Best techniques for gating a bass drum / How to remove bleeding snare sounds

FllaviX

New member
HI all! I'm currently working on mix where in order to bring the bass drum more to the front I had to boost the 3000hz range. However this messed with the snare sonud due to quite heavy bleeding on the kick track. So now I'm trying to gate it but I can't get rid of all the snares due to some faster passages where the hits are very close to the kick. So here I am asking the more experienced of you for some gating tips or other techniques recommendations.
 
I had this exact same problem, when I would try and boost the kick, I'd get the hi-hat with it. I assume you were boosting 3000hz to get the "snap" part of the kick?

I ended up using drum layering (I used Sonar Platinum's drum replacer) which allowed me to find the exact "kick" I wanted to blend in with the original. I then ran a HPF on the original around 400hz to remove all the high end and just get the bottom end boom, and then got the "snap" from the sample which came without any cymbal/hihat/snare noises.

I ended up with a very clean and separate kick that I could then shape/mold to exactly what I wanted with compression and EQ.

Very happy with the end result. I previously tried all kinds of gating, EQ, deEsser, etc. on the original track, but simply could not separate out the "ring" of the cymbals/hihat/snare from the kick track without killing the "snap" of the kick.

I should point out I had the same problem with the snare getting high hat bleed.. the crack of the snare was blended with the ring of the hihat, and I either had to create a really tight snare but gating out the release of the snare, or have a bunch of ring in the release. I used the same technique here as well and was able to get a crisp and separate snare.

Of course, the inevitable "get it right in tracking" comment is sure to come as well... which of course is ideal if you can and know how (the artist I am mixing for did not have the equipment or expertise to get the drums recorded right).
 
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Does your gate allow for an additional trigger input?
If so, you could duplicate the kick trick, roll off the highs, and use it to trigger the gate on the real kick track.

I don't know that I've ever done this, but it seems like it'd work!?

An alternative might be to use the snare track to trigger a heavy handed compressor on the kick, to duck the gaps.

Same thing but different. I think I'd favour the former.
 
Set up a gate on the kick, fast open fast close, if you can only hear the hi hat when the gate is open it will add to the kick attack that you are looking for.

Alan.
 
I should have added, you can set your gate up the way you have it, then fine tune problem areas by automating gain before gate.

If you only have a few spots with issues, that shouldn't be a big job.
 
Thanks guys, I knew I could count on you! :)
I will definitely try Tim's method. Btw, Tim, did you use an external kick sample or you sampled it from the original track?
Regarding the classic gating, I already tried the fast attack and shorter hold time but as I said, on some faster parts the snares are very close and can still be heard and if I reduce the hold time even more I lose some critical sustain from the kick hits.
In a few instances I tried singling out the snare hits and reducing the gain, which works great but there are too many of them left + a couple of other songs, so I don't feel like spending hours doing just that.
 
And btw this goes back to mixing. Bleed or not the drums can still sound good that way. So if you mix around the drums, drums up, bring all else up around them just to still hearing all of the drums. If some drums are too loud, I rather bring those down that the other way.
 
Agreed, it's just that the kick was recorded with mic in front and no porthole, and I realize now that it needs more snap, therefore the boost in eq.
 
External sample (clean, no no bleed).

I have Dimension Pro, which is an instrument composition tool that uses real samples, so I auditioned several from there. Also, the drum replacer tool in Sonar came with a bunch of samples. What is great about the samples they provide, is they have different dynamic samples (soft, medium, hard) based on velocity which is calculated by the replacer tool based on the amplitude of the original. (The replacer tools lets you "dial in" which frequencies you trigger off of, so you can ensure you are triggering off the meat of the kick). So not only does it match the amplitude, it will choose the best sample for that amplitude.

also, regarding recording, they got better at it doing what was suggested, build a little cave in front of the kick using some chairs, and draped them over with a ton of fabric/blankets to build the little kick cave. It definitely improved the tracking, but I still had to deal with some bleed.


Thanks guys, I knew I could count on you! :)
I will definitely try Tim's method. Btw, Tim, did you use an external kick sample or you sampled it from the original track?
Regarding the classic gating, I already tried the fast attack and shorter hold time but as I said, on some faster parts the snares are very close and can still be heard and if I reduce the hold time even more I lose some critical sustain from the kick hits.
In a few instances I tried singling out the snare hits and reducing the gain, which works great but there are too many of them left + a couple of other songs, so I don't feel like spending hours doing just that.
 
In a few instances I tried singling out the snare hits and reducing the gain, which works great but there are too many of them left + a couple of other songs, so I don't feel like spending hours doing just that.

You know that was an afterthought? Pretty sure the first post will do exactly what you want.
 
A nice thick blanket draped over the icky and mic will also iso the kick.

This, I use it a lot, even with a hole in the kick. I actually cover the whole kick sometimes to take the sound of the kick shell out of the overheads.

Alan.
 
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