Drum Recording ... To Compress or not to Compress...that is the question

rjbutchko

New member
I bought a couple of ALESIS 3630's because I needed the gates for drum separation, and I figured what the hey, @ $120.00 a pop, I'll eventually learn to use the compressors properly and maybe it'll turn into a good investment.
So now I find myself with an "overly dynamic" (to put it nicely) drummer, and I'd like to smooth out the performance some.

1) Do I compress the tracks as they go to tape or later?
I'm gating now, so I should compress now, right?
2) As I experement , I notice a "Woosh" sound on the
kick track when Im mucking around with the
compression. ?!?!?!?

So as it becomes more and more evident that I don't know what the hell I'm doing, any help would be greatly appreciated.

Ron
 
Well....

...3630 will NEVER turn into a good investment. Period.... they are pretty crappy.... that woooosh sound describes the typical sound artifacts that the 3630 is known for (and it isn't good!)

As for compression use, check out https://homerecording.com/dynamics.html

Shailat also has a good article, but the link I have for it doesn't work now, so it may have moved...

Bruce
 
Assuming your drummer is intentionally dynamic :D Let me plead on his behalf to go easy on the compression. Good drumming is all about accenting. Accents are only heard as accents when theres what to contrast the accents with. I am a drummer and I use very little compression on drum tracks and though the result is a bit more of a live feel in contrast to the hypercompression currently employed in just about every studio in the western hemisphere, it is more interesting to listen to. I should say that Im not a fan of live feel when it comes to other instruments and at times tend toward overproduction but drums seriously need more dynamic room than the current "standard" (if there is one) allows.
 
Bruce, I was under the (possibly mistaken) impression that the 3630 was among the more popular units available.
I take it the noise I'm getting is unavoidable with the 3630. I thought I was just screwing something up.
I've read all the articles I can find on useing compression and (more importantly?) not useing it, and they all say to experement with it till you find something that works.
I have also found web pages that offer some possible compressor settings as a starting point, but they all seem to contradict each other. ARRGHHH!!!

As for my poor drummer, I don't so much think its his fault I decided to try using the compression to begin with, as MOST of his playing is pretty smooth. I may just need to invest in better mics and putz around with their placement a bit more. (thereby eliminateing the need for compression at all !)
 
http://www.geocities.com/shailat2000/Compression.html

I don't think compression is going to help bad drumming, no matter HOW good the compressor is, and the 3630 certainly isn't among the more popular compressors in the world today...:)

As for the Gates, unless you are subgrouping the drums to a couple of tracks, you may want to save using them until you mix, that way you don't record with gates. Not such a great idea really, but if you are having to subgroup the drums, then you would probably have to.

Here is something you may try in place of compression while tracking the drums.

Try really slamming the preamp input, and reducing the output going to tape. Be aware that this may introduce distortion, but if you find that sweet spot, the gentle clipping an preamp may offer will tame down some of those transient peaks you are seeing with the drummer, and hopefully give the drums a smoother sound, without actually sounding like you used compression. I use several ART Tube MP's while tracking drums to do this very thing, which allows me to go a bit more extreme with clipping the preamp then a solid state preamp will. But, I have used this technique before with my Soundcraft Pro, Mackie, Yamaha, and Allen and Heath preamps succesfully.

Good luck.

Ed
 
what are your compression settings? how much gain on the pre-amp?

how drastically are you trying to compress the drummer, and where is your threshold set? the 3630 will not save the world, but i've used comparably crude gear and gotten over.

remember that the point when recording is not necessarily to limit the drummers dynamics as much as it is to keep the drummer from red lining while at the same time making sure you get a 'hot' enough signal to tape... you did say you are recording to tape, but you didn't say whether it was analog or digital, which adds to the discussion greatly.

if you compress just enough to keep the drummer from clipping during recording, you can always compress more during mixdown to squash his dynamic range. i've heard that some people (i've never done this) only limit during tracking and save the compression for mixdown. of course, this means that your gain can't be up too high, because limiting is the ultimate compression. what i've also seen (this i've done, but in a larger studio not mine) is having a compressor with a limiter behind it. the compression is gentle in hopes that the limiter never engages, but the limiter will save you from a bad take.

ps.
JuSumPilgrim, if you think i'm going to let your dynamic drums out-shine my incredible guitar solo, man you are smoking the wackiest of weeds! ... this is known as the moment the band had artistic differences.
 
3630's

ahh, they're not THAT bad! sure there not the ideal choice, but when ive had to produce in other studios, ive managed to make great mixes using some 3630's in the rack. :-) a miracle maybe, but it sounded good! became a single too!
 
Re: 3630's

LongWaveStudio said:
ahh, they're not THAT bad! sure there not the ideal choice, but when ive had to produce in other studios, ive managed to make great mixes using some 3630's in the rack. :-) a miracle maybe, but it sounded good! became a single too!
Agreed... they can be used (if there's no other choice), but you have to pay attention to any unwanted artifacts that get easily introduced. Also - the circuits tend to become chaotic very easily - especially when pushed.

Bruce
 
Maybe I should explain my thought process a little:

As to the dynamics, the drumming feels tight when we rehearse, but when we were recording to a 4 track (TASCAM 424 mk3) the kick would get lost in the mix, and because all the drums had been mixed down to one track, there was no way to bring it back without making the entire track too loud. So when I found a used AKAI DPS 12 for cheap, I figured " six inputs, 12 tracks, problem solved. " Boy was I wrong!


I tried to mic everything seperately so that the kick, snare and toms would have their own tracks, a couple of overhead mics would catch the cymbals & hi-hat and go to two more tracks. This would leave empty tracks to record guitar, bass and vocals seperately. The idea was to have better control of the mix, but, of course, everything bled all over everything else.


So after much soul searching, asking questions and reading, I figured gates were the answer, hence the pair of 3630s. Unfortuneately, I wound up haveing to set the gates pretty tight (for example, on the kick I set the threshold at abuot -25 dB and the rate at about 300ms ) and wound up killing the performance. Come to think of it, the weird noise I'm getting may be the gate closing.


I figured " okay, the separation is there, but the gates snap shut and nothing breathes " so I wanted to try to fix THAT with some compression, cuz I've read about using compression to add sustain to guitars, and thought that might help my drum tracks.


As for settings, Useing the Kick as an example again they are as follows: threshold 0db ratio 4:1 attack 5ms release 500ms output +10. This may seem stupid to those with more expeience with this stuff, but this was the best I could do at the time.


Now that I'm looking at all these settings after having been away from them for a while, am I createing a conflict between the compressor's release time (500 ms) and the gate's rate (300 ms) ?

I will be reading the articles at Shailat's link. Thanks, Sonusman and Shailat for posting it, and thanks to everyone for taking the time to try to help me out

Ron
 
I actually like to do a "small" amount of compression on the kick and snare while tracking. Usually about 3:1 or 4:1 on the kick, and about 4:1 or 5:1 on the snare. I usually don't compress toms or overheads while tracking. I've also found that too fast an attack tends to make the drums seem "lifeless".
When mixing, I like to take the kick, snare, and toms, and send them to busses 1 and 2. I'll strap a good stereo compressor across the busses ( I love my Joemeek sc2.2 for this, esp. in "dark mode" ), crank up the compression to about 10:1, and mix this in "behind" the actual drum tracks. I find that doing this adds "punch" and "immediacy" to the drum tracks.
Andy
 
Well, while web tv (and my contract...) prevent me from putting anything new on the web in mp3 format, you can go to www.loudenergy.com and check out my band, transmatic...we're on the front page. I think that they've (loud energy) posted mp3's of a few of our songs on the site. On the original version on "blind spot", this method was used, and the compressor across the busses was a urei 1178. On the ep that we did with Brad Wood, we used two purple audio mc76's. If I remember correctly, Brad likes to compress the drums to tape a bit more (higher ratio's) than I do....Then again, he's got platinum albums, so he's doing something right. :)
Andy
 
yea man,

Well, yea, good drumming, is all in the accents, and rythhm, of course. Anyway, I'd like to say that accenting is a very important too. Unless unintentional. What I do is just eq the bass drum a bit up as my bass drum is silent when recorded. But if your drums are accented in the right places, don't try to take em out, if they're unintentional, then go ahead. Whatever floats your boat.
 
Okay, I've given up on trying to fix what is essentially just a crappy recording. I know, I know, 11 out of 10 people have said that you can't really do that, you gotta get it right and compression be damned, but I guess I just had to learn for myself


I'm starting to get better stuff recorded without gates, compressors, etc., but for some reason everything sounds a little muffled. I only have a cheap peavey 2 bus mixer, some effects (which I'm not using for now) and an akai dps12. No cool monitors, just stereo speakers. I know I'm going to have to spend more $$$, but I am determined to get good stuff down on my less than perfect equipment first.

Ron

BTW, Andy... Congratulations!!!
 
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