Drum Sound

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drummersteve

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Hi There.
ive reecently been playing around with recording drums. the quality of the sound i am getting, in my opinion, is great. the one thing that i am not so happy with is that the drums themselfs dont seem very powerful. they are bright enough, infact maybe even too bright. the equipment i have is:

shure sm57
2 senheisers e604
AKg D112
2 Se Electronics SE1's
Soundcraft Spirit FX16
M-Audio Delta 1010LT
running Cubase SX.
M-audio studiophile Reference Monitors

i have tried different things like applying reverb to the kit, moving my mics around, eqing in different ways, but still the drums dont seem to have the power behind tracks i hear.

obviously, as i am in no means an overly-experienced engineer, neither is my equipment the topnotch stuff, it would be hard to achieve the results of a professionally mixed and produced track. but in general my musicianship is of a rather high standard (not to brag), and my understanding in the world of mixing and producing is pretty good, its not like im an absolute dunce on the
subject... anyway i am waffling, does anybody have any ideas or thoughts of what im missing/what might be wrong? dont insult me too much, everyone has to begin learning somewhere!

Thanks for any response in advance.

Steve
 
If you've adjusted your mics properly and still don't have the punch you want, try compressing the kit slightly as the signals is coming in.

How does your kick drum sound? Gotta have a great kick sound to have a punchy kit....
 
yeh having mentioned that i wasnt overly pleased with the kick sound. it sounded too muffled... not much attack at all. ive tried boosting higher frequencies to bring out the click, bt it didnt work. how do you suggest i mic the kick to give it a real punchy sound? its not the kit itself thats failing in punch, tama rockstar custom, 18x22 kick, so its a nice kit! thanks
p.s il give the compression a go, was that just to the kick or the whole kit? oh yeh n another qu. if im sending all channels of the kit to a group channel n adding reverb there, is there any need to give the single snare channel reverb or not?
 
this might be a stupid question but are you listening to the mixdown on another system or are you only listening through the monitors?

I had a problem getting a "punch" from my sound through my monitors until i added a subwoofer. actually it's the m-audio BSX sub that goes with your monitors. maybe thats what you need.
 
how new are the skins on the kit and how well tuned is it?. The worst kit in the world can sound amazing with fresh skins and proper tuning. Fresh heads make light work

Alec
 
LemonTree said:
how new are the skins on the kit and how well tuned is it?. The worst kit in the world can sound amazing with fresh skins and proper tuning. Fresh heads make light work

Alec
Click to expand...


Adding more on to what LT is saying, when you get new skins try blow drying them to break in the skin a little bit more. Its sort of like putting up that 3M window treatment in the winter, you tape up plastic then blow dry it to tighten it up.
 
I don't use seperate reverbs for my drums personnaly. On the topics of heads (Specifically Bass Drum), Get heads with a center dot and duct tape a quarter to the center dot right where the beater contacts it. This is an old click trick. For more click add another quarter. But be sure the head has a thick center dot, because the quarters will leave a deep impression in the head otherwise (Possible splitting the head).
 
Somebody is selling those click dots...

but I forget who. Two quarters are cheaper though. :D

Where's the link to the mp3 so we can really critique this sound?
 
drummersteve said:
yeh having mentioned that i wasnt overly pleased with the kick sound. it sounded too muffled... not much attack at all. ive tried boosting higher frequencies to bring out the click, bt it didnt work. how do you suggest i mic the kick to give it a real punchy sound? its not the kit itself thats failing in punch, tama rockstar custom, 18x22 kick, so its a nice kit! thanks
p.s il give the compression a go, was that just to the kick or the whole kit? oh yeh n another qu. if im sending all channels of the kit to a group channel n adding reverb there, is there any need to give the single snare channel reverb or not?
Click to expand...


You may want to give this a read. http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/feb01/articles/drummix.asp
 
Good link...

I need to buy 3 more gate/compressers! :mad:
 
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