Help! Kick drum woes and troubles

[timthetortoise]

Hey all. I just recorded a band the other day and, like a moron, trusted the kick mic placement to a friend who was helping out. So now I've got a kick track that I can't get any click out of without having the cymbal level being over that of the overheads, and gating helps a little bit, but it gets that "basketball" effect every time the kick hits. I also tried Drumagog and it was much too inconsistent to be able to use. Any ideas on how to fix this? Thanks!

Edit: I may have gotten it to a useable state. Still looking for suggestions though!

 

[Farview]

What was too inconsistant about drumagog? There are a bunch of little tweaks in that program that will address just about any problem (short of trying to trigger just the kick from a room mic)

If it is really bad, you can copy the kick to a second track. Use a low pass filter to get rid of all the mids and highs. Throw a compressor on it.
Take the original track, insert a high pass filter to get rid of all the lows and lower mids, then gate it with a real fast attack and release. Mix to taste.

 

[timthetortoise]

Well, the drummer didn't have the most defined double bass hits, so sometimes it would pick them up, sometimes it wouldn't. But that was on single hits too. I tried about every single setting on there and it would improve slightly, but not enough to use it. I'm going to try that idea right now.

That definitely made a great difference. It has more of a "woody" click than I'd like, but it's much better than where it was. I'm gonna keep playing around with this. Thanks a lot for the suggestion.

Wow, another update. Drumagog is working perfectly with the following chain.
TransX Wide (Mega Kick preset) -> Gate (-6 dB threshold, 54 ms release) -> Drumagog (-20.1 sensitivity, 100 ms resolution, advanced algo). Thanks for inspiring me to try Drumagog again, this seems to be my solution. Thanks again, you saved me a couple of hours of frustration!

 

[MikeyPx82]

Try trigger the kick

I trigger the kick on pretty much every band I record. Go to www.drumagog.com and download the demo. It's a solid program. You can even trigger snares, toms and overheads but I wouldnt reccomend it.

 

[Farview]

I trigger the kick on pretty much every band I record. Go to www.drumagog.com and download the demo. It's a solid program. You can even trigger snares, toms and overheads but I wouldnt reccomend it.

I trigger entire kits all the time. Why wouldn't you recommend it?

 

[blueroommusic]

because drumagog, or any other program like it could never capture what an amazing drummer can do...especially a piece with a lot of emotion, atmosphere, & dynamics.

but yeah...for a crappy drummer that'll work

 

[Projbalance]

Ok, color me ignorant, but why would you want to use a drum replacement program in the first place? With all the talk about getting things right before the mix, why wouldn't you have a solid drum track before anything like this program was necessary?


**EDIT**

I just watched a video demo of the program being used and.... disregard my earlier posting. I think I get it now, it was pretty fucking cool.

 

[jonnyc]

because drumagog, or any other program like it could never capture what an amazing drummer can do...especially a piece with a lot of emotion, atmosphere, & dynamics.

but yeah...for a crappy drummer that'll work

You stated nothing here that wasn't very painfully obvious already.

 

[Farview]

because drumagog, or any other program like it could never capture what an amazing drummer can do...especially a piece with a lot of emotion, atmosphere, & dynamics.

but yeah...for a crappy drummer that'll work

An amazing drummer would only need it in extreme circumstances. Like not having the right kind of snare for the gig.

Drumagog can do the emotion, and dynamics. The atmosphere will still be in the overheads, room mics, and mic bleed. (Drumagog will leave the mic bleed if you want it to)

 

[Keiffer]

because drumagog, or any other program like it could never capture what an amazing drummer can do...especially a piece with a lot of emotion, atmosphere, & dynamics.

but yeah...for a crappy drummer that'll work

have you ever really used it... doesn't sound like it.