Focus on the Drums Please

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MadMax

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The bass & guitar are quickie scratch tracks, but tell me what you think of my drum mix.
-Thanks
Drum mix
 
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OK, I just changed the link. This one works better. I'm really trying to get a good Rock drum sound. I think the kik is a little "round" sounding and I want to get some more crack out of the snare. I'm kind of new at this so any knowledgeable comments are appreciated.
 
well, what do you have as overheads??? it sounds like you have the drums in mono... that's no good. you need two overheads for cymbols (typically small diaphragm) set these up in stereo (i.e. pointing away from each other in left and right, or crossing each other in left and right) then from there, it sounds like mainly an eq issue on the snare. i get quite a bit of pop out of my overheads on snare, and use my snare mic to get most of the mids. you really must be careful not to effect the stereo imaging when doing so. trust your ears.

as for the kick drum. it sounds pretty good, but if you want it to have more attack, place the mic inside the hole on the front head pointing toward the beater. this will immediately give you more attack...(click). then, shape your sound with eq. use a graphic eq and make a spike in the response line, then move this spike back and forth and up and down to find (aurally) where the kick beater is most prominant. this will give you a much more defined sound!!! horrrrayy!!! good luck bro, and let me know how it goes!!! post some more clips after doing this if you can.

btw, what mics are you using, and what kind of placement technique are you using???

Jacob
 
Thanks. I'm using a pair of Rodent-5's in xy pattern overhead and I've got a D112 inside the kik about 2" off the beater point, and a SP-C1 about 18" in front of the kik. I aligned the waveforms in Sonar so phasing wouldn't be an issue. I think I can tweak the EQ on the kik, but the snare mic (Beta 57 on a 8" chrome Pearl snare) should sound better. I've already got it EQ'ed quite a bit with a 8dB narrow bandwidth bump at 4k. Maybe I need a piccolo snare? Or a bottom mic?
 
piccolo snares are fun!!! i think they sound great... for certain things that is. 2" from the beater is pretty darn close... i'm surprised you got THAT round of a sound!!! if you mic the bottom of the snare as well, you will probably need to reverse the polarity on the bottom mic. i think you should be fine with the mics you have. it's a pretty darn good set up!!! i know you said you have the 5's in x/y pattern, but did you pan them to left and right when mixing???

Jacob
 
Yeah, they're panned 100%. The kik sounds that way because I blended the D112 with the C1. D112 has a hi shelf starting at about 2K. The C1 track is just a big hump around 80-120 hz.
 
right... but there's not a good stereo split between anything really... are you sure that you mixed down and exported the tune out as stereo interleaved??? what program are you using, or is this not a computer based recording system?
 
can you describe in more detail your xy positioning of the nt-5s
 
good point. if they weren't in true xy they wouldn't have decent stereo image at all... but it honestly sounds like it is in straight mono. i hope i'm not alone here.

Jacob
 
To put it visually, this pic shows the 'difference between left and right channels' , effectively showing zero, indicating a straight mono track, plus some noise clicks here and there.
 

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OK, you guys got me thinking.....I'm recording in Sonar and I'm using busses for the drums. When the drum tracks are assigned to the busses, I can't pan them! I wish I knew how to take a screen shot so I could show you. Anyway, that's the problem. Why can't I pan the tracks when they're bussed? The busses are stereo, but when I try to pan them, they do something, it sounds like they're panning somewhere, but the master buss isn't letting them. Does that make sense? Even when they're solo'd, as long as they're assigned to a buss, they won't pan.
I need the busses for mixing & applying effects.
Could this have something to do with my outputs? I'm using a RME Fireface. The channels are assigned to the busses and the busses are assigned to the master buss and the master is assigned to Fireface out 1 (Which I assume is 1&2- that's the way RME numbers the outs. And if it was just output 1, I'd only hear it out of the left channel, besides, it works fine in full stereo when I don't use busses.) ????
 
No, the fireface would only affect what you hear and not what is rendered in sonar. I do not use sonar, so I cannot offer any specific advise, but I would make sure that I don't have a 'mono' option selected somewhere.
 
Update-Remix

OK, I think I figured out the stereo imaging thing. My Master Buss was in mono :o , so now that I've fixed that, I remixed it a little. Check my new mix out.
 
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Kick is nice and heavy for my taste. But the rest of the kit sounds as if farther down in the distance. Also kick sounds more like some of the heavy bands today but the the rest of the kit sounds standard rock 'n roll or even "adult contemporary". Ooops I meant, slow rock. Maybe the kick is just a tad louder.

Nice playing! Nice guitars, too!

One of the toms at 0:22 just jumps out.

Just my honest opinion, not trying to be negative or anything. :)
 
No offence taken, that's exactly what I want. I hadn't even thought about what style I want the drum sound to have...baby steps., Now you've put me in the producer's chair. :o Good thing I don't have a deadline on this project. :D
Thanks Bubba.
 
OK, I remixed the drums and took the comps off the OH's, re EQ'd the kik. What do you think now?
Remix
 
The most recent clip sounds great. Sounds like you combined the best of both worlds - the snappier snare and the rounder kick. The second clip's kick was too
papery I think. Really digging this though; it already sounds great and can only get better for you I'm sure.
 
Nothing jumps out. Pretty interesting how the "slow rock" sound is gone.

Cool drumming, man. I like the sound and playing. :)
 
you know what??? this really reminds me (mainly the guitars) of some mid 70's Zeppelin... like physical graffiti style. sounds great man. really really good.

Jacob
 
Jacobi1211 said:
you know what??? this really reminds me (mainly the guitars) of some mid 70's Zeppelin... like physical graffiti style.

Jacob
Click to expand...

I cannot deny this. :D Wait 'til you hear the final guitar tracks. :eek: It's an homage to one of my main influences.
 
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