The 'Darren King Sound' How?

C

Codeseven

New member
How does Darren King of Mutemath get that unbelievably great sound from his kit? I'm sure he's at very least using lots of EQ and Compression but just judging by his heavily gaff'd heads and same size toms with vastly different sounds, he must be using various Fx plugins and VST samples too, right? Has anybody seen anything written up about this?

Here is #2 of 4 videos from Guitar Center's Drum Off. Check out all four, really great drumming and amazing sound.

Darren King -- Guitar Center Drum-Off 2012 (Part 2 of 4) - YouTube
 
Whoa! 153 views but no answers. I'm still looking around the internet, it must be a trade secret of his and the band or something :) I think I'll just keep messing around with Superior Drummer on my acoustic kit and see how close I can get.
 
Muffle the crap out of all the drums. Use paper thin cymbals. Learn to play like him. Why assume the drums are triggered, compressd and EQ'd?
A drummer's sound usually starts with the drummer and his instrument. So what if he's using two of the same size toms? You can get a large tuning range out of a drum. Also note that the 2 toms are of a different type- the "rack" has a single lug, while the "floor" has two. Yeah, I see he's using single heads (another clue to the sound) but the point is that Ludwig used different shell construction for different series of drums. The 60's Ludwigs he's using are mahogany and poplar, rather soft woods that lend themselves to a less resonant sound. This guy chose his drums for a reason.
Or maybe he just used triggers.
 
You are making a lot of assuptions

Codeseven said:
How does Darren King of Mutemath get that unbelievably great sound from his kit? I'm sure he's at very least using lots of EQ and Compression but just judging by his heavily gaff'd heads and same size toms with vastly different sounds, he must be using various Fx plugins and VST samples too, right? Has anybody seen anything written up about this?

Here is #2 of 4 videos from Guitar Center's Drum Off. Check out all four, really great drumming and amazing sound.
Click to expand...

Ok, you say you don't know how he is getting that drum sound but then go on to say that you are sure that he is using "at very least" lots of EQ and compression and then say he is using various FX plugins and VST samples. If you are really interested in how he is doing that then you should quit assuming all of this since you have made it plain that you donb't know what is happening.
 
Whoa! Easy fellas, just asking if anybody knew for sure how his drum sounds are produced. My apologies for making assumptions.
 
There is absolutely nothing going on here. Yeah I'm sure the soundman ran his mics through some basic eq and compression (I don't think there would ever be a time where they didn't eq something at a live show). His heads are super dead, covered in tape. Their is no tone or resonance whatsoever. They don't even have a distinguishable pitch. So there you go. Get some old tattered, lifeless sounding drums, cover in tape, don't tune them (loosen the hell out of them), and done.

It's a sound that has been done over and over - just listen to a 70's record. It works for some guys and some styles of music, but his drums are likely very quiet in person and very hard to hear over top of a guitar amp at normal volume. So having super dead drums wouldn't be practical unless you will always be mic'ed up or if it is just a practice kit and you are playing by yourself.

Good luck!
 
RecordingMaster said:
There is absolutely nothing going on here. Yeah I'm sure the soundman ran his mics through some basic eq and compression (I don't think there would ever be a time where they didn't eq something at a live show). His heads are super dead, covered in tape. Their is no tone or resonance whatsoever. They don't even have a distinguishable pitch. So there you go. Get some old tattered, lifeless sounding drums, cover in tape, don't tune them (loosen the hell out of them), and done.

It's a sound that has been done over and over - just listen to a 70's record. It works for some guys and some styles of music, but his drums are likely very quiet in person and very hard to hear over top of a guitar amp at normal volume. So having super dead drums wouldn't be practical unless you will always be mic'ed up or if it is just a practice kit and you are playing by yourself.

Good luck!
Click to expand...

Thanks, I appreciate your reply. Interesting stuff really.
 
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