Repairing Stereo Drum Mixdown with Multi-Band Compression?

[scottmd06]

I was curious if I played around with my multi-band compressor if I could clean up some old drum tracks from my early days of recording. I used to just run the mics through a sound board, get a good headphone mix and then record it down to 2 tracks (left + right, stereo track). I was unable to use some takes because the kick drum would be far too boomy and or quiet and the highs would get crushed when I'd attempt compressors. Would I be able to hone in on some of those low-end frequencies the kick is sitting in and bring them up as well well as taking the boomy-ness out of them?

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

I was curious if I played around with my multi-band compressor if I could clean up some old drum tracks from my early days of recording.

There's only one way to find out, Scott.

G.

 

[scottmd06]

lol what I meant to ask was if anyone had successfully done this.. I'm at school right now and don't have access to my recordings and/or software... Has anyone been able to successfully bring out a lost kick drum using multi-band compression?

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

lol what I meant to ask was if anyone had successfully done this.. I'm at school right now and don't have access to my recordings and/or software... Has anyone been able to successfully bring out a lost kick drum using multi-band compression?

Yes, it is possible and it has been done. Whether it'll work for you and your recordings there's no way to predict.

Will turning my steering wheel to the left work in keeping a car on the road? Yes, sometimes. But without knowing where you are and where you want to go, there's no way of knowing if that'll put you on the right road or whether it'll turn your car into the wall of a children's day care center.

This also applies to your question about RMS levels for the various tracks. It just doesn't work that way, you can't mix by numbers - at least not with a whole lot of sustained success. You gotta develop your ears, listen to the mix, and do what it tells you to do.

G.

 

[jndietz]

I love SSG's analogies

 

[noisewreck]

I have a trick that I pull from time to time when working with drum loops/breaks especially at faster tempos that you could describe as "multiband envelope shaping".

WARNING: While this works for short drum loops, it will get very tedious.
DISCLAIMER: While this works for electronic music, it will likely sound like ass (or unnatural) with other genres that depend on drums sounding like real acoustic drums

Ok, with those two out of the way...

1. Take a drumloop, drum track and chop it up into individual hits. Using a dedicated software such as ReCycle for this will make your life much easier, although, you will still need to tweak the results to make sure you grab all the hits.
2. Put that chopped up mess onto (in your case) two tracks.
3. Using a linear phase EQ, cut off the bottom from track 1. Solo the track, and sweep the LowCut filter up until you get the bottom end of the kick out.
4. Using a linear phase EQ, ideally the same make/model as track 1, take out all the highs and mids on track 2. The cutoff frequency for this HiCut filter might be the same as the LowCut on track 1, but it might actually be a bit higher then that, depending on the EQ at hand. What I normally do to get the ideal cutoff frequency for this filter is have another copy of the drum track w/o any treatment on it, then Mute/Solo between the untreated track and the tracks with EQ on them and adjust the EQ frequency on the 2nd track until there is very little or no difference between the two.
5. Adjust the envelope of each slice on the "bass" track to take away boomyness.

As to how you adjust the envelope on each slice will depend on the DAW you are using. In Cubase, you can adjust fade-in and fade-out of each audio part very easily.

So, like I said, this will be OK for short 4-8 bar drum loop, but will be tedious if you are dealing with a 5 minute track

Of course this "multiband" treatment opens up other interesting possibilities where you can treat each frequency band in a different way, but for the purposes of this discussion, I'll stop here.

 

[noisewreck]

I love SSG's analogies

Same here If only most of them didn't make me hungry

 

[LeeRosario]

I was curious if I played around with my multi-band compressor if I could clean up some old drum tracks from my early days of recording. I used to just run the mics through a sound board, get a good headphone mix and then record it down to 2 tracks (left + right, stereo track). I was unable to use some takes because the kick drum would be far too boomy and or quiet and the highs would get crushed when I'd attempt compressors. Would I be able to hone in on some of those low-end frequencies the kick is sitting in and bring them up as well well as taking the boomy-ness out of them?

why don't you just try some type of transient designer type program? That or "upwards" expansion. Put some emphasis back on the attack of the drum hits. Maybe some multiband compression to control the boom.

I think that combined with some basic EQ is the best bet...simplicity is better here i think.

 

[scottmd06]

I've never heard of a transient designer I'll have to check that out. I had the habit in my early recording experience to boost low frequencies in the live mix while recording the kick drum and relying on that sound for the sound of the kick when in reality I should have just been letting the kick sound natural and then adding some sub frequencies later that would accent it...

I just saw a youtube vid for the SPL Transient Designer plug-in but the drum tracks I have are a stereo mixdown.. I don't have the individual tracks because the drums were recorded as a live mix through a board straight to a stereo wav file...

 

[LeeRosario]

I've never heard of a transient designer I'll have to check that out. I had the habit in my early recording experience to boost low frequencies in the live mix while recording the kick drum and relying on that sound for the sound of the kick when in reality I should have just been letting the kick sound natural and then adding some sub frequencies later that would accent it...

I just saw a youtube vid for the SPL Transient Designer plug-in but the drum tracks I have are a stereo mixdown.. I don't have the individual tracks because the drums were recorded as a live mix through a board straight to a stereo wav file...

Waves sells a similar version as a Trans X pack. It works on stereo as well as mono. The cool thing here is that it also has a multiband feature, so it's almost like combining a multiband compressor and transient designer into one tight package.

I use it on rare special occasions (like softening a bass, or spiking up a piano and spicing up drum tracks).

Basically almost anything with good transient material it can possibly do wonders for.

 

[mixsit]

I was curious if I played around with my multi-band compressor if I could clean up some old drum tracks from my early days of recording. I used to just run the mics through a sound board, get a good headphone mix and then record it down to 2 tracks (left + right, stereo track). I was unable to use some takes because the kick drum would be far too boomy and or quiet and the highs would get crushed when I'd attempt compressors. Would I be able to hone in on some of those low-end frequencies the kick is sitting in and bring them up as well well as taking the boomy-ness out of them?

You've sort of gone in two directions here, but just to take a stab- 'boomy and tone balances in general first with eq. then perhaps split the low end off, and transient designer. Otherwise that plug would seem to like to grab the prominent things on the kit that are already sharp' (like the snare?
(Does this end up like where noisewreck was going -I didn't follow some of that.

Scratch that. It would have to be a 'side chain of the low into 'transient (does the plug do that?) otherwise there would be no 'top left on the output side for it to 'smack with.
Hell's may's wells DrumaDog it at this point! : > )

 

[mixsit]

Waves sells a similar version as a Trans X pack. It works on stereo as well as mono. The cool thing here is that it also has a multiband feature, so it's almost like combining a multiband compressor and transient designer into one tight package.

Ha! I went in a big circle, when I could just as well left well enough alone.

 

[LeeRosario]

Ha! I went in a big circle, when I could just as well left well enough alone.

Circles are ok in my book. It's those straight lines I try to stay away from

 

[noisewreck]

Does this end up like where noisewreck was going -I didn't follow some of that.

Not sure I follow the comparison between multiband transient shaping and what I do. Although I can see where you can sort of think of them similar in a way, but they work at opposit ends.

With a transient designer you are affecting the beginning of the sound, making the transient "pop" out more. With my method, I shorten the decay of the sound, while leaving the transient almost intact. By shortening the overall envelope of the lower frequencies, I cut down on the boomyness w/o impacting the beefyness of the transients, plus it helps me control overall low end clutter. It being a manual process, it is certainly tedious, but you have tremendious control over the overall sound.

 

[mixsit]

Not sure I follow the comparison between multiband transient shaping and what I do. Although I can see where you can sort of think of them similar in a way, but they work at opposit ends.

With a transient designer you are affecting the beginning of the sound, making the transient "pop" out more. With my method, I shorten the decay of the sound, while leaving the transient almost intact. By shortening the overall envelope of the lower frequencies, I cut down on the boomyness w/o impacting the beefyness of the transients, plus it helps me control overall low end clutter. It being a manual process, it is certainly tedious, but you have tremendious control over the overall sound.

Yeah. I wasn't sure at first reading that you were using two copies of the diced' track then eq's as crossovers. At that point we were on the same tack.
There is however the second function of the transient plug that reduces sustain. I've had 50/50 sucess with the sustain' section on tightening the shape on a bass track for example but again on either end, not sure how it'd react on a premixed kit.