Dull lifeless drums - HELP!!!!!!!!

M

MercyfullMusic

New member
Okay, here's the deal....

I have a pretty good setup, tracking room with foam soundtreatment, separate control room, fast PC, Delta 1010 audio card, etc.

My problem is that the drums just sound really low in my mixes, even if I make the drums the loudest instrument in the mix. It just doesn't seem to have "punch". I especially can't get that really cool snare sound you hear on great recordings.

For mics I'm using SM57s mainly with an AT 4041 for overhead and a Beta 52 for the Kick. Prior to going into the Delta card the audio simply goes through the preamps in a small Behringer mixer.

I have had 1 friend with a studio say that because I have such a small room with so much sound absorbtion the drums sound dead (not enough reflections in the room, he said I need great overhead mics with alot of room reflection coming back) and another friend told me that I need things as dead as possible.

My gut feeling from looking at the waveforms in Sonar is that each individual track needs to be compressed. However I have heard people say that many guys don't compress drums, so I'm totally confused. Maybe it's my drummer's kit, I don't know. But I have heard alot of crappy kits for punk bands, etc. sound punchy on recordings so that can't be all of it.

I also don't think mics would make a big enough difference since many great recordings have been done with a 57 on the snare.

Should I get some type of compressor to put in line with the preamp as I'm tracking?

I hope due to the room I have I'm not stuck not being able to get a killer drum sound.

Any other ideas would be much appreciated.

(PS: I'm recording for a power trio so I need the drums to ROCK)

Thanks.
 
hey whats happening...
do the drums sound ok "live" in the room? have you tried tuning up the drums a little higher? maybe have the drummer hit harder, that will bring out the resonance of the drums...
where are you placing the mics?
 
Compression is the key. There is a trick called the 'New York Drum' trick where you take a submix of your drums (or just the overheads) and compress the hell out of them with a fast attack and decay so it is really pumping. On it's own it will sound like crap but there should be very distinctive backbeat and snare hits.

Mix that in with the raw drum tracks and it should instantly sound thicker.
 
i agree with your friend that says you need a brighter room.

padded small room drums have a very specific sound to them. might not be what you are looking for.


a fix it solution: similar to the "new york drums" trick- have an aux send that you distort with a sansamp or something like that and bring that in to taste. sort of gives life...
 
Running your mix through two compressors will help. Set the first one with a high ratio, 15:1 or more, and set kinda slow attacks, so all the intial transients are still there. Then run in through a second round of compression, with an even higher ratio, but with a high threshold (about -4 or -3 db) with the fastest attack and releases and get it pumping, like Tex suggested...
 
NY Trick

Chris,
You mentioned using 2 compressors, is the first on the original tracks and the second being the NY drum trick, or are you talking about 2 additional compressed mixes while still leaving a set of tracks unchanged to mix in too?

Also should the AUX send be pre- or post EQ since I'm using the EQ in Sonar for Kick, Snare, etc. or should I not even worry about EQ on it at all that point?
 
You can always "cheat" and use gates on the snare and BD along with sound replacement software to trigger perfect samples from your actual drum performace while keeping the real cymbals.
 
These all sound like good suggestions. Has anyone else ever heard of not compressing drums? Now I HAVE heard everything.

Here is what I have to add to the fine suggestions already presented:

You need a mic under the snare (maybe out of phase) to get the snap of the snares. Playing with a noise gate on the kick really makes for some great control over your sound. Some have said micing the top and bottom of your toms (with bottoms out of phase) sounds awesome but I haven't tried it yet.

Unfortunately if you've got a really dead sounding kit in a really dead room, you're fighting an uphill battle. This maybe a stupid question, but are you using mufflers or anything that might keep the heads from ringing more?
 
Definitely compression is required, I face same problems too, butI use T.C.finalizer and that gives a punch in the track.
 
Results

Okay,
I played with the NYC trick last night. I think that it definitely did help alot. Alot of the tips above were an immense help, thanks. I kept A/Bing mine and some recordings with really great sounding drums and I think that the drums themselves has alot to do with it. I can make the drums very loud and evident in the mix, however that nice clean cracking snare with just a little reverb trailing it seems to really be a product of a great sounding snare. I think my drummer just had a poorly tuned snare (and I know the head is thrashed). Probably similiar to recording a guitar bought at Toys R Us and wanting it to sound like a Taylor or Martin. It's just not gonna happen. I'm not sure how much of that great snare sound is from the room they recorded in on those good recordings, unfortunately I'm stuck with what I have as far as a tight vocal-booth treatment goes. However I do think that with a good kit I could do some quality stuff. Maybe I'll post some tracks soon and get some feedback from everyone.

PS: I may have a new drummer soon with a great set of drums so I may go back and rerecord everything.

Thanks.
 
Lot`s of good suggestions here, but all of them missed something.....

"the audio simply goes through the preamps in a small Behringer mixer."

Here`s your problem, the B pre`s are not able to deliver the results you`re after.......

Time to go shopping!

Amund
 
Re: Results

MercyfullMusic said:
I can make the drums very loud and evident in the mix, however that nice clean cracking snare with just a little reverb trailing it seems to really be a product of a great sounding snare. I think my drummer just had a poorly tuned snare (and I know the head is thrashed).
Click to expand...

ooh yes.. that's another big issue. A good snare sound starts with a properly tuned drum, of course. One thing that makes a HUGE difference when going to tape, but is not as apparent live, is the metal snares tension (not the heads). Play with this a little along with tweaking the head tension and deadening. You should be able to get any snare to at least sound half way decent if you're willing to fool with it long enough. If that doesn't work, go shell out the $15 bucks for a new head ASAP!
 
High!

A completely different approach would be to replace/support the drums by samples. I did the same thing on a song that I recorded some weekes ago, and in the afterwards, I somehow though that a little fatter snare sound would be nice (our snare was tuned quite high, which gives a very distinctive and nice wound in rehearsals, but I wanted a fatter sound...) I used a D4 drum module from alesis and triggered it by the bass drum asnd the snare. I chose some drum sounds I liked and recorded them onto separate tracks. Then I would mix in these tracks to support the (very crispy and shiny) recorded tracks to beef them up. Rent a triggerable drum module if you don't own one... But IMO it is definitely worth to buy one (maybe used at ebay). I build some simple triggers out of CD covers and am now able to 'sketch' ideas with drums at my home...

There was a thread about drum replacement not too long ago, I think on the PC you should be able to use drumagog...

Well I know you should not try to polish turds, but in my case, it improved the mix crucially....

aXel
 
chessrock said:
Isn't that supposed to be the "New York Vocal" trick?
Click to expand...

Fuck if I can keep up with all the New York tricks.

Keilson- Who's they? Compressed overheads were a big part of the Bonham sound.
 
First things first - you can't make a good recording of crappy drums (or crappy anything)

http://www.drumweb.com/profsound.shtml

Remember - if you can't find a place in the room where you like the sound, neither will $3 MILLION worth of recording gear, no matter WHO's at the controls... Steve
 
Drum Triggering

What are you calling drum triggering? Is the software actually triggering a MIDI drum sample from what it sees on each of my drum tracks or would I simply be using a MIDI keyboard or something and manually hitting keys where hits should be? And if the software is reading it how does it handle mic bleed? Would snare in a tom tom mic set off a tom tom sample?

Please help, I'm a guitarist first not a drummer or big MIDI guy. I do have a MIDI keyboard though and I know SONAR also has Session Drummer which I think is for drum machine type work.

Also I have been toying with the idea of just recording with a metronome on a track and then paying a session guy with a great kit to come in and nail it with what he thinks is best. Does this work out well? I think that's how most recordings of pop stuff goes, but I'm not sure about rock stuff.
 
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