Compressing Limiting Drums?

gregsk777

gregsk777

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I don't claim to know what I am doing, but does anyone compress or limit drum tracks before even beginning to mix?

I use two room condenser mics on drums and notice that there are always large peaks in the wav files. I usually use a hard limiter to chop the tops off and then add a little compression afterwards. Sometimes I do the compression first then the hard limiter.

Is this a good practice or something I should stay away from?
 
gregsk777 said:
I don't claim to know what I am doing, but does anyone compress or limit drum tracks before even beginning to mix?

I use two room condenser mics on drums and notice that there are always large peaks in the wav files. I usually use a hard limiter to chop the tops off and then add a little compression afterwards. Sometimes I do the compression first then the hard limiter.

Is this a good practice or something I should stay away from?
Click to expand...

Nothing is written in stone, what ever gets you to your final destination.
But most don't do anything regarding comp till it's all in the box first.








:cool:
 
gregsk777 said:
I don't claim to know what I am doing, but does anyone compress or limit drum tracks before even beginning to mix?
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Sure. All the time. Listen to some 80's Genesis albums for one example. That's a room mic slammed into the console's limiter...and I'm pretty sure it went to tape that way.

I use two room condenser mics on drums and notice that there are always large peaks in the wav files. I usually use a hard limiter to chop the tops off and then add a little compression afterwards. Sometimes I do the compression first then the hard limiter.
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...It's a drum kit, not a pipe organ. Not only is it supposed to have large peaks, it HAS to have large peaks. The only way for a drum track to not contain large peaks is to have it lowered beneath the noise floor.
Is this a good practice or something I should stay away from?
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Turn off you computer monitor. Map everything you need to shortcut keys. Never do anything based on what the drawing of the wave looks like.
 
gregsk777 said:
I don't claim to know what I am doing, but does anyone compress or limit drum tracks before even beginning to mix?

I use two room condenser mics on drums and notice that there are always large peaks in the wav files. I usually use a hard limiter to chop the tops off and then add a little compression afterwards. Sometimes I do the compression first then the hard limiter.

Is this a good practice or something I should stay away from?
Click to expand...
Like moresound said, there are no hard-and-fast rules.

But what you're talking about is not unusual. Personally, I prefer to knock down rogue peaks via manual editing rather than use a limiter, because I like to keep the number of plugs to a minimum, but that's just a personal choice, there are many others who are satisfied with using a limiter.

BTW, modifying a track in such a way in the editor after recording it *is* part of mixing. Just because you're working on it soloed doen't mean it's not part of the overall mixing process.

But one should be careful on just what they do soloed and what the do within the context of or all of the rest of the tracks. Taming rogue peaks is fine to do soloed.

G.
 
The reason I started to do it is because those rogue peaks clip easier while the meat of the drum recording is like 8db below. I usually just limit the top extreme peaks so not to effect anything else.

The peaks are usually associated with cymbals (I am not a huge fan of bright cymbals) and the sound I am going for is that flat Steve Albini In Utero sound.
 
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If you want the Steve Albinin In Utero sound I would not put a limiter on the drums. Compression, sure. Limiter, no.


Besides, if you're getting cymbal hits 8db louder than the rest of the kit, either a mic is in a "sub optimal" position or the drummer isn't controlling himself well enough.
Not to mention that when mixing you should have more than 8db above the meat of the drums so you shouldn't be clipping anyway.
 
Chibi Nappa said:
Besides, if you're getting cymbal hits 8db louder than the rest of the kit, either a mic is in a "sub optimal" position or the drummer isn't controlling himself well enough.
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Both are probably true. I'll try some compression on drums. I was also thinking of playing with high or low pass filters on the drums, but I guess I should stay away from those also:)
 
Try this first: Put a single mic about 10 feet away from your drum kit and just play the part. Then listen back to that one mic. At any point in the performance, does the drum kit sound unbalanced? If so, look at the wave file in an editor in that place. Is there a giant spike there? If so, when you play for the final recording, don't hit so hard in that one place.

If nothing sounds unbalanced and after listening you look at the wave and see large spikes...then those spikes are probably useful musical information.
 
Chibi Nappa said:
...then those spikes are probably useful musical information.
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Thanks, I think that was my problem. I just thought they were annoying spikes because the look so thin when I examine the wav file. When I remove them using a limiter the final product sounded exactly the same to my ears. I guess those spikes come in when mastering and make a difference.

But like Moresound said... Nothing is written in stone
 
gregsk777 said:
I use two room condenser mics on drums and notice that there are always large peaks in the wav files.
Click to expand...
Back off on your input levels and STOP LOOKING AT WAVE FORMS.

This is getting so beyond ridiculous... Are 'dynamics' the enemy now?

Sorry - One of those days... [/RANT]
 
Massive Master said:
Back off on your input levels and STOP LOOKING AT WAVE FORMS.

This is getting so beyond ridiculous... Are 'dynamics' the enemy now?

Sorry - One of those days... [/RANT]
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I come from a technical coding web design background so it is a force of habit! I am just starting to learn about mixing/mastering and figured I would learn from a technical stand point.

Back when I first started playing guitar and recording stuff without any knowledge I felt I got good results. The two worst things I ever did was learn the blues scale and try to learn to mix and record properly! I feel more confused then ever but am slowly learning. Probably need to use my ears more and upgrade my old Fostex monitor speakers.
 
moresound said:
I back up all of my files to clay tablets!!!!! ;)
We need hieroglyphic smileys.
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You need to get yourself one of those new 600 Gigacubit backup tablets
smiley_tut.jpg


G.
 
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