Intervals: Huge Drums From Small Rooms – Sam Guaiana’s Mix Tricks

Ever found yourself battling a drum recording from a less-than-stellar room? You’re not alone. Getting a massive, professional drum sound when you’re starting with tracks from a small, modest space can feel like an uphill battle. But fear not! Sam Guaiana, the man behind the board for the latest Intervals release, dropped some serious knowledge on how he transformed a small room recording into a colossal drum sound. With a smart blend of dynamic processing, clever reverb use, and well-chosen samples, you can achieve similar results. Let’s dive into how Sam made it happen.

If you're serious about leveling up your mixes, seeing how pros like Sam tackle these challenges in real-time is invaluable. Nail The Mix offers exactly that, giving you a behind-the-scenes look at how world-class producers mix hit records.

Taming the Real (But Small) Room Mic

Sam started with a mono room mic that, while "exciting sounding on its own" with "tons of low end," needed some serious shaping to fit the polished, modern sound of Intervals. A raw room mic, especially from a small space like a corridor, can be a double-edged sword.

Focusing the Low End

The first order of business was taming that boomy low end. For a focused sound, especially in a dense metal mix, uncontrolled low frequencies from room mics are a no-go. Sam used an EQ to get rid of a lot of that problematic bottom, ensuring the kick and bass had their own space.

Controlling Sizzle with Dynamic EQ

Room mics can also capture a lot of cymbal wash and high-frequency "sizzle" that can quickly become harsh. Instead of just shelving it all off, Sam opted for a dynamic EQ on the top end. This allows the natural air and excitement to poke through but clamps down when specific frequencies get too aggressive. The goal isn't to eliminate the sizzle entirely, but to "taint the worst of it."

The Soothe Solution for Harshness

To further tackle harshness, Sam turned to the powerful oeksound Soothe2 plugin. He admitted to not being a big fan of presets generally, but praised Soothe2's "Drum Room Harsh" preset as a fantastic starting point, requiring only minor tweaks. Soothe2 is renowned for its ability to intelligently identify and reduce resonant frequencies and harshness without surgical EQ moves. Sam describes it as a "one-trick pony," but that one trick is invaluable for taming problematic room sounds with minimal effort. It's one of those plugins that, when you need it, nothing else quite does the job.

Building Your "Fake" Reverb Room

With the natural mono room mic under control, Sam moved on to constructing a larger, more controlled sense of space using reverb. This "fake" drum room is crucial for adding size and depth.

Choosing Your Reverb

For this Intervals mix, Sam used his "Drum Room 2020 Bresson" reverb setup. While he often sends just overheads to his drum reverb, for this track, he needed more to compensate for the lack of impressive stereo room mics from the original recording.

Strategic Sends: Beyond Just Overheads

Simply sending the overheads wasn't cutting it. To build the desired room sound, Sam got more specific with his sends to the reverb:

Bringing Back the Kick (Pre-Fader)

After EQing a lot of the kick drum's body out of the overheads to maintain clarity, Sam realized he wanted some of that kick energy in his reverb room. The solution? He fed the direct kick drum mic, pre-fader, into the reverb. This brought back the kick's presence in the reverberant space without making the overheads muddy.

Adding Snare and Tom Weight

The snare followed suit. Sam sent the direct snare (and later, the toms, "just right up strip zero") to the reverb. This helped build the body and impact of the shells within the artificial room, especially crucial since he wasn't relying heavily on samples for the core shell sounds in the reverb.

EQing the Reverb for Clarity

A reverb send isn't a "set it and forget it" affair. Sam EQ'd the reverb return, specifically targeting and removing "that spot in drums" that tends to build up quickly and cause muddiness. Proper EQ on your reverb returns is key to making them sit well in the mix.

Layering with "Fake" Sampled Rooms

To add another layer of size and a different character, Sam incorporated stereo room samples. These aren't replacing the real drums, but augmenting the sense of space.

Selecting Your Samples

For this particular Intervals mix, Sam opted for GetGood Drums (GGD) Zildjian room samples over his other go-to options. He liked the overall tone of these GGD rooms, even if the decay was initially a bit longer than desired.

Taming Tails with Transient Designers

The slightly long tails of the GGD room samples needed tightening. Sam employed a transient designer plugin, pulling back the sustain by around 20% (-2.0dB on a typical +/-12dB scale). This retained the desirable tone and vibe of the room samples while preventing them from washing out the mix or dragging, especially in softer passages.

Adding Slam with Compression (Arousor)

Next, it was time to make these sampled rooms punchy. Sam "slammed" them with a good amount of compression using the Empirical Labs Arousor. To ensure the compression reacted primarily to the snare and avoided pumping from the kick or toms in the room samples, he engaged the Arousor's sidechain high-pass filter, rolling off everything below 70Hz. The goal was to get the snare in the room samples really "slamming."

EQing the Sampled Rooms for Vibe

VCA-style compressors like the Arousor can sometimes impart a "studdy" or slightly distorted character. Sam used EQ post-compression to clean this up. He also:

• Rolled off unnecessary low-end (the main low-end focus is elsewhere).
• Boosted a bit of sizzle from the cymbals in the room samples.
• Applied a gentle high-shelf cut as a "safety net" for the top end, ensuring it didn't get too harsh.

Blending It All for a Massive Sound

The final step is blending the treated mono room, the custom-built reverb room, and the processed stereo room samples. Sam emphasized checking these elements together, ensuring they complemented each other. When combined effectively, these layers made the drums sound like they were "recorded in a big studio," a far cry from the basement and corridor where they actually originated.

The Power of Good Engineering

Sam's key takeaway? "It's about the engineering and getting stuff recorded properly than it is about the room you're doing it in." Even with a mono room mic from a corridor and other drums from a basement, meticulous processing and thoughtful layering can achieve a massive, professional drum sound.

These techniques are powerful and can elevate your drum mixes, even when dealing with challenging source material. Imagine watching Sam Guaiana himself apply these very techniques, explaining his thought process every step of the way, on the actual multitracks from this Intervals session. That’s exactly what you get with Nail The Mix’s session with Sam Guaiana mixing Intervals.

If you're ready to move beyond presets and truly understand how to craft professional metal mixes, check out Nail The Mix's guide on Unlocking Your Sound: Mixing Modern Metal Beyond Presets. And for full access to the Intervals multitracks and Sam's complete mixing masterclass, head over to the Intervals NTM page.