Big sexy fat...

[Purpleb]

DRUMS.
How do you guys fatten up your drums to make them sound fat, punchy, and clear, while not getting all muddy?

[Exowildebeest]

ART on Tape. Then highpass filter + additional EQ to brighten it up again, if needed.

[normen]

Layering.

[Last Alternative]

Parallel processing isn't my thing but I'm sure it works. I just don't like latency or the fear that I'm stacking even more of the same frequencies together after all the EQ endeavor. Not to mention the fear of phasing. Just too many issues IMO.

Tape works great! Also man if you use Kong you really should put the transient shaper on whatever you want to juice up.

So yeah- I'd say transient shaper for punch, tape for fatness.

[Jagwah]

FET on the kick, Dyna-Mite on percussion.

[normen]

Parallel processing isn't my thing but I'm sure it works.

Parallel processing (as in compressing the shit out of the drums and putting that on a parallel channel) actually works less good the more dense/dynamic the drums are. For metal it doesn't work at all for example, just makes stuff more mushy. It only works well when the drums are not lively enough but not really to make them "fat".

[skie]

If you are talking about sample- based music - Use good samples!!  Really, this philosophy works best in my opinion.

[avasopht]

Parallel processing (as in compressing the shit out of the drums and putting that on a parallel channel) actually works less good the more dense/dynamic the drums are. For metal it doesn't work at all for example, just makes stuff more mushy. It only works well when the drums are not lively enough but not really to make them "fat".

When you say more dense/dynamic, do you mean with more dynamic variations and close together transients?

[Last Alternative]

^YES! It all starts with the sounds you're using. Don't settle for cheap drum hits.

[ryanharlin]

Don't forget coming at it from the other angle...

If you want to keep your drums punchy (and you've done your punchy drums tricks) and you still can't in the context of your whole mix, then the problem lies elsewhere in your mix.

Consider what might be muddying up the drums, use the HPF in the main mixer to clear the way of frequencies you don't need. That cool Rhodes keys track might not need all that bass to do what it needs to do in the mix and by it being in there, you're fighting for space with your drums.

If your priority is punchy drums, be ruthless to other elements of your mix. Show no mercy. You can always undo. If you listen to professionally mixed stems you'll be amazed with how many tracks might not sound great on their own. Guitars are often much thinner sounding than they are by default when you record them, for example. That's not by mistake. It's by design.

[normen]

When you say more dense/dynamic, do you mean with more dynamic variations and close together transients?

Yes, metal drums basically

[djfm1983]

If you are talking about sample- based music - Use good samples!!  Really, this philosophy works best in my opinion.

I was going to say something similar...
Start with drum samples you like and that sound good from the beginning. You can only polish a turd so much but it's still a turd. loopmasters.com is where I buy allot of my drum samples from. They're not too expensive either.

[selig]

If you listen to professionally mixed stems you'll be amazed with how many tracks might not sound great on their own.

^^^^ This  ^^^^
vvvv and THIS vvvv

The first time I was in the studio and the engineer soloed a track, I was stunned - it was nothing like what I expected. I considered that experience alone a huge gift. 

That was followed shortly by the first time I went out to the studio floor to move a microphone and heard what the drums REALLY sounded like.

I learned a LOT that day, IIRC.

[Mastrcode]

If you listen to professionally mixed stems you'll be amazed with how many tracks might not sound great on their own.

^^^^ This  ^^^^
vvvv and THIS vvvv

The first time I was in the studio and the engineer soloed a track, I was stunned - it was nothing like what I expected. I considered that experience alone a huge gift. 

That was followed shortly by the first time I went out to the studio floor to move a microphone and heard what the drums REALLY sounded like.

I learned a LOT that day, IIRC.

I'm at home in the electronic music genre. And i learned over my 20 years of making music, just fat sounds don't make a fat mix. Years ago i watched a great video, where a guy was creating a trance track from scratch. He made several layers of basses, which sounded not so outstanding and fat when they were played solo. He made several layers (up to 8 or 10) with several sounds and several effectings (most of them didn't even have much low end). But the sum of these layers created a fat huge single bass sound which sat perfect in the mix. This way i learned, the sum of all creates big fat sounds. Even if the single instruments are sounding not so impressive...

[mayzon]

People often forget how important sample length is in drum mix both from a dynamics point of view and also musical. Get rid of that kicks tail etc and it can contribute a lot

[Noplan]

Turn the volume all the way up until the red lights indicate awesomeness.

[nooomy]

DRUMS.
How do you guys fatten up your drums to make them sound fat, punchy, and clear, while not getting all muddy?

if u like the drums in my songs i could send u a part of the song as a reason file. just tell me which song and i send it to u

[Emian]

RE-wise : FET is so awesome on drums ! its allways on my drum-buss.(i should use it on just my kick, as mentioned here somewhere earlier, thx for that tip ! )
 
*parallel processing : here's a video that helped me a lot usin parallel processing to enhance drums :
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idVWobNeGtU#t=535
 
Enjoy !
 
Jan

[selig]

DRUMS. How do you guys fatten up your drums to make them sound fat, punchy, and clear, while not getting all muddy?

Hey, let's make this a bit more fun, if anyone's game. Talk is cheep, but audio examples speak volumes IMO.

Would you be willing to post an example of one of your drum tracks that don't sound "fat, punchy, and clear", and let's all pool our resources and put our money (time) where our mouth is by demonstrating what we would do in our own mix! Let's assume this is a drum break and drums will be playing by themselves.

Anyone game?
 

[tibah]

If you are talking about sample- based music - Use good samples!!  Really, this philosophy works best in my opinion.

+1

Good sounds / samples is 90% of your drum sound. You will benefit of browsing folders and finding your favorites e.g. kicks that actually work in a track, then repeat the same process for other drum sounds and put them separately for quicker access.

A bit of EQ and compression should do the rest + how you place them in your mix, against other elements of your track, as pointed out by many others.  I only go for Tape (ART, Scream4) or Saturation Knob in some cases. Mostly if I'm using a drum kit, like a TR-606 kit, that needs some juice. I also LOVE reverbs (way too much)!

I'm in for some drum mangling! I guess the OP should post a sample / loop?

[alex]

Hey, let's make this a bit more fun, if anyone's game. Talk is cheep, but audio examples speak volumes IMO.

Would you be willing to post an example of one of your drum tracks that don't sound "fat, punchy, and clear", and let's all pool our resources and put our money (time) where our mouth is by demonstrating what we would do in our own mix! Let's assume this is a drum break and drums will be playing by themselves.

Anyone game?
 

Hey I like the idea!

FWIW this is one example of what I consider "fat, punchy, groovy and dirty" drum track:

Sorry for being a little OT...

Cheers

[Purpleb]

DRUMS. How do you guys fatten up your drums to make them sound fat, punchy, and clear, while not getting all muddy?

Hey, let's make this a bit more fun, if anyone's game. Talk is cheep, but audio examples speak volumes IMO.

Would you be willing to post an example of one of your drum tracks that don't sound "fat, punchy, and clear", and let's all pool our resources and put our money (time) where our mouth is by demonstrating what we would do in our own mix! Let's assume this is a drum break and drums will be playing by themselves.

Anyone game?
 

Sounds cool
I am not going to be by my comp with reason until end of weekend/start of next week, so I can't upload anything right now.

But basically I have samples from Linndrum, I got them a long, long time ago, so it might actually be thin sounding samples maybe. It is the Linn's snare I usually have problems with, but like to hear what you guys can do with kick too. It be fun to hear you guys effect it up, layer it, fatten it up, etc.

If anyone has Linn samples and wants to test it out that would be cool. I see if I can find some online to upload. I actually really do not care too much about the pattern, it was a pretty simple pattern couple bars of kick, snare, kick, snare and then a little snare build up every 4 or 8 bars, nothing too crazy. Around 125-130bpm.

[normen]

DRUMS. How do you guys fatten up your drums to make them sound fat, punchy, and clear, while not getting all muddy?

Hey, let's make this a bit more fun, if anyone's game. Talk is cheep, but audio examples speak volumes IMO.

Would you be willing to post an example of one of your drum tracks that don't sound "fat, punchy, and clear", and let's all pool our resources and put our money (time) where our mouth is by demonstrating what we would do in our own mix! Let's assume this is a drum break and drums will be playing by themselves.

Anyone game?
 

Heres one of the few recordings I mixed that I can upload without getting into legal issues. As you indicated, when I listen to it solo I would probably have done a few things differently but it worked just fine in the overall mix:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/736 ... 0Drums.mp3

Edit: Oh wow, I didn't read your post properly, actually I'm quite fine with the sound but let the input come anyway

[Marco Raaphorst]

fatter sounding is like adding more bass and maybe tightening it up a little with a compressor?

I tend to use as little tracks effects as I can. and I love keeping all raw dynamics. stuff starts to sound so even and boring quickly.

[ClassickHitz]

It is so easy to become enamored with the end result all while being totally oblivious to the steps it took to get there. 

As technology has moved forward and Music companies continuously crank out awesome sounding sample libraries it's easy to think that very little effort went into creating such greatness. Couple this with being able to just click a button or two in a DAW to get some incredible fast results and this leads to individuals wondering why their music isn't hitting like this or that. 

As most have stated already, once you look under the hood you find all the moving parts that it took to create the sum.