drum effects - preffered basics ?

i57dwun4yb1pt8

recording drums - effects

Lads , with your experience

what is the preffered way to

1/ deal with drum compression - ie - seperate kick / snare / toms ?
or group them then compress them as a bunch

2/ drum reverb - seperate snare verb and also a grouped verb for overheads toms / snare and hat ?
or a grouped verb for all except kick ?

brettzy

Usually a compressor on each kick snare and toms individually, very slight gain reduction (depending on the track and the compressor), slow attack and set the release so it just about gets back to zero before the next hit (excluding toms). Then group all direct mics to one bus, overheads to another and room mics to another all group to a master drum bus. I try not to hit the compressor hard on the room or overheads but sometimes it nice to smash the crap out of the room for that big sounding kit. Then a bus compressor on the drum bus with a little eq after it.

I never use reverb on the drums unless it's for an extreme effect. If I need more vibe on the snare I hit the room bus hard with a bus compressor, fast attack slowish release. But I do cheat too, I use drum replacement on the snare most of the time. Depending on the song I'll blend a couple of snares over the real snare to really give it a nice crack and bottom-end tone. Depends on how much time I have to do the mix. It's possible to get a great snare sound without replacement but I have a nice mixing method that works for me so.... Well, if it's good enough for chris lord-alge then it's good enough for me!!

ZV Yoda

Interesting post for us drummies who are attempting to record...

brettzy wrote: »

Usually a compressor on each kick snare and toms individually, very slight gain reduction (depending on the track and the compressor), slow attack and set the release so it just about gets back to zero before the next hit (excluding toms).

What do you do for toms?

brettzy wrote: »

Then group all direct mics to one bus, overheads to another and room mics to another all group to a master drum bus. I try not to hit the compressor hard on the room or overheads but sometimes it nice to smash the crap out of the room for that big sounding kit. Then a bus compressor on the drum bus with a little eq after it.

What's the reasoning behind the separate busses?... you treat/EQ/FX each one differently?

brettzy wrote: »

I never use reverb on the drums unless it's for an extreme effect.

Why is that?... I assume it's because your room creates good natural reverb... does this still apply if recording in a dead room - as in my case... I'm an enthusiast (drummer 1st, recording newbie 2nd)

brettzy wrote: »

If I need more vibe on the snare I hit the room bus hard with a bus compressor, fast attack slowish release.

Can you elborate a bit on how this works?... I struggle to get snare snap without using EQ (which can sound too tinny)

brettzy wrote: »

But I do cheat too, I use drum replacement on the snare most of the time.

Boo from the drummers!

brettzy wrote: »

Depending on the song I'll blend a couple of snares over the real snare to really give it a nice crack and bottom-end tone. Depends on how much time I have to do the mix. It's possible to get a great snare sound without replacement but I have a nice mixing method that works for me so.... Well, if it's good enough for chris lord-alge then it's good enough for me!!

if I have to ask who Chris Lord-Alge is, that's not good is it?

PaulBrewer

ZV Yoda wrote: »

I
if I have to ask who Chris Lord-Alge is, that's not good is it?

He's actually Tom Lord-Alge's brother, but that not much help really is it ?

ZV Yoda

Ah... why didn't you say so...

"Although he started his working life as a producer, Tom Lord-Alge chose to narrow his field of work, and now ranks alongside Bob Clearmountain and his brother Chris Lord-Alge as one of the best mix engineers in the world. Paul Tingen discovers what makes a Lord-Alge mix tick...

Back in the early days of multitrack recording, mixing was seen as a largely technical process of blending the ingredients that had gone into the making of a record. But the creative options possible at the mix increased with the number of available effects, processors and recording tracks, and so mixing became more important and time-consuming. Nevertheless, for a long time it was still the recording engineer who would perform the mix, and the mixing process was still hardly centre-stage. All this changed in the early '80s, when the legendary American engineer Bob Clearmountain pioneered the notion of the mix engineer as a secret creative weapon. For the first time, the person responsible for mixing was an outsider who could bring fresh input to a project, raise it to a new level, or salvage it if it wasn't happening. Since then we have seen the rise of all manner of mix engineers, including the remixer, who imposes his own vision on a record as opposed to bringing out what's on the tape."

PaulBrewer

PaulBrewer wrote: »

He's actually Tom Lord-Alge's brother, but that not much help really is it ?

I did!

teamdresch

More snap from snare = bottom snare mic.

PaulBrewer

teamdresch wrote: »

More snap from snare = bottom snare mic.

And the lightest snare head possible, in fact the lighter the heads the brighter the tone on all drums in general..

dav nagle

Making a kick to not sound like fluffy after compression is a challenge, If I up the attack the kick sounds like a ****ing heel of a shoe, any advice with regard to kick drums. I want a clear thud!

brettzy

dav nagle wrote: »

Making a kick to not sound like fluffy after compression is a challenge, If I up the attack the kick sounds like a ****ing heel of a shoe, any advice with regard to kick drums. I want a clear thud!

I always use a very slow attack, 3ms usually does the trick with around .2 or .5 release depending on the tempo of the track and how much you want it to sustain. Then I EQ the feck out of it.
If I want it to sit below the bass then I low shelf at 50-75Hz at 4-6dB's (sometimes more) of Gain, sharp Q cut at around 200-250 -2 to -4 db's, moderate Q at 4-6Khz about 6-8 db's of gain depending on how slappy you want the kick and a high shelf at 7KHz to balance the high and low end.
Then EQ the bottom end of the bass around 100 -150Hz.

If I want the kick to sit above the bass then I swap the lowend values around. 9 times out of 10 that works on my kit with my mics, pre's and room but as I'm sure you know yourself it changes with every variable so....


A transitent designer can be great too for shaping the sound.

brettzy

ZV Yoda wrote: »

What do you do for toms?

Very little really. Mostly stick a gate on them to stop the rumbles bleeding through, and cut the mud at around 200-350Hz then let the overhead deliver the tone.

ZV Yoda wrote: »

What's the reasoning behind the separate busses?... you treat/EQ/FX each one differently?

Exactly, just different eq and compression on overheads and room mics. Then route all bus to a another bus and add a tiny bit of compression and eq just to glue it all together

ZV Yoda wrote: »

Why is that?... I assume it's because your room creates good natural reverb... does this still apply if recording in a dead room - as in my case... I'm an enthusiast (drummer 1st, recording newbie 2nd)

No real answer for you there, I just like tighter sounding kits. If you have a small dead room then put a tiny amount of slap back delay on the room bus, very short delay times (and don't sync it to the tempo of the track), play around with it until your room sounds bigger but real. Then blend it in with the rest of the kit.

ZV Yoda wrote: »

Can you elborate a bit on how this works?... I struggle to get snare snap without using EQ (which can sound too tinny)?

The same as above really, I don't like reverb on the snare so I try to use the room (and replaced snares) to give it the ambience it need. Thats just my taste though.

ZV Yoda wrote: »

Boo from the drummers!)

I'm a drummer to so yeah, boooo! No wait???

ZV Yoda wrote: »

if I have to ask who Chris Lord-Alge is, that's not good is it?

you've heard his work no doubt. Supposedly he always uses drum replacement. Must be how he got that huge pounding drum sound on american idiot

Hope that helps a little

ZV Yoda

Cheers Brettzy - that's a very informative post...

I've been trying to get the recorded drum sound as close to what I want without EQ, but invariably end up boosting low freq on the kick & mid/hi to the snare.

I also read somewhere that it's best to cut the low freqs on overheads so you don't get too much kick spill... the results (for me anyway) tend to leave the overhead cymbals too bright.

I've also been sending all feeds to one bus & applying a standard reverb... plus I haven't been using a room mic either. Having read your comment about applying reverb to the room mic.- it sounds like a very logical way of replicating a decent sounding room. I'll be trying that for sure!

I do like the Greenday drum sound… and now I find out it’s all smoke & mirrors. Why do we bother with real drums at all?

<cue the dance music gurus smarmy comments>

Thanks for the info!