Do you ever gate the Toms at the mixing stage?

[punkin]

Nothing goes wrong if you gate toms the way i do.

1.acoustic trigger taped to the shell of the drum.
2.trigger signal out to sidechain of the gate.
3.tom mic to pre-amp.
4 pre-amp signal to gate in.
5.gate out to interface.

The trigger signal actually reaches the gate about 3 to 5 ms. before the mic signal does so there is never a missed attack, set the release to taste.

Another cool thing about this trick is enables you to use LD condenser mics on the toms.
Which IMHO sounds better than a 57,md421 or dynamic of the like.

Fool proof.

Hey xFinsterx,

Which triggers are you using? Just curious. We've been using head mount units but performance on the toms has been iffy. I more or less just gave up on the idea.

Thanks

 

[xfinsterx]

Out of curiosity, how is that the signal gets from the trigger a whole 3 to 5 ms earlier? My bet is that it actually happens less than 1 ms different which is far below the threshold of gates.

1.Go buy a pintech trigger xstatic, and tape it to the side if a drum shell.
2.patch it into one channel.
3.Then mic the same tom.
4.Record a few attacks on that tom.
5.Find out for yourself that i dont write these posts with unfounded shit in them.

Also, how does the triggering allow you to use LD mics any differently than without the triggers?

Drummers with low cymbals.
Drummers who bash the crap out of the cymbals.
People who do the above AND hit the toms weakly.
I dont like bleed.
etc etc
[/QUOTE]

I love LD mics on toms. Just not with rock.

I disagree 100%

I am a big fan of lightly blending a good triggered sound with Kick and toms for a lot of heavier stuff. Especially in a live setting.

This quote makes me feel like you didnt actually understand what i was explaining to you. There are no samples being introduced in this type of triggering. The trigger simply gates the original toms.




Have a nice day!

 

[xfinsterx]

Hey xFinsterx,

Which triggers are you using? Just curious. We've been using head mount units but performance on the toms has been iffy. I more or less just gave up on the idea.

Thanks

I use the pintech Rs5's
http://www.pintechworld.com/Triggers/RS-5/RS5_1.jpg
I just use a little gaffers tape on the edge of the shell to hold them snug.
With the proper threshhold settings you should have no issues.

 

[xstatic]

I guess I didn't understand your first post completely. It sounds like you took mine pretty personally and I am not really sure why. i do understand a bit more about what you are saying now. I still don't see how triggered gates allow you to use LD mics any differently. Either way the mic is picking up other crap. With that amount of bleed, every time the gates oen up on toms the bleed will drastically increase which to me creates a larger problem than ungated toms. Bleed is a fact of life sometimes. The way I see it is that if you can't beat it, try and work with it.

As far as the 3 to 5 ms thing. I just figured logically that there should not be that long of a gap in electrical impulses when the mic is only 1" or 2" from the tom head. Maybe someday if I am somewhere that I can get the triggers and remember, I will. Until then, arguing over the actual time is pretty low on my priority list.

Sorry if you took what I said personally. I felt my questions and statements were valid and logical.

 

[firby]

Dear recording guys.

It's called a fill not a roll. A roll is like at the beginning of the star spangled banner. A fill is like the intro to the Hawaii Five O theme.

Regards,
Firby --- Rhythm Nazi !

 

[punkin]

Yeah...a roll is what hangs out over the wasteband of my speedo

 

[geet73]

Dear recording guys.

It's called a fill not a roll. A roll is like at the beginning of the star spangled banner. A fill is like the intro to the Hawaii Five O theme.

Regards,
Firby --- Rhythm Nazi !

There is such thing as a single stroke roll...

Psh.

 

[noisedude]

I'm tempted not to worry too much about drumming terms when my third lesson was spent trying to spell paradiddlediddle out loud.

My temptation is to gate and then bounce down so I have originals and processed tracks too. But if I've got the time and patience I'd rather edit them in and out graphically on the computer. I find gates only take a few mins to set with the drummers I work with - they're all one volume (loud) players so setting gates only takes a few minutes, maybe two runs through a song.

 

[xstatic]

When I gate I take a look at what appears to be the quietest section. Then I setup a loop and solo the channel until i have the gate tuned well to the quietestof the tom hits that are there. If you have a lot of bleed form cymbals and snare on the track then gating or editing may not work. The problem is that if there is too much bleed, than when you edit and your tom track comes in for a hit, it may also create a definate yet short burst of volume for those other things that were bleeding so much. Basically if the drummer hits a crash at the same time as a tom, when that edited tom track comes in it also has the crash so that crash may poke right out of the mix. This isn't true in every scenario. It all really depends on how loud you already have your overheads and room mics in the mix, and how loud the crash on the tom track is compared to the volume of the tom itself, compared to how loud you have the tom track in the mix. Also, if you need to add any high EQ boosts to the tom for attack purposes, it may make the other signals on that tom track (i.e. cymbal bleed) really harsh and even more apparent. What it really boils down to for me is trackiong it right from the get go. Once you are tracked, than establishing how bad the bleed is and how it will affect your other channels during mixdown. If the bleed is really bad it often changes how I mix the Overheads and room mics and whether or not I do or don't use gates.

 

[punkin]

Thanks xstatic,

This seems to be exactly where I've been having problems using gating techniques. Upon a first strike, the gate opens then seems to hang while picking up other sounds. When the gate finaly closes, it just sounds all wrong. Virtually impossible to work with in a mix at that point. I've had better results gating my bass drum and snare as I seem to be able to get the EQ to work with me plus, the isolation seems a little better.

 

[KevinDrummer]

I've been experimenting with gating close mics and have gotten pretty good at it. Here's a couple things I've found:

1. Use a good gate plugin with lookahead and lots of tweaks. I'm using the Sonitus gate in Sonar 4.

2. Use generous release times on the gate. This smooths things out.

3. You don't have to gate all the way. Try just reducing db by 10-20 db on the gated parts.

4. The gate I'm using has a "peak punch" mode that adds some good transient sounds to drums specifically.

 

[LRosario]

If I need to use them, yes...


vote for gates.

 

[alanfc2]

thanks for all the ideas folks-
in the end I have ended up keeping the tom mic tracks up and not using a gate after all! I have copied/pasted/bounced the key hits on to their own stereotrack called "drum accents". The little castanette cymbal and a few crashes here& there also live on this track. I found that when I toned down or Killed the tom tracks, that the whole kit suffered, like some snare power and the handy floor tom track which was giving me a little dry punch to the kick.

 

[masteringhouse]

thanks for all the ideas folks-
in the end I have ended up keeping the tom mic tracks up and not using a gate after all! I have copied/pasted/bounced the key hits on to their own stereotrack called "drum accents". The little castanette cymbal and a few crashes here& there also live on this track. I found that when I toned down or Killed the tom tracks, that the whole kit suffered, like some snare power and the handy floor tom track which was giving me a little dry punch to the kick.

Good for you F-gates!

The only time I use them on a regular basis is when the micing under the snare to give the top snare track a bit of "crack", for a special effect like tremolo on a guitar, or when using a side-chain in order to get sloppy tracks that are supposed to be playing together but don't (e.g. gate the double vocal with the lead vocal 'cause the talent can't do this consistently).

Unless you're doing metal the additional bleed from the toms helps round out the drum kit.

 

[firby]

There is such thing as a single stroke roll...

Psh.

Yeah and it is a rudiment and not a musical term dealing with music in bars.

Retard.

PSH.