mixing drums

[robmus]

What are you guys doing to your drum mixes? Such as processing, EQing, busing. I use the normal close mic technique, 8 channels plus room mics.The drums sound great, but there's just something missing. I have an 828mkII, G5 dual 2.o, OctoPre,DP4.52, waves NPP, UAD-1 card.

[Jim]

I put PSP Vintage Warmer on my kick, snare and toms to squash and add gain. I put it on the cymbals occasionally just to tame transients. Some times, I put my drum aux mix through PSP MixPressor, if I want them to be loud and obnoxious. I'll usually put some Plate or eVerb on the snare, kick and/or toms, or the overall drum mix.

I record into these tracks separately: kick, snare top, snare bottom, left hat, right hat (I have two hats, one on a cable remote), stereo pair for overheads, and a stereo channel for a tom submix. Some times, I'll gate the toms and/or snare. My studio is a spare bedroom, which is why I don't use a room mic. I put the Master through another instance of PSP Vintage Warmer to achieve loudness.

You can hear the results here. There's over two hours of music here, so the technique varies, but that's my basic starting point.

http://jamesphilipcurtis.com/music.html

This is jam music. You are all welcome to make comments of any nature. I'd be interested in hearing what others are doing as well.

Jim

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[Timeline]

Good sound jim. Well Done.

Cheers,
Gary Brandt
www.earthislandrecords.com

[dsuycott]

ola,

to start with you stated your mic config was 8 plus room mics, how many room mics and how many drums, i'm tired just thinking about carring all those drums and setting up all that crap... : )

look take this for what it's worth, to start with the drummer should be the one who is responsable for his or her sound not you the engineer, your job is to capture there performance as pure as you can, if you have to get in to super tweek mode only do it for change or a special moment and not to make up for a crappy drummer, unless your not in the position to fire the guy and get a better studio drummer to do the job.
i personally am so bored with these "modern drummers" that over play. basically can play all the hot licks in the world but couldn't play a song in a musical way to save their ass. listen to the motown drummers and recordings, the who, led zep and so on. those recording were done with a hand full of mics and some great ears. they didn't have the ass amount of plugs and cpu bandwidth we have been so fortunate to be a part of, man those dudes flew by the thin ass of their pants and made some serious •••• happen with a couple eq's and a couple comp/limit's not 5 on a track. look at ringo's drum sounds and performance very minimal and masterfull, •••• the track management was the genius of the later beatles records.

my best advice to you as a drummer and as a engin/producer, listen to the kit and how the drummer hits place your mic only where you need them for the song, not because you need control over every little ****ing sound, that's the drummers job, if you can't hear the hihat tell him to hit it harder, to much snare don't hit it so hard, drums don't sound tight enough tune the right way.... don't let your drummer be such a lazy ****, kik his ass. same goes for the rest of the band... special the anoying guitar player that can't get his point across in 2 or 3 guitar tracks you know the one who need 6-10 tracks, boring and the more •••• you keep throughing in the mix the thinner it get's until all of a sudden your record sounds like a thin piece of crap.

now to end my rant of over recorded/processed/produced/hyped crap called "todays" music, use the wonderfull tools we have today and get back to the basics. only mic what you need to, same goes for compressing and limiting, eqing, enough of this brick wall bullsh••, there are zero dymamics in those crappy mixes, and lastly grab your balls and committ to your ideas in the recording process don't leave them open ended just because you can have endless editing and futsing around on little •••• no one really cares that much about in the end. listen to the old records, and find out how the did so much with so little gear and time, i think you will find a wealth of power in those records.

good luck tweekin' a groove...

d

david suycott
www.davidsuycott.com

[Jim]

Originally posted by Timeline:
Good sound jim. Well Done.

Cheers,
Gary Brandt
www.earthislandrecords.com

That coming from you is a real compliment, Gary. Thanks a bunch. - Jim

[denne]

boah dave!

little rough posting, but I'm with you!

[dsuycott]

Originally posted by denne:
boah dave!

little rough posting, but I'm with you!

your right was a taste ruff....

sorry for the rant, i was in a mood.

i did mean well though.

d

[WKWizard]

I find that running the kit aux through VintageWarmer really helps punch things up. VW can be a little hard to work with, so be patient and do a little at a time.

Other than that, I use limiting, eq and a touch of verb. I still tend to use eVerb for the drums even though I have "better" verbs.

I focus on drum tuning, mic techniques and playing. I'm no pro engineer by any means, but for what I have (828 and a behringer board) I can get something that sounds pretty good.

It's hard to comment without hearing your recording.

[bassie12]

I agree with Dave. Want a great drum sound? Get a great drummer!

[Jim]

I don't disagee with you guys that you should start with a great drummer and a great sounding kit, but duh...

The question has to do with how you record/mix a drummer. The "great" part should go without saying.

David has some good sounds on his web pages. I'd be interested in reading about how he got them. I don't mind the ranting, but it didn't really address the question in the original post, which asked about bussing, EQ, etc.

.

[hsten]

I will throw in another issue into this. I bought a Benchmark DAC1 DA converter a while back and my listening enviroment became a lot more transparent and accurate (before I used the MOTU 1296). After I started using the DAC1 I do a lot less processing on the drums (or actually anything). Improving the monitoring sitaution might be more valuable than buying more plugins. Anyway, if and when I use processing on drums I use the SONY OXFORD plugs (EQ, Inflator, Dynamics and Transient Modulator). Some minor tweaks with the SONY stuff is very nice. For reverb I use QUANTEC YARDSTICK on the whole set (I make a subgroup for the drums).

[Resonant Alien]

Yeah, if we relied on the drummers that find their way into our studios to set up their own mics and get their own sound, we'd probably all be out of business. ) But, the rant is well taken....

[Resonant Alien]

More OT - It's interesting that it seems like loads of us are using PSP VintageWarmer on drums....me too! I typically run all my drum tracks (kick, snare, toms, overheads) plus bass guitar through the PSP VW. It's a damn magic box if there ever was one, let me tell ya!

Before they hit the VW though, I am running primarily UAD LA2As or 1176s plugs on the individual tracks, along with URS Neve and API Conosole EQ plugs, or the UAD Pultec EQ plug.

I run verbs to separate auxes and do not run those through the VW.

Really does the trick!

[hoptune]

I have to say the Rant was a little over the top, albeit true, a great drummer that knows how to use his Kit effectivly is the ideal situation (this goes for Guitarists with more pedals and rack gear than they know how to use) I believe it is the job of the engineer today to record as true a representation of what the player is going for. Then we can mess with it to acheive what the song is calling for. I do agree with the classic sound put forth by some wonderfull players and engineers in the past, but todays budgets don't exactly allow for 3month recordings either. I use strip silence quite often to keep cymbals and snares out of the tom mics (never submixing them, always giving them there own track). I also like to sub group the drums minus the cymbals and use the PSPpresssor on it. Fattens it up quite well. I am also a fan of re-triggering things if I need to. I also make copies of the snare mics and seperate sidestick from snare hits.Plus that gives me the chance to eq the stick to crack a little brighter than the snare, once again if called for. Having been in Nashville for 19 years, finding the sound of the drums a "keeping up with the Joneses" situation, I was fortunate to have players with kits tweaked to perfection.Up here in Connecticut, I am finding myself having to work harder to get as good of a sound...Thats why we make tens of hundreds of dollars, right??

[dsuycott]

Originally posted by Jim:
I don't disagee with you guys that you should start with a great drummer and a great sounding kit, but duh...

The question has to do with how you record/mix a drummer. The "great" part should go without saying.

David has some good sounds on his web pages. I'd be interested in reading about how he got them. I don't mind the ranting, but it didn't really address the question in the original post, which asked about bussing, EQ, etc.

.

again as i stated before that you found it worthy of a "duh"
sometimes the obvious seems so obvious it's all most too obvious.

if you have the drummer the drums the vibe get the sounds from your mic choice and placement not your plugin's or outboard gear, to me i sounds like your wanting to know how to make up for something you didn't capture, which happens.

there are some basics in eq cuts that apply across all instruments, get rid of what you don't need, i try to avoid adding eq when ever i can, i would rather try a different mic placement or replace the mic itself. compressing and limiting can be and a great way to get some more attact and presence on your kit, even out the whole feel, bus your kit out to a stereo aux and put a little somethin on it maybe send the kik and snare to there own bus leave the rooms on there own it can go on and on. another thing make sure you are keeping your phasing together, that can screw you really bad like if you kik sounds weak you might not even think of it and chalk it up to a bad sound but flip the phase and you might find the kik drum was boomin'. sometimes i put a mono mic over the kit and then add a stereo mono/stereo plug like a short delay or something in that will make your mono track have a fake R/L, then add a plug that allows you to flip one side out of phase. sometimes i can get a cool width on the kit this way. i myself am a mono drum guy when people let me get away with it and for the last maybe 4 or 5 years have rarely used more than 4 mics on a 3or4 piece kit with a hi-hat and usually 1 cymbal a 20" crash ride with a big chunk out of it.

less is more man, just record somebody with a small kit only use 3 or 4 mics and then start an a/b with some drum sounds you like off of a cd and play around. don't forget the cd is mastered and if it's big budget recordings the gear is more than likely class A stuff yours is not so don't think there going to sound the same but see if you can get the same feel of the sound and close to what they have, then your on the right track.

again just get the right drum sound before you even put up a mic's then your job is easy. i would offer the settings of what i set my processing gear to but that's my sound you need to find yours.

later

d