MATT MERCADO: Here we are. Guys, we're back in the control room here, and I always start with the kick drum, so here's my chain for the kick drum. I'm using this -- they don't make these anymore but I kind of like them so I bought quite a few of them. They're hard to find but this is kind of a really good class A preamp. No characteristic, which is fine for me because I can add EQ and it absolutely is pretty easy to use. So, here's your gain right here. This is your phantom power, 48 volts, don't need it because we're using D112, and it's a dynamic. It doesn't need power. Here's your high pass meaning this will cut your low, and you don't want to do that on a kick drum.

PATRICK OGLE: Yeah. That's kind of the point.

MATT MERCADO: Yeah. You want to do it on almost everything else. You'll be surprised on how many things you cut the low on, but we'll get into that. This is your phase reverse, and we're going to talk about that in a minute because we're going to need for the Subkick because there's two, the Subkick and the snare drum, because there's two mics on the same source on both of those. So, if you're ready [PH] Bryan, give me a thumbs up if you're ready there. Okay.

Kick drum please, sir.

[BRYAN PLAYING THE KICK DRUM, MATT MERCADO MIXING]

Okay. So, basically I'm just going to start up in the level. I'm looking at it, channel 1, I'm looking at this level right here, making sure it's not peaking in the red. I'll show you when it goes in the red. I want to avoid that so that looks pretty good.

The next chain in the signal is going to be EQ. You can either EQ or compress first. I generally tend to EQ then compress, and some people do the opposite. They compress first then EQ. I like to EQ first. That's how I do things. Sometimes I do the opposite, but generally speaking I EQ first and then I compress because I believe that it changes the sound. So, I like to change -- or EQ it first and then compress it and then you can always treat your EQ again. For the kick drum, we can do a little rolling off because we have the Subkick. You have to come in here if you want to zoom in here real quick.

I'm using the dbx 242 which is I really like on the kick drum, and this is the low cut. You can tell right now I just swept everything out of there but probably around 50 or something just to get rid of some of the mud that we don't need. And when I'm doing a kick drum too, I put it in big speakers.

[BRYAN PLAYING THE KICK DRUM, MATT MERCADO MIXING]

Okay. It sounded pretty good already. Another real good trick on the kick drum is to dip right around between 215 and about 400 just kind of -- What you can do is kind of boost the EQ first, this parametric EQ is on, boosting it, and you listen to where it sounds the absolutely worst like cardboard box sound.

[BRYAN PLAYING THE KICK DRUM, MATT MERCADO MIXING]

Right around there, and then I'm going to dip it, cut it, and you can hear it tighten it up a lot.

[BRYAN PLAYING THE KICK DRUM, MATT MERCADO MIXING]

Now I can add a little bit of low, but remember that I'm using a Subkick. If you don't have one then you can add more, so that low end's going lots and it's going to come from the Subkick. I'm using this more as a body in the click, anywhere between 60 and 100, depending on where you want it, kind of boost it up a little bit, just roll it, listen, around 80 that sounds good to me.

Now, we're going to get a little click in there, somewhere between 2.5 and 4. That sounded good right there. Now, if this was a heavy metal band, I would use a lot of like. This is acoustic rock, so you want a little bit, a little definition there, and then the last thing, top end, let's roll it somewhere around 10 or 12. Let's see where it sounds good. Right there, 16 sounds good to me.

[BRYAN PLAYING THE KICK DRUM, MATT MERCADO MIXING]

This may be a little bright for this. This [INDISCERNIBLE] goes right about there. That sounds pretty good. Now I'm using dbx 160 for the -- it's the basic standard on the kick drum and snare, really popular because they're real fast and they sound good so I'm going to just start. I have the compression ratio at 4 right now. I can bring that down to about 3. Because we can always compress later, I just want to kind of just level things out when we're going to digital and then we can do a little bit more later if we want to, but I just find that hardware works better than the software. They're getting better but I like to hit drums particularly with a little touch of EQ. You can see where I'm going on that and get it changed right here. I'm not hitting it too much; maybe just a little bit.

Keep on going please with the kick drum.

[BRYAN PLAYING THE KICK DRUM, MATT MERCADO MIXING]

That would be smashing it. You don't want to do that so that's nothing, and then that sounds pretty good. Now, we're going to take a look at the over all level here, which is the output right here and...

[BRYAN PLAYING THE KICK DRUM, MATT MERCADO MIXING]

...that looks pretty good, so maybe a little too much high ends too. For this time, we'll maybe dip, hearing a little bit. Something I want to dip in. That sounds pretty good. Okay, now let's take a look at the Subkick.

Keep on going, I'm going to go into the Subkick, Bryan, so keep on going with the kick drum please. So you hear that.

PATRICK OGLE: Mmm hmm.

MATT MERCADO: And now this is what the subkick sounds.

[BRYAN PLAYING THE KICK DRUM, MATT MERCADO MIXING]

Just a kind of an 808, if you know your old drum machine terms. I got this going through the BlueTube here. So it starts -- It's a real hot signal, so what we're going to do is pad that to turn down the signal. I think it's by 20 dB, and...

[BRYAN PLAYING THE KICK DRUM, MATT MERCADO MIXING]

...I go with the low because it's sounding a little bit boxy.

[BRYAN PLAYING THE KICK DRUM, MATT MERCADO MIXING]

Now, I have it going through a dbx 903, just the same thing that just kind of -- I don't need to smash it. Just a little bit to just contain it if it gets a real loud note or something. Something pretty good, and now we're going to listen to them both together. This is a pretty important part of it. Make sure that they're both at zero or at the same level. We'll keep them both at zero for right now, and then we're going to listen to the phase. I'm going to push this. This is the phase button right here. That's the circle thing with the little slash in between it, put it in, and immediately you can tell that there's a lot more. Can you hear that right now? Here's without it, and when something's out of phase you're definitely going to lose the low end and this is one way to tell. Sometimes, it's just really hard to tell too, and so it can be tricky but there it's got a lot tighter so. And we probably don't need that much of the Subkick in the mix, you know what I mean? Just a little bit. Right about there sounds pretty good to me. Sounds good to you, Adam?

[PH] ADAM: Sounds awesome.

MATT MERCADO: All right. We're going to move on to the snare now.