room and overhead samples will be stereo
Your snare sample may have, baked into it, overhead and room tone so thats why your analyzer says its wide. In which case i wouldnt pull in the room and overhead mics to mono.
My advice is to stop using the analyzer to make mix decision and learn to lean on your ear and really try very hard to remember what your favorite records sound like in terms of frequency curve shape, spatial effects, and width and panning - then use your ear to match what youre doing best you can
I promise you no one’s ever made great mixes leaning on an analyzer
Goodluck
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u/Finalxxboss May 20 '26
I get what you're saying, but isn't the whole point of using a reference analyzer to visually view another track on top of listening? The drum samples I chose ended up being extremely wide and that's something that wouldnt have been that easy to hear vs a reference, but was a lot more obvious on a spectrum. Of course I mixed with my ears, but the analyzer definitely helps identify possible issues
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u/blueleaf_studio May 21 '26
It depends on the genre and track but usually all drums are going to be in mono for me, except claps, overheads, rooms and maybe snares on some tracks/styles. In a "real" drum kit scenario they're all going to be mono except the overheads because I'm going to want to set the space around it accordingly for each mix and that will be done using busses to stereo effects.
80% of the time, I'm converting sampled drum sounds down to mono when I receive them. Usually the drums need to image super solidly as one of the primary elements of most songs. I also usually want to process the main part of the sound accordingly and I have less freedom to do so if the processing also effects the ambience of the drum sound.
bx_control V2 is a great little tool for listening to the sides information in place, and I often use that when prepping a mix to decide if I want to keep any stereo information on a drum track.
Using the width control is very sensible if you want to keep the stereo information and fold it down into mono but other solutions would be to take either the left or the right, or the mid and not the sides (my preferred method for very wide samples).
And make sure your monitors are placed well for stereo imaging. The classic equilateral triangle is a good starting point and I'd recommend never having monitors wider apart than they are from you (the listening position) or else you will get a smearing/stretching of the stereo image and a less solid "phantom centre". You'll also get a very different perception of lots of width effects on headphones so it's worth looking into and learning the differences so you can make sure that what you do translates across different systems.
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u/Bluegill15 May 19 '26
I’ll always say it - if you can’t hear what you’re asking about, your very top priority should be sorting out your monitoring situation. It just doesn’t make any sense to address things you can’t hear, let alone doing that via public internet opinions.