I keep the Nirvana Nevermind album on standby and Black Keys El Camino (if I can ever pull off some of that Tchad Blake mojo, I’ll be pumped!). Other than that, I try to think about some similar (to what I’m mixing) material that I recall having a great sound.
Sometimes however, I’ll keep some tracks around that give me ideas to try. I may utilize an idea from a hip-hop tune on an alternative rock track. It’s all fair game 
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@Jon-Jon those drums sounds you are referring to Bonham and the intro from Van Halen have a lot of room mics in them. Its what I call great for the period but doesn’t have as much as it used to in modern rock. Programming drums I find it really hard to get a good room sound. I have superior drummer and never was really able to get that the same way as micing a kit in a room. My opinion is that drums are really the only instrument that really need a decent room to record them. That may be why that big drum sound is disappearing more and more (nobody can afford the studios anymore). There are other techniques you can employ like parallel compression on the drum bus to aid in that sound though. I see where you were going with the solod drums, but what we are trying to say is that I bet if you mixed these same Van Halen drums by themselves they probably wouldn’t have sounded like the version you hear now, and technically they aren’t solod and just that little bit of guitar can make a big difference. The more you start mixing the more you will understand relationships. when I solo an instrument its to pinpoint something I hear in the context of the mix and then go back and forth between the solod instrument and the mix. I know it sounds like you should be able to solo everything and when you put it together it should work but it rarely if ever happens. I also get what you are saying about any improvement would be better, but how do you know what to do until you hear it in the mix is the point I think everyone is trying to make. A solod snare might sound awesome by itself until you bring in something and its all wrong, now just imagine that with an entire drum kit.
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Something I didn’t mention before… I like referencing mixes from the early '90s because they’ve not been smashed to death in the volume war.
Obviously genre dependent, but Soundgarden’s Superunknown is a great example of an album that’s got loads of dynamics left and only some very mild limiting. Tool’s Undertow and RATM’s self-titled debut are also great references. Post-Deadwing Porcupine Tree and Steven Wilson’s solo output is barely mastered at all.
Nice to hear what a good mix sounds like, sometimes if you’re referencing a cd master from the late '90s onwards it’s hard to tell what’s the result of the mix and what’s just a by-product of hard limiting/converter clipping.
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What I have started doing is to just listen to music I know sounds “good” and then listen to my stuff. If I still enjoy my mix right after that then I am happy.
I believe it is a good idea to reference pro tracks, specially when working with the low end. They have proven worthy of radio time and appeal to a lot of people.
About the drum question. They can sound pro by themselves, but maybe do not blend with the rest of the instruments in a mix. Drum mixing, as any other instrument, shall begin with a purpose. How do you want them to sound in the mix? Bigger? Wider? Small? a lot of mid frequencies?
/Lukas
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I understand that point…but whats the alternative?? if u start with a crappy drum sound, at what point does it magically get better?
to me, drums are the foundation…get them right and then everything else can adjust to them, not vice versa. I assume thats why in days gone by theyd spend a week “getting a drum sound” before they ever tuned a guitar etc
besides, its just rock n roll…its not brain surgery. We are talking drums, 1 or 2 guitars, bass, vox and maybe some bgv. If I cant get that working with some powerful sounding drums then ill give it up lol
another nice old track, one of my fave drummers, Denny Carmassi. Interesting huh, Ted Templeman again. Dude knew his stuff
I have never got on with ref tracks.Wish I could
I understand that point…but whats the alternative?? if u start with a crappy drum sound, at what point does it magically get better?
I’m not sure you do entirely. yes your drums should sound good, however making them sound good out of context of a mix will not make them sound good, or may not even work with the song. just because you can make drums sound good by themselves doesn’t mean they are going to sound good with all the other instruments. or the opposite is trying to fit all your other instruments around the drums, you will fight yourself trying to mix this way. I find it generally pretty easy for solo’d instruments to sound good, but mixing is the combination and how they work together. With something like ez drummer its pretty easy for them to sound good, for making them sound real that’s the difficulty. When recording drums, especially with a decent drummer and kit, as long as mics are in phase it generally sounds pretty good on its own, but you don’t realize how great or bad they are until you bring in other instruments. until you go through this process you wont know and its easier to comprehend the relationships and what needs adjusted when working in the context of a mix. for instance the kick drum by itself can be crushing at 80hz and sound perfectly fine, but as soon as you bring in bass its all wrong, now you have to adjust the kick drum sound in relation to the bass or the bass to the kick, and that just changed the entire sound you had. now imagine doing that with every drum/mic you have on the kit. what you started with by itself may be completely different at the end until you understand the relationship between the other instruments and you cant do that without other contents.
exactly.
We have to start a mix somewhere
What im struggling with is that im saying “start with great sounding drums” and you seem to be disagreeing lol. Conceptually I cant see how there is any argument with starting with great drums. To me the opposite seems to be to start with weak drums
Like I said, I understand the point you seem to be trying to make. Its no different than guitars. You can scoop the midrange and have this huuuuge guitar sound…and then when you bring in the drums etc the guitar disappears. yeah I get that.
We can type all day but I dont see how I could ever get the point of not trying to make the drums sound as good as possible. like I said, we have plenty of pro examples where everything drops out and there are the drums alone, sounding big etc
And yes, it depends on the song too. Im amazed at how some songs just have a little tiny bit of snare and tiny bit of hi hat maybe and thats it…but they sound ok.
also the genre. Im talking hard rock/grunge/light metal. Huge drums are almost a given
great example, more Ted Templeman
In any case its all moot until i do about a dozen more mixes and see what I sound like
Personally I think it is really crucial to have your intended rhythmic structure in place from the start, as much as possible-- the foundation @Jon-Jon refers to. But how those drums actually sound at the outset is far less important IMO, provided of course you have a good quality recording of good quality playing on decent drums (or MIDI). You will have full control over how they sound as part of your mixing process and there is simply no requirement to commit to a particular sound until later in the process when you have a handle on all the interactions with the other instruments. But having the drums set early in terms of how they are played is fundamental.
So yes JJ, I do disagree that you must have great sounding drums at the start. You can always adjust that later. But if the drum performance is wrong for the song, you will be starting over at some point. I hope I’m making that distinction clear. 
imma give up this pointlol. I understand what i am trying to say from my standpoint. thats all I can control.
if I cant get great sounding drums PERIOD…then how am I going to get them in the middle of a complicated mix?
Im trying to learn to walk and ya’ll want me to learn to walk…while juggle 4 chainsaws and playing a kazoo…on a skateboard…in a blizzed
I think what we’re saying is that you’re worrying way too much about how you are tying your shoes before you start walking… just put them on and go dude! You’ll get the sound right eventually as your mixes progress. Good luck, we’ll be here for ya when you post your mixes! 
Ya’ll kill me…acting as if ive never done a mix before. Im pretty much coming from the point that most of my mixes have weak drums.
Why is that hard to get? lol
Anyway, no more back n forth for me
Peace, JJ
thanks, im working on one now…remixing “Morning Light” starting from the bare stems
its not even super pertinent to the drum conversation because i only had a live drummers stereo track to work with…so there is only SO much tweaking I can do. Good practice anyway
i laid down bass on it too, only because another member asked me too so he could also remix it lol
What im struggling with is that im saying “start with great sounding drums” and you seem to be disagreeing lol.
I’m trying to say that how do you know what great sounding drums are until you have context?
Well lets look at why your drums sound weak? do they sound weak solo’d? probably not. But when you add other elements they start to. Hence the relationship between instruments. I noticed on a few of your tracks I listened to that the guitars are very forward and sound a bit compressed in the low mid, combine that with the bass and that starts pulling away from your drums body. if you have a strong vocal and the snare may suffer because of the dominant frequencies. All this starts to add up, is what I keep trying to say. if you had bad drum sounds from the start that’s a whole different story and you need to focus on tracking them, but you were saying that you had used EZ drummer, so there are no weak sounds there that is 100% how they fit the song and how you mix them with the other instruments. So this really becomes on how you mix the song. Its also why I keep saying put up a mix you are ready to work on so we can help you break down the elements and work on your drums.
Do you use a subwoofer for monitoring?
Do you have room acoustic treatment and a good controlled listening environment?
How are you using reference tracks to get your sounds?
Imma let it go because its just butting heads and its getting into word salad now. Arguing philosophies and terminology and ways of saying things
I cant keep answering “how do you know what great sounding drums are until you have context?”. Have answered that to the best of my ability probably 5 times now. I cant say anything different lol
How do I know what a beautiful woman is until im on a date with her? A beautiful women is a beautiful women is a beaut…
great drums are great drums are great drums…
in any case,let me finish this mix m working on. thats more productive than trying to get me to agree with someone elses way of saying something
Heres an example of what you were asking for:
The reference track (I’m not sure if used this exact one or another song off this album - its punk rock so they all sound the same…
The final mix:
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Again this is context too. if you have only seen one woman you don’t know if shes beautiful or ugly until she is in a group of other women. That one woman alone may look awesome when there is nothing to compare her to and the flip side is not everyone looks at all women the same way, what might be beauty to one is not another and the same applies with mixing. this is really what we are talking about. we are not saying don’t have great sounding drums, but not all great sounding drums are going to work with the other material. just randomly mixing drums may help you within the drum kit context but when mixing them to other instruments in an entirely different thing and what we are trying to reiterate. John Bonham drums are not going to work for Slayer no matter how great they sound.
Arguing philosophies and terminology and ways of saying things
That is 90% what forums are for. Hopefully to have friendly debates on philosophies to invoke and generate more ideas and comprehension and similar terminologies. I think a large part of mixing is philosophical. some people approach it from an artistic way and some from technical. Discussing and understanding perspectives and ideology, whether I agree with them or not, was a huge part of my learning process and continues to be.
You aint giving me much credit lol
Im almost 50, how many women have I seen?? How many drums have I heard?
for the most part what I do falls into a basic hard rock/hair band/70s-90s rock thing. So we can pretty much guess that a drum sound close to VanHalen or John Bonham or Tommy Lee or Denny Carmassi or Jimmy D’Anda will get me nicely in the ballpark.
Drum kit advice, EQ, Compression settings, reverb setting…that will get me there. Im not sure that abstract rhetorical jousting will do too much lol
omg, I dont KNOW if she’s beautiful because I dont know the CONTEXT.
I might take her to Starbux and all of a sudden she’d look hideous!!!
When I actually think about it, the context of my basic rock sound is somewhat defined:
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Midrange heavy distorted rock guitars
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D.I. bass
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Lots of tempos around 90-105 with lots of groove
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High baritone/low tenor vocals without a ton of distortion (working on adding grit though)
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Proclivity to split and double guitars and also double vocals
So that narrows things down a bit