Which compressor for drum submix??

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formerlyfzfile

formerlyfzfile

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Of an RNC, Berry Composer Pro, or DBX 286a.... which one would be the best choice for a kick/snare/toms mono submix to float under the full kit mix.

I guess the generall consensus is that you want to stomp on the submix pretty hard for the beefing up..... but I have read that some dont like the RNC in this kind of task.

Also, this is going to be done at tracking versus mix down because my situation is that I am helping friend record a demo and they want to get as much material completed as possible in one day.... with the preceding day spent setting up and tweaking.

The other thing is that I am recording to a VS880vX so I only have 4 tracks at a time to record with.

My plan is to send a stereo mix of the full kit to tracks 1 and 2.
Squashed mono drum mix sans OH's to track 3.
And bass to track 4.

This way we can plow through all of the rythm tracks and go back to overdub the guitar and vox.

I was going to insert the Composer on the rack and floor tom channels for gating (not to compress).
I wont be able to do this later so I figure I might as well clean up what I can on the front end.

I was figuring on using the RNC for the mon submix because of its transparency but then came across things where people recomend/prefer a "character" compressor to really squash it.

Any thoughts on this???

-mike
 
Well....

Do you have an extra one you could overnite to me on loan for this Friday and Saturday???:)

Unfortunately the above 3 mentioned are all I have.

Although I suppose I could send the mono mix in uncompressed and dump it to computer and put it through Blockfish or Wavehammer.

But I am trying to get the tracks down as close as possible from the front end for expediency.


-mike
 
I do parallel compression accross a stereo submix of drums sort of like you're describing. I use a Composer for that and I think it works pretty well.
 
Thanks Trackrat.

I'll try it.

How do you set up you submix??

...as far as how your hitting the compressor.

Do you try and get it so each drum hits the compressor equally hard or do you "mirror" the stereo mix or .....????

How hard do YOU squash it??

-mike
 
OK. What I do is this. I run on average, 7 tracks of drums; kick, snare, one for rack toms, one for floor tom, two overheads and a mic out in front of the kick about 3'. I get a drum mix going on, based on the context of the tune, that I'm happy with. I then also assign the kick, snare and toms tracks (i don't assign the overheads to this group as I think for the most part, it screws up the way the cymbals sound) to a subgroup (as well as the main stereo buss) and that's where I put the compressor. I set it up at about 6:1 and tune the attack/release/threashold to whatever sounds good to me and bring that back to the console to two channels and push that up under the drum mix I already had going on.
 
I'm using basically the same set up.

Except I may not use the one mic out front because I only have 8 mixer channels to work with.

6 mic channels
1 submix return
1 bass guitar

I see you return the submix back into the stereo buss.

How does this double bussing affect the volume??

I have four busses and no dedicated stereo buss (although I do have a seperate submix section which will go to the headphone amp)....
So I was going to use Buss 1 and 2 for the stereo buss and send Buss 3 out to the compressor and the return it to a channel and then out to Buss 4 to the recorder.

The bass guitar I can send from the channel direct out because for some odd reason the direct outs on this mixer are POST EQ.
In this situation it works to my advantage.
I really like the EQ on this board and its way better than the EQ in the 880.

This way I will be able to bring up the compressed track as needed once all the tracks are put down.
It leaves me a little bit of flexability at mixdown.

-mike
 
I wouldn't waste a channel recording the compressed submix. You can do that during the mixdown. Just route the drums out of an Aux send and into the compressor and back into the mixer/recorder.

If you are going to submix the whole kit you would probably be better off using the comp to control the levels of the OH's, snare and kick since you won't be able to fix any problems later.

If you are doing rock you should use one channel for kick drum. You can get away without a snare track but it's VERY hard to get a good rock mix without a seperate kick track.
 
Hmmmm....

So Tex.... are you saying that I should maybe put the compressor across the whole kit on the stereo buss (Busses 1 & 2) out to the recorder ....... instead of the compressed snare/kick/tom submix??????

The converters on the VS880 aren't super duper so if I can avoid extra trips out of the box and back again, I would like to and the inboard compressors just dont have a sound I like at any non conservative amounts.

Actually .... I guess I could do both.

Channel 1 & 2 - OH's (GT MD1b-T's ..... finally)
Ch 3 - kick (RE20)
Ch 4 - snare (Beyer M69)
Ch 5 - floor tom (SM57)
Ch 6 - rack toms (SM57)

All 6 assigned to Busses 1 & 2
3 thru 6 also to Buss 3
Buss 3 to compressor
Ch 7 - compressor return
Ch 7 to busses 1 & 2

Bass guitar amp head DI out to CH 8

Busses 1 & 2 to recorder track 1 & 2.
Ch 3 direct out to track 3
Ch8 direct out to track 4.

HHHmmmmmm ........ yeah that could work well.

I know the kick is important (it is heavy-ish rock).

Thats one reason (besides the obvious groove factor) why I think it will be an advantage to track the drums and bass together.

At least I can get a good initial kick/bass balance on the way in.

The M30 has sweepable mids AND sweepable lows which comes in handy for getting the kick and bass to play nicely together.

I dont have roll offs on the board though.... oh well... cant have everything for $80.

So (Tex) you feel having the kick free at mix down is a priority?

Is it any more important BECAUSE the project will be quite "on the fly" or just good in general to manipulate the kick at mixdown??

-mike
 
Dont answer the las one.

I know the answer to that one.

Of course its good to have options with the kick at mix down.

I haven't had a ton of experience with full kit recording (in case you couldnt tell) but do mutitrack loop "kits" from the computer.

Except I can always go back and tweak a specific part of the submix there..... and often do.

Thanks, guys, for your input BTW.

-mike
 
I wouldn't worry too much about the extra conversion during mixdown since you will be blending that compressed track with the originals. Any loss in quality would probably be minimal and hardly noticeable.

If it was me doing it I would keep the kick on a seperate track just to be on the safe side.

It's very easy to overuse the compressed drum trick. It can add alot of mud if not done correctly. You better have a GREAT monitoring environment if you are going to be premixing the entire kit. Mixing the kick and bass are probably the biggest challenge in a less then perfect studio and the low end is crucial to a professional sounding mix and a kick ass groove.
 
its getting close to when I'll start putting together a larger studio. i noticed the behringer multi comp pro xl is a 4 channel one.. its like 129
 
Are the behri comps worth a shit at all? I'm sort of scared about getting one but I need more.


I have a symetrix cl-100 which seems to be working very nicely on vocals. You can really put the hammer down with it (like 10-15 db) and it's smooth. I also have one of the dbx 163x coming. I hear it's pretty nice. I got each of these for $50.
 
I like my Compser Pro but....

I usually use it for gating.
The gate on it works pretty well.
At extreme compression its better than my DBX 286a.
The DBX clouds things condiderably but then has the enhancer section so it kinda can make up for it a little bit.

For most other things I have been using he RNC.

Tex, the monitoring enviornment as a whole remains to be seen.
But the monitors will be my Event 20/20's.

I also plan on bringing my Ultracurve.
Besides the RTA, its pretty handy using it as a visual reference to look at where energy might be building up (specifically) in a mix.

Helps me focus EQ choices and backs my ears up.

-mike
 
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