We all have our favorite earbuds, speakers, or headphones that we enjoy using to listen to our favorite music. But many of us face the challenge of struggling to hear what the drums are actually doing on recordings.

Sometimes it’s tough to discern the kick pattern, and sometimes it’s really hard to tell if you’re hearing snare ghosting or additional hihat notes. And oftentimes there are so many layered parts on a recording that it’s tough to pick out what you should actually play on the drums.

This is the struggle for a lot of drummers, and I want to help you solve this in two ways:

#1) Explore how a higher quality pair of in-ears or headphones can make detailed listening easier

#2) Teach you strategies for listening more deeply and picking out parts - with whatever headphones you may have

Here’s an important listening / “mixing” truth you need to understand:

Turning up the bass on a recording doesn’t always make it easier to hear...

This is one of those short, simple, yet catastrophic stories I bet many of you can relate to. I was on a gig one time where soundcheck went smoothly, rehearsal went great…then the unthinkable happened just before showtime. The "psychological trauma" (spoken mostly in jest!) reminded me of something really important we always need to remember as drummers.

I was playing this particular night with some folks I always enjoyed playing with. We were set up in a fairly large venue on a big stage, and we were all using in-ear monitors. The front of the drum set was covered by the typical clear, heavy drum shield that prevents cymbal bleed into vocal mics. We were fairly spread out across the stage, and guitar amps were in iso-boxes offstage on either wing. Bass was running direct to the house, as were keys and all vocals. Maybe you can guess why I’m telling you all of this…

Rehearsal was a blast, and we played through all the songs for the night. We even...