how can i get great sound

  • Thread starter Thread starter thenightsalive
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thenightsalive

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My problem is that i cant seem to get my cymbals from bleeding through the drum mics. exspecially in the bass drum and the snare. i use gates and on all the drums but it is still bad in te sanre and bass. please help me out.
 
Bleed is inevitable. Get over it.

Bleed does not make you have a bad sound.
 
The best way to MINIMISE bleed is to adjust your mic positioning, but it's not always a bad thing. If you want that modern 'over-produced', look into triggering sounds you've recorded separately.
 
First, what mic's are you using, and how are they set up? Some mic's reject bleed better than others. Personally, I like the Audix D series on toms, and typically just throw an SM57 on top snare, and sometimes a Line Audio CM2 on the bottom (remember to flip the phase). But, bleed can be your friend, although it can limit the extent to which you can adjust the eq on some drums. Sometimes, it can come down to a drummer who knows only to bash the crap out of his hats and cymbals. As for the kick, I tend to drape a thick blanket over the outer head; this stops most of the bleed, and gives me a lot of flexibitlity for eq'ing (I use a D112). When I do gate drums, recently I've been using the UAD-1 Neve 88RS. I tend to allow some bleed even then.
 
maybe you should just keep trying minor mic adjustments until you like what you have? minimise minimise minimise :)
 
Seafroggys said:
Bleed is inevitable. Get over it.

Bleed does not make you have a bad sound.
Click to expand...

Very true. Bleed is not the issue. I've never had too much bleed in my bass drum tracks and I very regularly use a ton of compression to get kicks under control.

If you're having to use so much EQ and compression to make the drums sound good that bleed becomes a problem, then you have a problem with one of the many things I told you to learn about in your other thread. Gates should be the last resort.

I remember being in your situation when I first started and I did the same thing. You do have problems with your tracking keeping you from getting the sounds you're after. You haven't learned to really listen for your problems and are trying to solve the symptoms without discovering the real problem.

It's like a kid going to their parents with bloodshot, goopy eyes and asking them what's wrong. They say "you have bloodshot, goopy eyes, use some visine." Then after a week of visine and bloodshot, goopy eyes the kid goes to the doctor and he says "that's one of the worst cases of pink eye I've seen all year, take some antibiotic eye drops."

Maybe in this case the issue is the drummer just hits his cymbals too hard. I'm guessing it's more than that though.
 
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