Drum sound advice needed

[Aleksey Vaneev]

On 13th of February I was working as a tracking engineer. I was tracking drums for the first time in my life (I've set mics, levels and EQ on mixer). Conditions were unfortunately not very good, and we had to mix drums to mono right in the mixer. Then this signal was routed to audiocard.

So after drums were recorded I had to find a sound treatment to make the drum sound more appealing.

Here is what I've got by processing dry signal with a sequence of HarmoniEQ->Redunoise->Analogflux TapeBus and Crunchessor (dry and wet files):

Loop 1: Dry Wet

Loop 2: Dry Wet

Loop 3: Dry Wet

Loop 4: Dry Wet

I know bass drum emits too much verb, and so I've tried to use Redunoise to resolve this problem. Do you think the wet signal sounds interesting and in your opinion can it be used during mixing (of course some EQ/compression will be needed at that stage)? Do you think such dry->wet transition could be a good demo to the aforemenioned Voxengo plug-ins (especially TapeBus as it creates the 'body' of this adjusted sound, and Redunoise to remove troublesome verb)?

Any other suggestions?

PS The drummer guy amazed me with his ability to play song drums (4 minutes in a row) in a continuous take, i.e. without the need to combine takes.

PS2 It was also a great experience to use my own plug-ins only to try to get decent sound.

[Lawnmower Of The Damned]

My personal opinion (Please don't be offended) is that the wet loops have too much compression and EQ. I'm of the school of thought that effects should be applied as needed, and would never compress or EQ if I didn't feel the track needed it.

The drummer did a good job and played at a very consistant velocity, so I wouldn't compress the drums so much. If you hadn't mixed to mono, you might have been able to compress the drums individually, but when you compress the entire mix the hi-hat gets a little too loud, and some other little oddities pop up.

Also, the dry recordings were a little too dark, but I think the wet loops overcompensated with a bit too much high end. I'd take the treble down a couple of notches.

Over all, I'd say that so long as you have a good drummer, less effects is more.

[Aleksey Vaneev]

Thanks for the comment! I see what you mean here. Most things will get sorted out during mixing (and I won't be doing it). I'll pass your suggestions to the mixing engineer.

p.s. You probably just can't imagine how this drum recording is advanced in my city. But we have to grow to international standards one day.

[tee boy]

Hey, unfortunately i dont have audio on this PC so i cant listen to your clips. Best advice i can gie you though is to go to www.gearslutz.com and ask oer there. Many of those guys engineer bands for a living and quite a few use mainlu pluggins.

[IIRs]

I'd be tempted to do this to it..

[StudioTan]

Most things will get sorted out during mixing...

This is a philosophy to be avoided when tracking, even though you may not have been in this train of thought. Ideally, you'll want to get to the closest sound you want during tracking using tried and true mic'ing techniques, choice of mics, helpful (not harmful) acoustics and treatment, very good drum tuning (this is an art in itself), and a very good drummer. Two different drummers can sound radically different on the same kit mic'ed the same way even when playing the most simple beats.

[Aleksey Vaneev]

I see that I should have asked this question on some other forum... Sorry to everybody - I just thought this is strongly FX related and so I went for it.

StudioTan, yes, I know - overprocessing things is not the best way to do real drums.

On the other hand... guess some artistic approaches may allow deviations from this rule - I tend to perceive even the best mic/preamp/audiocard combinations as a kind of FX on its own. Why not pretend that with additional FX we get another kind of mic/preamp/audiocard combo? Of course as soon as it sounds good/right.

thornemaelstrom, actually, I even brought my new Genelecs 8040 to finetune drums, but I should have also used Bass Tilt control due to excess reverb in the monitoring room (if it can be called like that). That's why it probably translated to an overly dark recording on your monitoring system. Things to learn for me in this department.

platinumears, what kind of processing you've used to remove the verb? (I can get IMO better results with Redunoise alone). So you prefer not to use any additional processing at all? here's my variant (Redunoise->HarmoniEQ, Loop4): http://www.voxengo.com/temp/loop4_wet2.wav

I thought TapeBus adds a lot of good 'smack' feel to the drums. Seems like nobody is fond of it?

[Ackelito]

Most things will get sorted out during mixing...

This is a philosophy to be avoided when tracking, even though you may not have been in this train of thought. Ideally, you'll want to get to the closest sound you want during tracking using tried and true mic'ing techniques, choice of mics, helpful (not harmful) acoustics and treatment, very good drum tuning (this is an art in itself), and a very good drummer. Two different drummers can sound radically different on the same kit mic'ed the same way even when playing the most simple beats.

yeah this is something i learnd during my first audio engineering course...
also some enginners use Eq in the recording stage to get the material closer to what they want...

mic'ing techniques and placments of the mics is a major factor of how the material will turn out,
also some room-ambience mics can be nice to get a fuller sound, though thats dependent of what you want...

also the drummer can be unbalanced in his hits on some of the percussion, so placing the mics according to the drummers style
can be a solution amongst other...
to achieve a stable and even sound flow with the best gain setting...

dont be affraid to mess with the drummer!

just my thoughts.. nothing special

[IIRs]

platinumears, what kind of processing you've used to remove the verb?

Dynamic EQ low shelf about 250Hz with the side chain set lower (about 120Hz IIRC) and a fast downward expansion setting.

[StudioTan]

Aleksey: I was just giving general engineering advice in an attempt to make the learning experience (which is life-long if you continue) a little more smooth for you.

Obviously there are no rules and many things are subjective. What you or someone else does to the drums after the recording stage can vary dramatically based on the engineer's/producer's experience, tastes, methods, the type of music the drums will be mixed with, the intended audience, and on and on and on.

Obviously, which goes without saying, is that you're going to have much more control when you have the individual drum tracks to work with. You can only do so much with what you've got. But, it's all relative, and you undoubtedly know this and I realize the conditions weren't optimal.

Finally, I felt the answers to a lot of the questions you asked would really depend on the intent or the role the drums would actually play in a particular mix. This is obviously an artistic attribute. In addition, what may sound dark/bright/too compressed/under-compressed/washed out, etc. may not work in one mix, but may be just what another mix needed. Also, a drum sound by itself has little to do with the way it sounds in a mix with other instruments. With this in mind, you may want to listen to these loops in various songs/mixes in addition to soloing the loops.

[Aleksey Vaneev]

Thanks for your answers!