bass = slightly louder than snare or slightly lower than snare

snare = slightly louder than bass or slightly lower than bass

toms = should be lower than both snare & bass but panned across for stereo effect

overhead condensors = should be in the middle of the mix mainly concentrating on the cymbals and highs

it all depends on the type of song you are going for and what you like. I'll try and post a link to a recording of my drums, since I am a drummer this should be in my area of expertise

You 'should' also have stereo room mics, compressed heavily.
an Underneath the snare mic, compressed and EQ'ed.
a beater-side kick drum mic, gated, compressed, EQ'ed then sent into a reverb unit.
Also, throw in mics underneath all toms, flip the phase, run them into distortion boxes (preferably something with 'tube' in it)
have the entire drums bus bounce down the tape, slam it for that natural compression, slam it again, step into a slim jim, then make a back-up copy onto vhs, throw that into the microwave set to high for 30 seconds, this will really help shape the sound, then you MUST listen to see if the drummer is really playing balanced, because if he is not you will have start all over again. You shouldn't have to touch any fader at this point, it should all happen naturally, like a leaf that falls onto the surface of a still pond of a dark grove, the ripples gently trickle away, I think you get the idea....

ok thank you guys :) i appreciate the help. ill see what i can do.

I find that when my leaves fall onto the surface of a still lake, i get a bigger sound than that of a still pond. YMMV

mckay

jamiey wrote: You 'should' also have stereo room mics, compressed heavily.
an Underneath the snare mic, compressed and EQ'ed.
a beater-side kick drum mic, gated, compressed, EQ'ed then sent into a reverb unit.
Also, throw in mics underneath all toms, flip the phase, run them into distortion boxes (preferably something with 'tube' in it)
have the entire drums bus bounce down the tape, slam it for that natural compression, slam it again, step into a slim jim, then make a back-up copy onto vhs, throw that into the microwave set to high for 30 seconds, this will really help shape the sound, then you MUST listen to see if the drummer is really playing balanced, because if he is not you will have start all over again. You shouldn't have to touch any fader at this point, it should all happen naturally, like a leaf that falls onto the surface of a still pond of a dark grove, the ripples gently trickle away, I think you get the idea....

Das a good one.

The answer to this is extremely subjective. People like to hear things differently, so you've really got to use your ears and imagination. My suggestion is to start with kick drum and overheads. Get those balanced so you are feeling upbeat on the kick drum, and the overheads are giving you a basic representation of the rest of the kit. At this point bring in the electric guitars and balance with the kick and overheads. From there add bass guitar and make sure that the bass is not masking the kick drum (or making the kick drum disappear). From there you have what you need to add snare and toms, mostly to add 'punch' to the already established levels of the overheads (again which are giving you a general 'picture' of the entire kit). Vocals, snare and guitars can often be in a volume war for space, so try to avoid a lot of similar frequencies building up in one place...my advice is to place emphasis on the vocals for most standard rock (or their many subgenres) productions. Of course there are a million ways to mix drums and music in general, this above is just a small portion of my personal method.

thanks atlasproaudio :).. im just trying to level the drums out at first because i dont have a digital mixer so i have to make all the drums go on 1 track so thats why i was asking what drum should be louder then the next. sorry if that doesnt make sense. so i am making sure the drums are all at the right level first for one track.