Devin Townsend’s Blueprint for Mixing Multiple Metal Drummers

Ever stared at a session with tracks from multiple drummers and wondered how to make it all sound like one cohesive, monstrous drum performance? It’s a unique challenge, but if anyone can tackle it with creative flair, it’s Devin Townsend. In a revealing session, Devin walks through his methodical madness of blending three different drummers into a single, powerful drum mix. Forget just slapping them together; this is about careful organization, smart EQ, and some killer transition tricks.

If you’re looking to elevate your own productions, understanding these kinds of advanced techniques is key. Let’s dive into how Devy tames the beast of multiple drum kits. Check out the full session here.

The Foundation: Organization is Your Sanity Saver

When you’re juggling performances from multiple drummers – in this case, Morgan Ågren, Anoop Sastry, and Samus Paulicelli (credited as “Sam” in the video’s track names) – Devin emphasizes that getting organized from the get-go is non-negotiable. It might seem like slowing down at first, but it prevents a world of headaches later.

Aux Track Architecture

Devin’s approach involves a layered system of auxiliary tracks:

1. Individual Drummer Auxes: Each drummer’s complete kit (kicks, snares, cymbals, etc.) is routed to their own stereo auxiliary track (e.g., “Anoop Aux,” “All Morg”). This gives him a master fader for each drummer’s overall performance.
2. Global “All Drums” Aux: Then, each of these individual drummer aux tracks is routed to another master stereo auxiliary track, aptly named “All Drums.” This allows him to process and control the combined drum mix as a single unit.

This setup is crucial for soloing, balancing, and processing. He even meticulously renames tracks for clarity, like changing “Morg Kicks” to “More Kicks” because, well, it was driving him crazy. It’s these small details that keep a complex session manageable.

Methodical Workflow

Devin stresses his top-to-bottom, iterative workflow. He doesn’t aim for the perfect sound on track one before moving on. Instead, he makes broad strokes, moves through the session, and refines things layer by layer. This prevents getting bogged down and helps maintain perspective on the overall mix.

Carving the Core: Initial EQ and Taming the Lows

With the routing sorted, Devin’s first port of call is often taming frequencies.
A lot of his initial EQ work is subtractive, focusing on cleaning up the low-end rumble that can muddy a mix. On the main “All Drums” aux, he’ll typically roll off everything below around 70Hz. This isn’t about gutting the kick, but rather removing that ultra-low, sub-bass energy that often just clutters things up and fights with the bass guitar. Just a touch, as he says, to let everything else breathe.

When addressing individual elements, like an accent kick he brought in, he’ll listen for specific problem frequencies. He identified an “upper mid push” on one kick sample that was “bronze colored” and would clash with everything else. Using an EQ, he gently notched this out, softening the harshness without losing the kick’s character. For more in-depth strategies on taming and shaping frequencies, check out these EQ strategies for mixing modern metal.

Blending the Beats: Balancing Drummers and Crafting Space

With multiple kits, getting the relative volumes right is key. The individual drummer aux tracks make this a breeze. He can easily adjust who takes the lead in different sections.

Panning for Phase-Induced Width

Here’s a neat trick Devin uses for creating space and interest, particularly when one drummer (Morgan, in this instance) has a heavily effected sound via a parallel bus (like a radio filter using the Shep’s Omni Channel). Instead of hard-panning the main drum tracks, he slightly pans the parallel bus just a touch to one side. This creates a subtle phase shift between the dry-ish signal and the effected parallel signal, which can widen the image and give a unique sense of space without things sounding lopsided. It’s a clever way to carve out room when you have a dense arrangement.

He also uses placeholders effectively. For Morgan’s filtered drum section, he throws on the Shep’s EQ to get that “radio sound” quickly, knowing he can refine it later. The goal is to keep the creative flow going.

Seamless Transitions: Dynamic Morphing Between Drum Performances

One of the biggest challenges with multiple drummers is making the transitions between their sections feel natural and exciting, rather than jarring. Devin employs several techniques for this:

Crescendos and Filter Sweeps

For a section where Morgan’s drums were meant to sound small and then grow into Anoop’s larger-than-life kit, Devin automates a crescendo. This isn’t just volume; it’s also about frequency content. He describes how the frequency range “opens up,” creating a morphing effect.

To make this even smoother, if there’s a parallel bus contributing to the “small” sound (like the filtered bus for Morgan), he’ll automate a fade-out on that bus simultaneously as the main track’s crescendo and filter sweep happens. This ensures the transition to the “big” sound is clean and impactful. He might then boost the global aux for that drummer to compensate for any perceived volume loss as the parallel effect is removed.

Accent Kicks with Samples

Sometimes, a live-played kick pattern, especially a busy one like Anoop’s, might not have the exact “push” Devin wants on certain accents. Instead of trying to over-EQ or compress the original kick, he’ll bring in a different kick sample just for those accents. Because it’s a different sample, he avoids phase issues he might encounter by layering the same kick. Since his drum parts are often gridded tightly, dropping in a sample on the beat is straightforward. He keeps these samples muted initially, ready to be called upon if needed – a smart way to have options without cluttering the active mix.

These EQ and sample layering techniques are huge for clarity and punch. Of course, to truly make drums hit hard in a metal mix, you’ll also want to master metal compression secrets to control dynamics and add character, but Devin’s focus here is on the foundational blend and creative transitions.

The “AudioSuite Morph”: Devin’s Go-To Creative Transition Effect

This is a golden nugget from Devin – a super versatile and fun technique for creating morphing textures and transitions, not just on drums but on anything. He uses this “all the time.” Here’s how it works in Pro Tools (though the principle applies to any DAW with offline processing and crossfades):

1. Select Your Audio: Highlight the region of audio you want to affect.
2. Partial Process with AudioSuite: Don’t process the whole thing. Instead, select a portion of that region (often the latter half or a segment towards the end).
3. Apply an Effect: Open an AudioSuite plugin – Devin often just grabs something random like Waves OVOX or Waves Enigma without overthinking it – and render the effect onto that selected portion. Now you have a region that’s partly dry and partly wet.
4. The Magic Crossfade: Select the entire audio region (both the unprocessed and processed parts) and hit ‘F’ (in Pro Tools’ default keyboard shortcuts) for a crossfade. This creates a smooth transition from the original sound into the effected sound.

The result is a seamless morph. You can make drums melt into a synth pad, a guitar into a distorted mess, or anything in between. It’s a “painless way to do that,” and incredibly effective for dynamic song structures.

Choosing Your Tools Wisely (And Learning from the Best)

While Devin showcases a few specific plugins, he also touches on the broader philosophy that it’s often better to deeply learn a few chosen tools rather than get overwhelmed by owning hundreds of plugins you barely understand. It’s about mastering your craft with the tools you have.

Techniques like these – organizing complex sessions, subtle EQ moves, creative phase manipulation, and wild morphing effects – are what separate a good mix from a truly memorable one. Seeing a master like Devin Townsend break down his exact process for mixing multiple drummers is invaluable.

If you’re hungry to learn more and see these kinds of techniques applied in real-world metal mixing scenarios, Nail The Mix gives you that fly-on-the-wall experience. Every month, you get the multi-tracks from a real metal song and watch the original producer mix it from scratch, explaining every decision. It’s more than just presets; it’s about understanding the why behind the moves that unlock your sound and help you mix modern metal beyond presets.

Want to see Devin Townsend work his magic on a full track, applying these drum mixing concepts and so much more? Check out his full Nail The Mix session and get ready to take some serious notes!