Mixing In Pro Tools - A Beginner's Guide

Open the session file, and you'll see it laid out with the drums starting on the left. Let's look at the kick drum first.

Click solo - the "S" button - to listen to only the kick drum.

Click the Play button on the transport bar, and listen to the kick drum. It sounds good naturally, but it has a very fat sound that isn't very directed or defined. So let's fix that using a compressor.

In your channel strip, go up to the top area with the five sets of arrows. These are your inserts - the areas where you can insert effects and processing onto your track for listening to them in real-time.

Choose the Compressor plug-in (under Dynamics in Pro Tools 7). Under the little window that says "Factory Default", click and chose the preset "Tight Kick". These settings are factory-defined to give you a great tight sound to your kick, but you might want to play with the attack setting (how fast the compressor kicks in) and the release setting (how long the compression is held) to get a better sound. For this kick drum track, try bringing the attack down a little bit. Now take a listen. You should notice that the kick is a lot less bassy, and has a much better tone.

Now that you've got a decent kick sound, let's move on to the snare.