Drum reverb

[stuckatwork]

My band is mixing down our CD(we do a hard rock type of thing) and I was wondering if anyone had some suggestions on how we should handle the reverb on the drums. We've got the drum tracks seperated into to 8 seperate wave files in cubase. We want the overall sound to be fairly dry in the mix kind of like the drum sound on Soundgarden's Badmotorfinger. We didn't have a good sounding room to work with so we went to great lengths to get all the room sound as we could out of the recording. Now we want to place the drums in a "virtual room" but I'm kind of lost on how to approach this. Should we put the same amount of reverb on everything, or none on the kit and only some verb on the snare? The main thing is that we want to keep the whole album sounding pretty dry but we want it all to fit together and sound as close to the big boys as we can. Any suggestions?

 

[Track Rat]

What I do is to apply verb to the snare track and a bit to the overheads only. Reverb on the kick just turns to a wash of mush. For a room sound I like short decay times (less than 1 second). Gated verbs can sound cool too.

 

[stuckatwork]

Thanks Track Rat,
We've got a damn good sounding reveb for the snare, I'll try adding some of that in to the overheads. We've got all the toms miced individually and mixed down onto one track as well. I'm going to try adding a little to them. What are your thoughts on using two different reverbs? Or should the stay consistent?

 

[volltreffer]

High!

I used that two verbs thing a while ago... It was quite promising. I'd use one early refl and one verb tail and was able to blend quite nice. Every track had a blend of both verbs with varying parts... The tailed verb was a 'snare' one, too. So you'd use the early reflections to push something more into the front (you'll have to do that with the bd, as you don't wanna mudden everything). If you add a little cut on the highgs the farer away an instrument shall be placed, you get get very 'spacy' drums.

Ciao

Axel

 

[stuckatwork]

Cool!
The snare tail I've got now I took the early reflections out and just left the verb in. It really added to the snare sound(first time that's ever happened). I have yet to play around with the early reflections side of things and I haven't really got a good grasp on how to use it. On the last project we put out, the only bad feedback we heard was that the drums were too upfront in the mix and kind of distracting. I still don't think they were mixed too loud, just that they didn't have any space. The 2 verbs might be just what I need to keep the drums sounding pretty dry but 3D. Thanx so much for the suggestion!

 

[Track Rat]

Something to try with two units; set one to taste and pan the return left, set the other a bit differently and pan right.

 

[mixmkr]

man...I'm a reverb glutton...but I'll easily have up to half a dozen verbs in a mix. Drums can easily have three verbs in themselves...actually where I put most of them. I like longer decays on the toms, room on the snare..less, but smaller room on the kick...just a nudge, not much...but to make it "like it's there".

then vocal verbs, gtr verbs... aaaah awash in verbs.

 

[heinz]

Don't forget to add a bit of pre-delay to your snare/tom verbs to avoid sucking the life out of them.

 

[Shailat]

You might want to take a look at an article I wrote on drum mixing as it has some mp3's for you to hear.
http://24.61.192.240/

I suggest you read the whole thing but you can jump to the reverb section. It might not be the specific sound your looking for but it will give you an idea.

I would suggest you record the drums with one or two mic (stereo) as ambiance. That would fill the the kit, give it a roomy sound yet keep it somewhat dry. Try some small room reverbs.

As for your question on the rest of the kit.....Its normal to use the same reverb on the toms to help them blend in as you have to choose the amount. The important thing is to make sure the toms dont sound like they are in a completely different enviourment although you can use a different reverb for them.

I would suggest thinking twice against reverb on the OH if you are close micing them as the reverb on the snare and toms should be enough to get a good blend and thats the key to a good sound.