Andrew Scheps on Mixing Drums: Groove, Bleed, and Remix:Drums

Grammy-winning mixer Andrew Scheps has worked on records that define modern rock and pop production. His credits span Adele, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Metallica, Low Roar and countless others. In this conversation, we explore his approach to drum mixing: what makes grooves work, how he handles problematic bleed, and the tools reshaping his workflow.

The Groove Is Everything

For Andrew, groove sits at the top of the sonic food chain. "If the groove isn't there in the drums, on most productions you’re not going to find it on the other instruments alone." he says. The observation extends across genres. Hip hop, rock, pop: the drums anchor it all.

But his point goes deeper than simple emphasis. "If you've either not brought out all the elements that make the groove... it kind of doesn't matter what it sounds like because it's not going to move and it's not going to be something people want to listen to." The rhythm must work or the songs just sit there.

Even seemingly unrelated elements can carry rhythmic weight. "In some cases, acoustic guitars strumming through a song... they're almost doing the job of the hi-hat," Andrew explains. If the guitar player has a better groove than the drummer, or if heavy editing of the kick and snare has made the hi-hat timing uneven, the acoustics become the rhythmic anchor. "If that’s the case I'll try and find the frequency of the pick on the strings and put that up a little bit. Just to get a bit more attack out of it."

Starting the Mix

Andrew builds his drum mixes from the ground up, starting with the kick. "I build the drum kit up first because it's always the most elements to be one thing," he explains. "And there's so much shit to discover. You've got three sets of room mics. What are they all doing and what do I want to do with them?"

Working in isolation, he makes initial decisions about bleed, space and tone. Then he piles other elements in quickly, knowing he'll return to the drums constantly as the mix develops. Guitars will cover things. The snare might suddenly sound dry in the chorus. Room mics get adjusted. Reverb appears.

"Reverb is usually a last resort once everything else is in," he notes. "I'd much rather get space in the kit by balance or compression or something because it's going to be the most natural way to do it." Only when everything else is in place does he add artificial space, and only to solve specific problems.

The Hi-Hat Problem (and Why It's Changed)

Engineers have long joked that the hi-hat mic is "the drum mic voted least likely to ever be heard again." Too much snare bleed, too little usefulness. Andrew used to agree. "But it's not really true," he says, "because now, with all the tools you can use to handle the hi-hat bleed in other microphones, now you can actually use the hi-hat mic as a hi-hat mic."

Sometimes all it takes is a touch of upper mids to pinpoint the panning. Between overheads and room mics, stereo imaging can get confused, and a properly controlled hi-hat mic solves the problem.

The bigger issue in his experience: too much hi-hat in the snare mic. Compressing the snare brings up the hat in ways that destroy his intended balance. Controlling that relationship changes everything..

Overheads: Picture or Cymbals?

Overhead mics can capture a beautiful image of the entire kit, or they can function essentially as dedicated cymbal mics. Andrew doesn't mind if they lean toward the latter. "If the overheads are more cymbal than maybe you'd prefer, you can just use them as cymbal mics."

The problem arises when a technique like Glyn Johns’ positioning gives you a great overall picture, but the drummer's internal balance is off. "A lot of drummers don't have good internal balance because they're used to playing really hard all the time," he explains. When that picture is out of balance, he'll split the overheads apart and address specific elements.

In one recent session, the snare was so loud in the overheads that he couldn't even use the close mic. No control. His solution: split the overhead mics using spectral processing and turn down just the snare. "If you soloed the overheads, you'd hear it doing all the weird bubbly stuff, but who cares. In the track it worked. Rebalancing it that way let me use the close mics to do what I wanted the close mics to do."

Drummer's Perspective? Over It

Panning decisions can spark heated debates on forums. Drummer's perspective or audience perspective? Andrew used to care deeply. "I used to be a hardcore drummer's perspective man. Because I always wanted to be a drummer. In my mind it felt like it wrapped around me if it was a drummer's perspective." Then he worked with left-handed drummers. And drummers with second hi-hats on the opposite side. And unconventional tom configurations. "There are enough things that happen where you realise it just really doesn't matter at all."

What does matter is how panning affects other elements. "If you've got a ride in all the choruses, you might want to keep the guitar that you really want to hear the mid-range of... opposite the crash ride." Practical considerations over dogma.

Real-Time Tools That Actually Work

Andrew recently discovered Acon Digital's Remix:Drums after wanting to crush a set of room mics for parallel distortion. The processing made the hi-hats and cymbals unmanageably loud. He was about to commit to offline spectral editing when he tried the plugin instead.

"Turned down the high hats and cymbals. Boom. Without having to process and take up extra tracks and all that."

His reaction to the real-time performance was emphatic: "When you solo up what it's able to do in real time, it's insane how good it is. Absolutely insane." More importantly, the detection proved rock solid. "It doesn't seem to make mistakes in the detection. There isn't like some point in the track where, because of the crash, it lets the high hat through."

He already owned Acon Digital's DeBleed:Drums, which handles the specific problem of mic bleed on individual tracks. The two plugins serve different purposes: Remix:Drums separates a mixed drum signal into controllable stems; DeBleed:Drums removes bleed from close mics. Together, they've made mixing drums a lot easier.

The Danger of Isolation

These tools solve real problems. They also create new temptations. "I think that the fact that you can so easily isolate something makes a lot of people not listen to what was good about the other stuff that was bleeding in," Andrew cautions.

"Some of that bad stuff is actually good. For me, a little bit of the kick into the snare mic is good because you hear that little bit of rattle, and that adds tone and space to the kick."

His approach: use the tools to solve problems, not to achieve total separation. "I don't think I've ever replaced the kick with a sample. I've only ever reinforced it. Because even if it sounds terrible, what's going on around it is part of what will glue the kit together and make it a drummer."

That word matters to him. Not "drums," but a drummer: "I want it to be a drummer. Even if it's programmed stuff, you want it to be a drum thing, not 'I have a kick, and I have a snare, and I have a hi-hat.' You want a drummer, because that's where the groove will happen."

Control, Not Destruction

"The musicality of the tools is that it's control, it's not just like, 'I can do this, I will do it completely,’" Andrew explains. "It's finding the percentage that actually solves the thing you're trying to solve without destroying something else."

For 80-90% of situations, real-time processing now handles what previously required offline work.

"You hit mute just to convince yourself that it's basically magic," he says of Remix:Drums. "Then, unmute them and just turn them down until your problem's fixed. And that's like with any of this stuff. It's just doing it based on what you hear and not what you think you should do, and then you're fine."

Andrew's approach to drum mixing is pragmatic. Handle with care, listen to what you're actually doing, and serve the groove. 

Key Takeaways

Andrew Scheps’ approach to drum mixing is a masterclass in prioritizing groove, managing mic bleed, and making thoughtful choices that serve the song. By building the kit from the ground up, balancing overheads and close mics, and using tools like Remix:Drums for real-time stem separation, he demonstrates how modern workflows can preserve musicality while solving technical challenges. For producers and engineers, the lesson is clear: focus on the drummer, not just the drums, and use technology as a tool for control—not destruction.         
 

Remix:Drums is available as an individual plugin for $49 or is also part of the Drum Production Suite. Get the free trial today and hear it for yourself!

Photo courtesy of @mixwiththemasters