Fixing Drums

[nobby]

My problem with fixing drums is that it's hard when you can't isolate stuff.

If most of the sound you have to work with is from the room mics, overheads, etc. and not spot mics, sample enhancement is difficult because if you want to change the sound of the snare by adding, say, Slate Trigger 2, you really can't without sucking some of the snare out of the overheads/ room mics, which you can't do.

If the Kick drum isn't isolated with a tunnel, ditto that.

So I've had to tweak lackluster room and overhead mics, mostly using EQ and compression.

One thing I found useful was a Pultec style plugin which lets you select a frequency range and allows you to cut and boost the same range at the same time. It basically allows you to shape the harmonics somehow and pull a better tone out of the drums.

Something new to me is Waves Torque. I just downloaded the trial version yesterday. This can be used as an effect but can also be used for a more "normal" drums sound using the threshold and trim settings.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yAfZtCjfxAk

[DPower]

What, no recordings of the drummer hitting every individual drum and cymbal for post enhancement? Tsk, tsk.

Or, are you just referring to turd polishing from bad recording spaces? In that case, I'd get the OH and rooms sounding as good as possible, and then focus on the close mics. Never had a problem with isolated kick (in) with an M88. Snare is the real PITA. That's why I always grab individual drums.

[nobby]

What, no recordings of the drummer hitting every individual drum and cymbal for post enhancement? Tsk, tsk.

Or, are you just referring to turd polishing from bad recording spaces? In that case, I'd get the OH and rooms sounding as good as possible, and then focus on the close mics.

What if the close mics sound like ass or are missing?

Never had a problem with isolated kick (in) with an M88. Snare is the real PITA. That's why I always grab individual drums.

Cool, but I'm talking about mixing, not recording drums. Fortunately, the snare was usable. I have isolated kick tracks to work with but when there is already plenty of kick in the overheads and/ or room mics there's no place to put them.

[meloco_go]

When I hate kick/snare tone in the OHs/Rooms (happens more with the OHs for some reason) I usually just forgo on using OHs/Rooms as "kit" mics and try to find frequencies which annoy me most and cut them. I may even high-pass OHs quite a lot (not doing that most of the time).
At the most extreme cases, sidechain compression may help.

[John Eppstein]

When I hate kick/snare tone in the OHs/Rooms (happens more with the OHs for some reason) I usually just forgo on using OHs/Rooms as "kit" mics and try to find frequencies which annoy me most and cut them. I may even high-pass OHs quite a lot (not doing that most of the time).
At the most extreme cases, sidechain compression may help.

I've found a control that always works extremely well on overheads. It's called the "mute button".

The front-of-kit mic and (floor tom) side-of-kit mic do a fine job of picking up both toms and cymbals.

Of course that's assuming you're actually micing a kit.

[meloco_go]

Of course that's assuming you're actually micing a kit.

As I said I rarely in control of the recording.
I would love to try 4-mic drum setup, however, I wonder how it works in the context of heavily distorted guitars. It is impossible to get the definition on the drums without boosting top-end and attack if they have to compete with close mic'd Triple Recto. So spot mics are likely to be needed anyway.

[John Eppstein]

Of course that's assuming you're actually micing a kit.

As I said I rarely in control of the recording.
I would love to try 4-mic drum setup, however, I wonder how it works in the context of heavily distorted guitars. It is impossible to get the definition on the drums without boosting top-end and attack if they have to compete with close mic'd Triple Recto. So spot mics are likely to be needed anyway.

I'm obviously not him, but I believe that Weedy would probably debate that. I do think that would depend a lot of getting the drum kit set and tweaked right for the context of the song. Proper drum, head, and cymbal selection, coupled with really careful tuning to fit the song/arrangement.

I hardly ever do heavy stuff anymore but if I was to and I did feel the need for close miced toms I'd probably want to take the bottom heads off and mic the drums from inside to maximize separation and minimize leakage.

Is Weedy on this site?

(Edit: I guess he is now!)

[nobby]

Well, this thread is focused mainly on fixing drums in the mix.

Me_loco-go and I have drums we can't re-record.

2 things that are new to me and show promise are Waves Torque and Izotope Ozone Imager.

Torque allows you to adjust the frequency of the tonal center. It's specifically for drums but may have other uses. I haven't had much practice with it. I was using the demo version and I'm in the process of downloading the paid version ($29 USD).

It's hard for me to describe, much easier to get the idea from videos and best to download it and try it yourself.

But in the short time I was using it, it proved very useful.

I'm waiting for it to download, which takes a loooooooooong time.

Izotope Ozone Imager is billed as a "widener" but the first obvious thing for drums is that you can focus the lows and low mid frequencies towards the center. And it's free

Since higher frequencies are more directional, you preserve the stereo image but bringing the lows to the center I found helps with hard panned guitars.

Not even "Metal" guitars, Pop/ Rock to an extent has the same challenge: Guitars taking up a lot of real estate and being either too loud or not loud enough

By using the "stereoizer" and pulling the low/ low mids of the drums toward the center, suddenly the guitars sound better, clearer

Waves Torque:

https://www.waves.com/plugins/torque

Izotope Ozone Imager:

https://www.izotope.com/en/products/mas ... mager.html

[meloco_go]

Also just bought Torque. It does something no other plugin I have, so I figured it's worth the price))

I'm waiting for it to download, which takes a loooooooooong time.

Why do you need to download it again? I just updated the license.

One thing I found is that there's no reason to even tune for it to have an effect. It can work as drum fattener set at 0 tune, tweaking that magnitude slider.

[nobby]

Izotope Ozone Imager is free -- you should give it a whirl

One thing I noticed is that when I added these plugins my DAW started choking.

Had to increase the buffer size to 2,048 samples

[nobby]

I just used Torque on a drums mix to make it beefier.

Lowering the emphasis of its tonal center (just about 130 cents, I think) and adjusting the trim had the effect of improving the whole track.

The intricate guitar stuff I was struggling to define suddenly became clear and the bass guitar melded with the drums better

[DPower]

Cool, but I'm talking about mixing, not recording drums. Fortunately, the snare was usable. I have isolated kick tracks to work with but when there is already plenty of kick in the overheads and/ or room mics there's no place to put them.

That's when high pass filters and sample replacement are your friends, I guess...

[tylodawg]

In these cases, I usually pop open Drumagog and use samples. But 95% of the time, I am not replacing sounds - just "enhancing" them. ie, find a sample/gog that gets what I want in there, and blend it back in without losing the general feel of the recorded drums. Reality is, if they aren't recorded well, aint nothing gonna fix that. I prefer things to sound like they were recorded, not mixed, if that makes any sense, ergo, I don't want it to sound like the drums were replaced. I find the spot where it brings out some of what I want and live with it. ie, I shoot for "cohesive" over "perfect". (obviously, after doing everything I can to help with various tools at my disposal).
Another option is to forget about "good", and go for the "cool" factor, ie, make it funky/cool in a way that gives it an obvious character, in effect hiding the flaws, (or at least rendering them not as important), rather than try a rescue job. But that is not a sure thing, heck, most of the time, it doesn't work. But desperate times/desperate measures/etc.

[nobby]

Cool, but I'm talking about mixing, not recording drums. Fortunately, the snare was usable. I have isolated kick tracks to work with but when there is already plenty of kick in the overheads and/ or room mics there's no place to put them.

That's when high pass filters and sample replacement are your friends, I guess...

I can't high pass the kick without high passing the toms, which desperately needed more low mids.

[John Eppstein]

Well, if my drums needed fixing I'd take them to a drum repairman. My last drummer builds custom drums so he's be a good candidate.....

[nobby]

In these cases, I usually pop open Drumagog and use samples. But 95% of the time, I am not replacing sounds - just "enhancing" them. ie, find a sample/gog that gets what I want in there, and blend it back in without losing the general feel of the recorded drums. Reality is, if they aren't recorded well, aint nothing gonna fix that. I prefer things to sound like they were recorded, not mixed, if that makes any sense, ergo, I don't want it to sound like the drums were replaced. I find the spot where it brings out some of what I want and live with it. ie, I shoot for "cohesive" over "perfect". (obviously, after doing everything I can to help with various tools at my disposal).
Another option is to forget about "good", and go for the "cool" factor, ie, make it funky/cool in a way that gives it an obvious character, in effect hiding the flaws, (or at least rendering them not as important), rather than try a rescue job. But that is not a sure thing, heck, most of the time, it doesn't work. But desperate times/desperate measures/etc.

I was doing the same using Slate Trigger 2. I found that there is a limit to what you can do as far as sample enhancement goes without throwing off the balance of the kit. And if you don't have adequate spot mics, which is sometimes the case, you need to use the room/ overheads that you have to work with.

[nobby]

I serendipitously stumbled across something.

I opened a project I haven't visited in a while and after listening for a bit, I strapped Waves Torque across the drums bus. It wasn't having the expected result, which is when I noticed that I had it set up with a parallel drums bus, using the fx send from the main drums bus as the source feeding the second drums bus (Torque doesn't have a mix knob).

This lets me blend the originally pitched drums and the Torqued drums for a fatter sound.

[DPower]

Cool, but I'm talking about mixing, not recording drums. Fortunately, the snare was usable. I have isolated kick tracks to work with but when there is already plenty of kick in the overheads and/ or room mics there's no place to put them.

That's when high pass filters and sample replacement are your friends, I guess...

I can't high pass the kick without high passing the toms, which desperately needed more low mids.

Missed the second half of my sentence, I guess. You do what you have to sometimes...

[nobby]

Maybe you missed this?

"And if you don't have adequate spot mics, which is sometimes the case, you need to use the room/ overheads that you have to work with."

[DPower]

Maybe you missed this?

"And if you don't have adequate spot mics, which is sometimes the case, you need to use the room/ overheads that you have to work with."

No, I got that. What does that have to do with sample replacement? You don't need close mics to trigger samples to blend in.

[nobby]

Maybe you missed this?

"And if you don't have adequate spot mics, which is sometimes the case, you need to use the room/ overheads that you have to work with."

No, I got that. What does that have to do with sample replacement? You don't need close mics to trigger samples to blend in.

Don't feel like you're under any kind of obligation to explain how you do that

I mean, what are you using to trigger the samples?

[DPower]

Maybe you missed this?

"And if you don't have adequate spot mics, which is sometimes the case, you need to use the room/ overheads that you have to work with."

No, I got that. What does that have to do with sample replacement? You don't need close mics to trigger samples to blend in.

Don't feel like you're under any kind of obligation to explain how you do that

I mean, what are you using to trigger the samples?

My ears... ;)

That and the overheads, duplicated to another track, and trimmed to the hits I want (have) to supplement.

But your ears, a sense of rhythm, and a midi keyboard will get you most of the way.

[John Eppstein]

Maybe you missed this?

"And if you don't have adequate spot mics, which is sometimes the case, you need to use the room/ overheads that you have to work with."

No, I got that. What does that have to do with sample replacement? You don't need close mics to trigger samples to blend in.

Don't feel like you're under any kind of obligation to explain how you do that

I mean, what are you using to trigger the samples?

My ears... ;)

That and the overheads, duplicated to another track, and trimmed to the hits I want (have) to supplement.

But your ears, a sense of rhythm, and a midi keyboard will get you most of the way.

I have a friend who builds drums (SF Drum Company) - if your drums are broken he can probably fix them.

[DPower]

Maybe you missed this?

"And if you don't have adequate spot mics, which is sometimes the case, you need to use the room/ overheads that you have to work with."

No, I got that. What does that have to do with sample replacement? You don't need close mics to trigger samples to blend in.

Don't feel like you're under any kind of obligation to explain how you do that

I mean, what are you using to trigger the samples?

My ears... ;)

That and the overheads, duplicated to another track, and trimmed to the hits I want (have) to supplement.

But your ears, a sense of rhythm, and a midi keyboard will get you most of the way.

I have a friend who builds drums (SF Drum Company) - if your drums are broken he can probably fix them.

My drums are fine... I'll pass on the recommendation though, to the clients who bring me bad drum tracks (Which is very rare, to be honest). They may prefer someone a bit more local, however.

[nobby]

My ears... ;)

That and the overheads, duplicated to another track, and trimmed to the hits I want (have) to supplement.

But your ears, a sense of rhythm, and a midi keyboard will get you most of the way.

I have all of the above but I'm still a bit skeptical that the above method will work in this case. Here's a clip from the track I'm referring to:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/au3kqq1pjio1v ... 1.wav?dl=0

[DPower]

I have all of the above but I'm still a bit skeptical that the above method will work in this case. Here's a clip from the track I'm referring to:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/au3kqq1pjio1v ... 1.wav?dl=0

Which drums do you want to supplement, again? Nothing will help with those phasey cymbals though. Well, maybe add a chorus and call it an aesthetic choice. Kick, snare, and toms can all be easily triggered from the provided sample.

[nobby]

Toms. I can separate the snare and kick if need be.

[nobby]

Actually, I could trigger the toms with midi, now that you mention it. Not being a pro audio guy, I've never done it before, and the editing would likely be a time consuming PITA. It's a 4 minute song and identifying and reinforcing every toms fill might be more trouble than it's worth.

I might just leave it and say it's supposed to be that way to sound indie

Well, maybe add a chorus and call it an aesthetic choice.

That might be worth trying.

[meloco_go]

Why do you want to trigger the toms? What else is in the arrangement?
If that is supposed to work with high-gain guitars, you're screwed, but if the rest of the arrangement is not too dense, it may well work as it is.

[nobby]

I'm probably screwed regardless of what happens to this drums track but I think I gan get it to work with the medium gain guitars (heavy metal, not metal) with a bit of tweaking. I'll be back a little later with the "new and improved" version