Dooom Dooomm...How do you get that tom sound?

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ChuckU

ChuckU

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I'm pretty happy with my drum mixes given my experience and equipment. Snare, kick, hats, cymbals all sound pretty good. But I'd like a little more ring in the toms. Is this eq? Compression? Multi-band compression? Drum tuning? Effects on tracking?
 
It's all about the drums, tuning and room sound. You can somewhat make up for the room sound with close micing and effects but to get that perfect tone it's all about the kit itself.
 
I think the room's ok and this kit has been recorded at a pro studio and the toms were awesome there. "Dooomm Dooomm." You know, that pitch drop during the decay.

I was on John Sayers' website and it said that tuning was where this would come from. So I'll try it. One of the techniques was to tune the bottom heads a fourth higher than the tops and to loosen one of the top lugs in comparison to the others.
 
I think the sound you are looking for is what happens when you tune the kit perfectly, then detune one peg.
 
Tune the reso head like 3 steps down or so from the batter./
 
DaveDrummer said:
Tune the reso head like 3 steps down or so from the batter./
Click to expand...

I think for the effect he's after, tuning the resos higher than the batters will work better.

When tuning the batter head, try and find the 'sweet spot' - the point at which both the head and the shell are humming in unison
 
Basically there are 2 ways of doing this.
1 = as discussed already above, get the sound you want by tuning the toms so they create tha sound naturally. The disadvantage of this is that you will get the ooooooomppppffffff in all your other mics as well, which doesn't do the overal picture much good, which leads us to
2 = tune the toms to get the right note, but dampen them, and add the oooooooompppfff with a good reverb
 
assuming you have a decent drum kit and heads that are not beaten to death here is how i have always gotten good results.

When tuning one side of the drum make sure that the other head is muffled so you can actually hear the head you are tuning.

Make sure that each lug is tuned to exactly the same tension

Then repeat with the other side


By evenly tensioning each lug you are able to utilize the natural resonance of the shell to its fullest. This will give you the decay for the sound you are looking for. To acheive the boom boom sound ie. Carter Beaufords toms, I have always tuned my top heads looser than the bottoms and close miced them.

That should help. Tuning is the key.
 
probestyle said:
Make sure that each lug is tuned to exactly the same tension

Then repeat with the other side

By evenly tensioning each lug you are able to utilize the natural resonance of the shell to its fullest. This will give you the decay for the sound you are looking for...I have always tuned my top heads looser than the bottoms and close miced them.

That should help. Tuning is the key.
Click to expand...
I did exactly that, except I left one lug looser than the others on the top head, per John Sayers' website.

The top and bottom heads on all toms were previously tuned the same, which is why the toms were lifeless IMO. I got vastly better results this time around.

I will try to tune all lugs the same and see what happens. I think there's still room for improvement, but I'm on the right track.
Thanks
 
did I miss what kind of wood your shells are? That does make a big difference!
RF
 
I'm wondering if I'd have better luck with the drums in a different room than the mixer. I'm not really able to monitor them to hear what's coming thru the board. Should I eq the input signal? If so, any rules of thumb frequency-wise? Compression?
 
again this is my newb suggestion but it works for me... assuming your drums are tuned decently. If i want a lot more decay or ring id try micing the bottom on the reso side. It gives less attack which can be a downside but can be worked on. Iv had some pretty good luck with micing toms on the bottom. This is most likely only if nothing else works.

good luck
 
ChuckU said:
I'm wondering if I'd have better luck with the drums in a different room than the mixer. I'm not really able to monitor them to hear what's coming thru the board. Should I eq the input signal? If so, any rules of thumb frequency-wise? Compression?
Click to expand...

Well, here we are a couple of months later....

First off, new heads. I bought Remo pinstripes for the rack and floor toms.

Tuned the reso heads without the batter heads on.

We stretched the new heads and tuned them a step and a half lower than the reso.

Most important - Moved the drums out of the same room as the monitors and mixer.

EQ'd to taste on input. Roughly those set down on John Sayers's website.

Man, it's like night and day. First off, changing the heads was the best $45 I've spent on recording in recent memory. An instant audible difference.

Secondly, even though I moved the drums into the next room and could still hear them thru the walls, I was able to monitor the signal going to tape very reliably.

Now that I have a sound I can work with I may try some of the other things suggested here (detuning a peg, changing the pitch of the reso head, etc), but for now I'm quite happy.
 
That detuning one peg is interesting.

Do you not run the risk of warping the shell with uneven lug tensions?
 
Bulls Hit said:
That detuning one peg is interesting.

Do you not run the risk of warping the shell with uneven lug tensions?
Click to expand...

only if the drums are made of balsa wood. Guys have been doing that forever to avoid ring. Sometimes I tune my snare to different notes in different places on the head. Drums aren't that fragile.
 
A friend of mine managed to warp his snare. It's only an 8 lug with pressed hoops but it's got a steel shell.

Maybe they used that new balsa steel
 
Oh yeah, just because a room had a good drum sound recorded in it once is no gaurantee that it will happen for you. You actually have to find the spot in the room where the drums sound best.

Importance in this order (for me)

Player
Tuning
Room
Engineer's experience
Mic position
Mic Type
Preamps
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
(waaaaaaaay down the bottom) Converters


And knowing how to mix drums certainly helps too. Like, in the mixing stage, you don't have to leave those tom mics up the whole time! Mute them and then only unmute them when they actually make a hit.
 
knightsy said:
Importance in this order (for me)

Player
Tuning
Room
Engineer's experience
Mic position
Mic Type
Preamps
.
.
.
.
(waaaaaaaay down the bottom) Converters
.
Click to expand...
Your recording chain is only as good as it's weakest link. Engineer's experience should be on top, ya think?
 
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