How to edit metal drums in Reaper DAW (Part 2 of 2)

Nail The Mix Staff

Let’s dive into some next-level drum editing techniques specifically for metal in Reaper. If you’re looking to get your drum tracks super tight, punchy, and ready for a brutal mix, these prep steps can be absolute game-changers. This isn’t just about nudging hits; it’s about setting the stage for a massive sounding final product. We’ll cover crucial phase alignment, smart pre-processing, and some killer side-chaining tricks.

Phase Coherency: The Unsung Hero of Drum Editing

Before you even think about gating or compressing, getting your drum phases locked in is paramount. Incorrect phase relationships can rob your drums of power, clarity, and low-end punch – all things you definitely want in a metal mix.

Why Phase Matters for Metal Drums

When multiple microphones capture the same sound source (like a snare drum with top and bottom mics), the sound waves they record can either reinforce each other (in phase) or cancel each other out (out of phase). For metal, you want reinforcement. A phasey snare will sound thin and weak, while a phase-aligned one will have body and crack. The same applies to kick drums, toms, and even how your overheads interact with your close mics.

Quick Phase Check Workflow in Reaper

Here’s a straightforward way to check and correct phase in Reaper:

  1. Snare Drum: Solo your snare top and snare bottom mics. Find a solid, clear hit – flam hits can sometimes make phase issues more obvious.

    • Do they move in the same direction at the initial transient? If not, one is likely out of phase.
    • Listen critically. Flip the phase on the snare bottom mic. Does the combined sound get fuller and beefier, or thinner? You want the fuller sound. Reaper has a simple phase invert button on each track’s TCP, or you can use a plugin or even a custom script (like a handy one mapped to a key like “6” as shown in the video) for quick A/B comparison.

  2. Kick Drum: Do the same for your kick in and kick out (or sub) mics if you have them. Listen for the fullest low-end.



  3. Toms: Check each tom against your overheads and room mics. Solo the tom and one overhead/room mic at a time. Flip the phase on the tom and see if it gains or loses body in relation to the ambient mic.



  4. Overheads & Rooms: Listen to your overheads in stereo. Then, introduce your close mics one by one (kick, snare, toms) and check if flipping the phase on any of the close mics improves the overall drum sound, particularly looking for a loss of body in the snare. Sometimes, a room mic might be fighting the snare, and a phase flip can bring back its weight.


Always save after making phase corrections!

Pre-Processing Your Shells for Maximum Impact

Once your phases are tight, you can move on to pre-processing. This step is about controlling dynamics and cleaning up your individual drum shells before they hit your main mix bus or any heavy compression.

Taming Dynamics with Limiting: Kick & Snare

For a consistent and punchy kick and snare, a touch of limiting upfront can work wonders. This isn’t about slamming them into oblivion, but rather about evening out the performance slightly.

  • The Tool: A transparent limiter like the Waves L2 Ultramaximizer is a classic choice.
  • The Goal: Apply just enough gain reduction to catch the loudest peaks and bring them down, creating a more uniform dynamic range. Aiming for around -7dB of gain reduction on the L2 can be a good starting point, but listen carefully. You want to reduce excessive peaks, not squash all the life out of the hit.
  • The Benefit: By doing this, you’ll find you need less aggressive compression later in the mix. It also makes your drums much more reliable for triggering samples if you go that route (e.g., with Slate Trigger), as the input signal will be more consistent.
  • Action: Apply this to your main kick track(s) and snare track(s), then print or render these changes (in Reaper, you can “Apply track/take FX as new take”).

Surgical Tom Editing: Creating Clean Trigger Sources

For toms, especially in metal, you often want them to be impactful when they hit and then get out of the way to maintain clarity. Creating super-clean, edited tom tracks can serve as perfect trigger sources for gates or samples.

  1. Cut at Transients: Go through your rack and floor tom tracks. Make cuts precisely at the beginning of each tom hit.
  2. Uniform Length and Fades: Select all these cut tom hits. In Reaper, you can set the item length precisely. A very short length, like 0.010 seconds, works well for creating a “tick” or “trigger” track. Apply a short fade-out of the same length (0.010s) to avoid clicks.
  3. Normalize: Select all these short tom items and normalize them. This brings them all to a consistent loud level.
  4. Consolidate (Glue): Select all the edited items on each tom track and “Glue items” in Reaper. This creates a new continuous audio file for each tom track, consisting only of these short, normalized hits.

You now have perfect “trigger” tracks for your toms.

Advanced Gating and Cleanup with Side-Chaining

With your pre-processed shells and tom trigger tracks ready, you can get into some powerful side-chaining techniques for ultra-clean and punchy drums.

Setting Up Your Side-Chain Sends in Reaper

Reaper’s routing is incredibly flexible. For these techniques, you’ll be sending audio from one track to a plugin on another track without that audio being heard directly in the mix.

  • Drag the “Route” button from your trigger track (e.g., “Rack Tom Trigger”) to the track you want to control (e.g., your main “Rack Tom” audio track).
  • In the routing window that pops up, set the send to “Pre-Fader/Post-FX.”
  • Crucially, for a side-chain, you typically send to auxiliary channels of the receiving track. For VST3 plugins like FabFilter’s, this is often channels 3/4. So, set Audio from “1/2” to “3/4” on the receiving track’s routing.

Tom Gating and Spectral Shaping

Now, let’s use those tom trigger tracks to control the main tom audio.

  1. Dynamic EQ (e.g., FabFilter Pro-MB):

    • Load Pro-MB on your main rack tom track.
    • Enable the side-chain input in Pro-MB and select your “Rack Tom Trigger” track as the source (via the 3/4 send you just set up).
    • Create a band in Pro-MB, perhaps targeting cymbal bleed in the higher frequencies. Set it to be dynamic.
    • When the trigger tom hits the side-chain, Pro-MB will duck that frequency band on the main tom track, effectively cleaning up cymbal spill only when the tom isn’t playing.
    • The video mentions settings inspired by a URM Enhanced Pro Tools Fast Track, showcasing how pro-level courses can provide deep insights.

  2. Gating (e.g., FabFilter Pro-G):

    • Load Pro-G on your main rack tom track.
    • This time, side-chain the gate to your snare drum track (again, using a pre-fader send to channels 3/4 on the tom track’s routing).
    • The idea here is to use the snare hits to open the tom gate slightly longer, allowing the natural resonance of the toms to ring out a bit more sympathetically with the snare, creating a more cohesive kit sound.
    • Settings:
      • Rack Tom: Set a long release on Pro-G, around 1500ms.
      • Floor Tom: For the floor tom, copy the Pro-G settings, but use an even longer release, like 3000ms (or “30” in some interfaces that use different units), and a similar threshold to let more of that low-end sustain through.

This combination allows the toms to punch through cleanly thanks to the trigger-based cleanup and then ring out musically with the snare. For more on shaping your drum tones, check out these EQ strategies for mixing modern metal.

Enhancing Snare Clarity with a “Tick” Track

A similar “tick” track concept can be used to add snap and control to your snare.

  1. Create the Tick: On a new track (e.g., “Snare Tick”), use a sampler like Slate Trigger. Load a very short, sharp sound – a “tick” or a cross-stick sample works well.
  2. Nudge Early: Trigger this tick sound from your main snare track. Then, select the generated tick audio items and nudge them slightly to the left (earlier) by a few milliseconds.
  3. Side-Chain Pro-MB: Send this “Snare Tick” track (pre-fader, to channels 3/4) to your main snare top and snare bottom tracks.
  4. Clean Up: On your snare top track, load FabFilter Pro-MB. Set its external side-chain to receive from the “Snare Tick” track.
    • Create a dynamic band in Pro-MB to subtly duck some boxiness or unwanted ring in the snare just as it hits, controlled by the slightly early tick. This helps the transient cut through cleanly. The video shows settings like a -4.8dB dip around 400-500Hz with a fairly high Q.

(Optional) Kick Cleanup with a “Tick” Track

You can apply the same “tick” track logic to your kick drum for extra precision.

  1. Create a “Kick Tick” track, trigger a short sample from your main kick.
  2. Nudge the tick audio slightly early.
  3. Send this to your main kick track (pre-fader, channels 3/4).
  4. Use FabFilter Pro-MB on the main kick track, side-chained to the “Kick Tick.”
    • Use it to clean up any muddiness or excessive boom just before the main kick transient, allowing the beater attack to be more defined. Settings can be similar to the snare, targeting problematic low-mid frequencies.

Why This Detailed Prep Matters for Your Mix

Taking the time for these preparation steps—phase alignment, dynamic control, and surgical side-chained gating/EQ—might seem like a lot, but it pays off massively:

  • Cleaner Mixes: Reduced cymbal bleed in toms and a more focused snare and kick mean less clutter and more clarity.
  • Punchier Drums: When every element is phase-coherent and dynamically controlled, the overall impact is significantly greater.
  • Easier Creative Mixing: With a clean and controlled drum sound, applying creative effects like reverb, delay, and further compression becomes much more effective.
  • Professional Sound: This level of detail is common in professional metal productions. It’s what separates a good demo from a polished, release-ready track.

Take Your Metal Mixes to the Next Level

These Reaper drum editing techniques are powerful tools to have in your arsenal. They represent the kind of detailed work that top-tier producers use to craft those massive, impactful metal mixes we all love. Getting hands-on with these methods will undoubtedly elevate your productions.

If you’re serious about mastering these skills and learning directly from the pros who mix bands like Gojira, Periphery, and Meshuggah, then Nail The Mix is where you want to be. Imagine getting the actual multi-tracks from iconic metal albums and watching the original producer mix them from scratch, explaining every decision, every plugin choice, and every advanced technique like the ones discussed here. That’s what NTM offers every month.

You can unlock your sound and learn to mix modern metal beyond presets with access to hours of tutorials, exclusive plugins, and a supportive community of like-minded producers. Stop guessing and start learning the proven workflows that create professional metal.

Give these Reaper editing tricks a shot on your next session. Experiment, listen critically, and hear the difference meticulous preparation can make!