> Drums carry a lot of a track’s crucial properties: transient information that makes it all pop; tone and pitch that extends right from the low bass drum to the sheen of crash cymbals; the room sound that’s particularly audible with loud and quick impulses flying back and forth; and of course, stereo information, both from the room and the panning of kit elements.
That stereo side of the equation has become a big part of modern music, thanks to digital soundsculpting tools that can use maths where only electronics were available before. Now we can analyse the stereo field, check phase correlation, work any processing into a mid/side technique, and show off the full stereo panorama.