Mixing and Editing Drums

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twsknight

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I've finally got a basic recording set up sorted and recorded some drum tracks and they are ready to be edited in Cubase. I've played around with panning and a bit of compression, but nothing serious. I was wondering what you guys tend to once you've got the recording done, are their any standards that I should consider?

Thanks for the help.
 
I don't know about standards but what I do is....

Go into my snare track and erase everything that's not a snare. I guess it would be like if you gated it but I don't have any gates.

I do the same thing for the kick even though the bleed isn't nearly as bad in the kick mic.

If I close mic a hi hat, ride cymbal or toms...I'll do the same thing. It's a pain in the ass but the clarity and punch are worth it.

Of course if you've got gates and know how to set em up, that would be about the same thing and alot easier. :D

I pretty much leave my OH's alone except for panning and that's usually around 50 on left and 55 or 60 on right. I hardly ever hard pan my OH's. Just doesn't sound natural to me. Sometimes I'll compress them if I need some glue but usually it's good to go.

my thoughts.....
 
I guess I shoud add that I use the Recorderman technique for miking. It makes a difference.
 
I wouldn't worry too much about all that gating and erasing bleed unless it's really bad. I like to use gates just for my own OCD, but I don't have to.

Gate the snare if you have too much hat bleed or gate the toms if they ring into the mics while not being played. Gate the kick if you really want to, but if you have to, you got bigger problems. But really, some bleed sounds natural and most of it won't be heard once you pile the other stuff on top of the drums.

The rest is up to your ears. I find that my drums like certain things done to them that other kits may not. It really depends on your specific setup. We could tell you "do this, this, and this" and it may sound like shit. You gotta figure out what's best for you on your own.

Try to stay away from compression and gates until you can get your drums sounding good without all that stuff.
 
If your kit is set up well, close micing will eliminate alot of the bleed issues. Some bleed is natural and some engineers use it as well. I may very well spend an hour tuning heads prior to recording and work my mic placement to keep bleed to a minimum. I usually do very little panning other than toms...which depending on the tune I'll pan for effect.

I find very little use for a compressor on anything other than the kick.:cool:
 
If you want to know what I do (but this is just me), this is what I do with a 4 mic operation.

Hi-pass the Snare at 100 hz, boost a little on the fundamental (in my case, 160 hz). Compress it with 0 attack, I alter the release if I want to make it fatter or not, usually at about a 2-3:1 ratio. I pan it a bit to the right.

Hi-pass the bass at 55 hz, cut about 3 db from 188 hz. Not only does this clear out room for the bass guitar to shine through (its where the first harmonics generally roam) but it also makes it cut better and punchier. Compress it with a relatively high attack to maintain punchiness, medium release. Usually lower ratio like 2:1 or maybe even less. Panned center.

Overheads I hard pan left and right, I like wide stereo fields. Sometimes I hi-pass about 50 hz but my mics have hi-pass built in so I usually don't do this. I do put a high shelf at about 6000 hz to bring out the shimmer in my cymbals and attack in my snare and toms so it doesn't sound muffled (I use LDC's, so that could be the culprit). As far as compression, I put a compression really high threshold, like around -15 dB, with a higher ratio, about 5:1, so only the snare is affected, in effect bringing out the cymbals and toms.
 
Cheers for the info guys, I've been playing around and the only thing that is really bothering me is the snare has too much hi hat bleed in it, but with your help I should be able to reduce this.

The only other problem I have is listening to the song. Through my expensive headphones it sounds fantastic; loud with a phat bass. On my standard phones it sounds as good as I could possible get it, but on my computer speakers, which I've always thought were great it actually sounds pretty crappy. That said, listening to it next to songs of a similar style, they all sound pretty crappy.

Next investment is a set of kick ass speakers!

Edit: I've noticed that the snare drum sounds a little.... um.... far away (does that make sense?) and I can't get it to sound all there without upping the volume and overpowering songs. Will spending some time really figuring out compression help this at all, or should I concentrate on EQing?
Or is it just my cheap mics? If it is, the kick ass speakers will be replaced with a kick ass Snare Mic.
 
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