Brickwalled drums

  • Thread starter Thread starter RideTheCrash
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RideTheCrash

RideTheCrash

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When I record my drums I have to set all the volumes low because when I do something like a snare fill it tends to hit 0 and be a brickwall. And I'm not a very hard hitter either. So I have to set them low and then boost it on Cool Edit. Is there some better way of doing this? Like... I don't think many people compress during tracking...
 
Learn to control yer dynamics there buddy. But, that's the way most drummers are:D
 
I sometimes compress during tracking. Or you could just set them all low like you said and compress when mixing. It' up to you, but you really don't wanna clip.
 
Trust me Hang Dawg, I've got my dynamics, I play softer than most drummers and a normal snare/tom fill with hit the 'brickwall'. I bet you if you would have the same problem as I if you were here.
 
I set the levels so that the when I smack the snare about as hard as I can, the level peaks around -1 or -2 That's all you can do(besides compress/limit). So what kind of level are you getting on your tracks when you are not doing a fill?
 
I'm not sure. It's not that much of a problem right now. I have shit as mics anyway. Was just curious if stuff like compression during tracking was common, whatever.
 
are you using a mixer and properly adjusting your mic gain? You will always clip if you don't set your input levels
 
Yeah I have a 16 channel Audiopro board. I'll fuck with the settings, thanks, later.
 
I almost always compress drums while I am tracking, I just don't squash the life out of it. I use the compressor to allow me to get an appropriate level to tape (or hard drive, or whatever), and if the song needs more extensive compression, I will do this in the mix stage. Compression is intended for exactly this purpose, to control dynamics which are too wide for the recording format. Using compression in the "artistic" fashion which has become common only came about later. What good is controlling the dynamics as it comes off the tape, if the tape can not handle the dynamics in the first place? There is a big difference between compressing for dynamics control and using compression for color.

So yeah, you can compress while tracking. Most professional engineers do so, particularly when the drummer’s dynamics are a little wild. From a purely engineering perspective, when dealing with a drummer who’s dynamics are too wide for the format, that is THE proper solution. Recording with the levels low will only lead to a noisy signal, and you are sacrificing dynamic range that way anyway (it does not matter if you are using a 24 bit system if you are only using 12 of them). If you have a drummer who does not need to be compressed, then great, but that is rarely the case. It is the engineer’s job to make it sound good no matter what is happening on the other side of the glass.

Compression frequently gets a bad reputation on this and many other internet forums (I have had people say to me "I don't use compression" as though it made them noble or something, instead of simply inexperienced). The problem is not compression. The problem is overuse of extreme compression.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
They recommend always to compress things like the bass drum during recording. I have a Fostex VF-16, only two channels of compression while recording, so I go with the bass drum and usually a tom, but if you're getting redlines with the snare, then compress it while recording, that should get the job done.
 
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