Improving my drum sound - Turd polish

[JDOD]

Yes, I'm programming fake drums and I know all the drum purists hate it - hey, even I hate it! But I need to make the best of what I have.

This is a decent example of my usual drumming:
https://soundcloud.com/brother-number-one/test-milk

My general technique is this:

"My DAW generally has a separate track for part of the drum kit. The core of the kit - bass, snare and hi-hat- will generally have two or even three lines each. I then pan every track as if I was sitting behind the kit, generally with the small crash 30% left and the ride 30% right, everything else panned between.

I have a collection of single hits of varying velocities for every drum and I individually place each hit on its track in the DAW. The reason that the core of the kit has 2 or 3 lines each is so that I can allow them to overlap eachother by about 1/2 a beat so you don't get that machinegun effect."

The drums don't sound that fake but they do sound, thin, weak and badly recorded. Is there anything I can do in REAPER to beef them up and make them heavier? Any help you can give me, even with regard to the mixing of the different tracks would help.

Drums sound pretty good in places in this one but then the hi hats in the the verse sound hideous:
https://soundcloud.com/brother-number-one/pd-2015
But then the rides in the chorus sound alright.

 

[miroslav]

I don't think the sound of the drums is bad at all, or that it sounds very "fake".
They sound like typical drums sound.

What you need is a bit more variety.
I heard repetition in the fills, and I think you can vary your velocities a bit more on the hits...and/or more variety with the hat hits....Same thing with the Toms/Cymbals. Maybe toss in some "ghost" hits on the Snare here and there...just to make it sound more like the feel of a drummer, rather than a sequenced groove.


It's the sequencing of the groove that makes or breaks most sampled drum tracks....not the samples themselves.

 

[JDOD]

Cheers, I still don't think they sound loud enough for some reason. Not heavy enough.

I know what you mean about fill repition and velocities. I only have so much patience!

 

[jimmys69]

You could try using parallel compression on just the kick, toms, and snare. I pretty much regularly send them to a group channel with seriously heavy compression and blend that in.

 

[miroslav]

Cheers, I still don't think they sound loud enough for some reason. Not heavy enough.

I know what you mean about fill repetition and velocities. I only have so much patience!

Listen to Jimmy...he's more familiar with doing drums for Metal flavors, which is what I think you're after.

AFA patience.......yeah man, it takes a bit of work, but I don't think you need a lot to move from that cheap "looped" sound you hear on a lot of home-rec sampled drum tracks....to something that has more of a human feel.
A little variation here and there...and IMO, nail the transitions and fills. When it's just a basic Kick/Snare/Hat beat, like on a verse or what have you...it just needs a little velocity randomness, and avoid locking everything hard to the grid.

 

[JDOD]

You could try using parallel compression on just the kick, toms, and snare. I pretty much regularly send them to a group channel with seriously heavy compression and blend that in.

Cheers, will see what I can find it Reaper.

 

[JDOD]

Miro, just listening to your Jimmy Page and BB King tracks while working at my desk. Both sound good - not overplaying - which is always difficult in an instrumental. Always cool to let things hang a bit.

Also, you look like John Holmes.

 

[DM60]

Without getting a drum kit, I think pads for drum sequencing is a good option. Rather than mouse clicking a pattern which gets very tedious, using pads can get the groove you want. If timing is an issue, quantize the hits.

I haven't used Reaper's MIDI functions, so I am not sure what options are there. But usually you get an option of how much you want it to be corrected, in percentage. You could also use some MIDI tools VeloScaler I haven't tried it, but from the description, looks like it could be something useful.

 

[miroslav]

Miro, just listening to your Jimmy Page and BB King tracks while working at my desk. Both sound good - not overplaying - which is always difficult in an instrumental. Always cool to let things hang a bit.

Ooooh...that's some old shit...but thanks for the comments.
I keep meaning to do some new videos...but you know, so many songs to record, so little time.

Also, you look like John Holmes.

Naaa....just hung like him.

 

[Dicus]

Not an expert on sequenced drums. I've listened to Test Milk and it sounds pretty decent. I would consider panning the ride a bit less. It sound unnaturally to the side. Also would you normally pan the ride to the left since it is on the left side of the listener? I would also go for a little bit more high in the kick, but all of this is probably taste...

 

[JDOD]

Not an expert on sequenced drums. I've listened to Test Milk and it sounds pretty decent. I would consider panning the ride a bit less. It sound unnaturally to the side. Also would you normally pan the ride to the left since it is on the left side of the listener? I would also go for a little bit more high in the kick, but all of this is probably taste...

I always pan as if I am sitting behind the kit - I will consider panning the ride closer to centre though.

When you say "high in the kick" do you mean EQing the kick to bring more high end into it?

 

[cafehonda]

I always pan as if I am sitting behind the kit - I will consider panning the ride closer to centre though.

One thing to consider is what the pan values mean. Center is center but when you change a value to, say, 45, that means that the track is panned to a relative 45 degrees from from center, half way from the center to the edge of the stage. It is nearly impossible to have a drum component that would be panned that far relative to the sound stage. Kick is always centered, snare may be panned 1 or 2 degrees with a sample or reverb return panned 1 or 2 degrees opposite. Floor toms are usually panned 4 to 10 degrees and over heads panned between 10 and 15 degrees, maybe wider for a special effect. A lot of people will tell you to pan overheads far left and far right; this always sounds weird. If the virtual soundstage you are trying to create is 40 feet wide, panning the overheads hard will make it sound like the kit is 40 feet wide. That is not reality at all. I add a stereo enhancer on the drum buss to add width if I need to. I will also add a stereo enhancer to the main buss to widen the whole soundstage. A little on each can yield great results. Anyway, maybe it will help polish the proverbial turds.

 

[miroslav]

A lot of people will tell you to pan overheads far left and far right; this always sounds weird. If the virtual soundstage you are trying to create is 40 feet wide, panning the overheads hard will make it sound like the kit is 40 feet wide. That is not reality at all.

Well...I do the panning of the OH usually hard L/R at the mix stage...and I set the width of the kit by the OH mic positions during tracking....not so much during mixing.
With mic bleed you can only manipulate the width so much without it sounding odd...so I kinda like to set that during tracking.

If you bring your XY or M/S or other "close pair" stereo OH mics closer or into the kit...the drums/cymbals on the outer perimeter will seem further apart in the OH image. If they are high up and further out/away from the kit...the image is more mono-ish.
With spaced pair, it's the opposite...the closer you bring them in, the tighter the image, and vice versa.

That said...once you record the kit, and you find the OH feels too wide, you can always pan more inward/tighter.
AFA adding stereo processing...to make it wider....mmm....YMMV.
I usually use M/S for the OH pair, and I set the image width by how close/low I bring them in...after that, in the mix I pan those hard L/R because I'm usually OK with what I've chosen.

I also think that deciding on drum image width and panning of individual drum elements is mostly tied to what the rest of the mix is doing...how many other instruments are involved...so it's not always the same number of degrees L or R for any given thing.
IOW...sometimes it sound right nice and wide other times you need it to be tighter...but in any case, I see that more as a decision during tracking, and not so much after the fact...though yeah, you have to make some adjustments to get the best fit.

 

[Guitargodgt]

My input on Milk:

The snare has no body. Boost (eq) at 200-250hz for that. IMO you need to compress the snare harder as well.

The toms need some body as well. This is a little harder to say in terms of what to boost and cut, but toms will fight guitars so when they come on give them body and have them duck the guitars for the brief moment they hit. The rack tom usually looks similar to the snare eq if that helps any, and usually the ones that fallow are similar with the cuts going down to fallow the diameter of the toms.

I thought the overheads were ok. I think some varience on the hats when they are closed at parts like 2:06. Put more emphasis (velocity) on the downbeats. I think you did ok doing this at 2:23 but you copied the same pattern over and over again, every once and a while the softer hits should vary in velocity.

Just my .02

 

[JDOD]

My input on Milk:

The snare has no body. Boost (eq) at 200-250hz for that. IMO you need to compress the snare harder as well.

The toms need some body as well. This is a little harder to say in terms of what to boost and cut, but toms will fight guitars so when they come on give them body and have them duck the guitars for the brief moment they hit. The rack tom usually looks similar to the snare eq if that helps any, and usually the ones that fallow are similar with the cuts going down to fallow the diameter of the toms.

I thought the overheads were ok. I think some varience on the hats when they are closed at parts like 2:06. Put more emphasis (velocity) on the downbeats. I think you did ok doing this at 2:23 but you copied the same pattern over and over again, every once and a while the softer hits should vary in velocity.

Just my .02

Cheers, this is actually helpful. There's no EQ or compression on anything.

 

[CMolena]

You know why I think it sounds fake? Because it sounds too perfect and polished. Actually I almost thought that they werent fake...but listening closely I got it. My view on it is: There is no way you can get a fake drum to sound real. Its impossible for a machine to copy every bit of imperfection a real drummer has. But most people dont care to that anyway...so I think you'll have no problem with these sounds.

If were you (yes I am kind of a purist drum sound guy) I would try to record drums the real way, haha.