Drum Tracks: To Scrub or not (when?) to scrub.....

[Sonixx]

To what degree, if at all, do you "scrub" the .wav files of your individual drum tracks?

Or do you eliminate the need to "scrub" by effectively using noise gates on the front (or back) end?

A combination of both?

I start out using a gate because it's a lot quicker and then depending, I may have to silence the parts where the gate's having trouble. I try to have the gate do the bulk of the work and then hand touch the trouble spots.

But, whether to use a gate or not depends on the song, genre and player. No gating or minimal gating can lend itself to a much more open and bigger kit, but can play havoc with compression and EQ.

I'd recommend that you record your kit, spend a day or so doing nothing but gating the toms, snare and kick. Try as many different gates as you have. They're all different and act differently. You'll begin to see some consistent setting arise. Make sure you don't lop off the front of the transient wave. Gates with look-ahead or very fast gates work better for drums.

I've posted four quick and dirty clips of my kit:

Kit Demo GatesOFF OverheadsOFF
This is just the close mics. There's a lot of cymbal bleed...

Kit Demo GatesOFF OverheadsON
This is the full kit, no gating...

Kit Demo GatesON OverheadsOFF
This is just the close mics (kick, snare and toms) gated. Not too pretty...

Kit Demo GatesON OverheadsON
This is the full kit with overheads and gating (kick, snare and toms)

One thing to take away is that non-gated close mics can diminish the influence of the overheads, especially if you compress the close mics. Also with gating, you can significantly control the resonance of the kick, snare and toms and can make the close miced drums play a much more significant roll without affecting the overall kit ambiance too much. Additonally, the gate floor can be used to enforce the kit ambiance. With gating, the kit will become tighter and more focused, but IMO not as open and big. The gate floor can help to bridge the gap.

Cheers,
-Keith-

 

[LRosario]

I know you want to be down on the audio engineer lingo and shit, and I can dig it daddy-o.




I always seem to come late for the impressive stuff. Good job corky. All in good spirits though.

 

[Sonixx]

Hey clone boy

I wanna hear some of your work - drums especially do you have anything to show me?

chuck us a link to something man or PM me if your nervous

Jake

sure would love to hear something...

 

[Cloneboy Studio]

I wanna hear some of your work - drums especially do you have anything to show me?

chuck us a link to something man or PM me if your nervous

I have some 'rushes' of my latest session that I dig but are unmixed, uncompressed and still have the guide vocals in them. The studio I work at got busted in last week and we are still waiting for the replacement mixer/insurance company nonsense to blow over.