Dialing In On Toms

[Nick The Man]

That doesn't help, but it shouldn't be catastrophic. Tune the bottom heads lower. The tom needs to go GUH! when you hit it. Now it kind of goes Ping!

yeha yeah i know what your saying thats a good idea ill have to try tommarow.. how much lower do you tune the bottom heads, like in melodic terms. maybe a half step lower? whole step?

 

[Nick The Man]

EQ and compression can be your friend. You might want to turn down the overheads, it sounds awful room-y. That doesn't help the depth of the toms because the overheads really only pick up the attack.

i found when i do this the cymbals werent loud enough.

 

[Farview]

yeha yeah i know what your saying thats a good idea ill have to try tommarow.. how much lower do you tune the bottom heads, like in melodic terms. maybe a half step lower? whole step?

Tune it to the pitch of the shell. Knock on the shell of the drum and tune the bottom head to that. That's a good starting point, but it doesn't always work.

 

[Nick The Man]

oh cool ive never heard of that one.. ill post results tommarow.

other than the toms though im pretty happy with the sound. Nothing is mixed right now just a small EQ adjustment on the kick is all i did.

 

[Farview]

i found when i do this the cymbals werent loud enough.

Send the drums to a group track (group buss) and insert a compressor. Set it at 2/1 ratio, medium attack and release, and set the threshold so you are about 4db into the reduction. That will bring up the cymbals so you can turn them down. It will also beef up the drum sounds.

In a perfect world, you would want to set the release time so that the compressor pumps in tempo with the song.

 

[ecktronic]

You could always go into a commercial studio that you trust the engineers abilities, and ask them to show you how to properly tune your drums to get the best out of them and how much dampening to use if any is needed. They would maybe want some money for it though as it could take up to half an hour to get them perfectly tuned.
Get new skins if you have oldish ones. New skins makes a hell of a difference.
SM58s are good for toms although I found that the Beta52A bass mic works well, on most things although I couldnt see anyone buying numerous amounts of these as they are pretty bulcky and heavy as fek.

Eck