Sean Conolly wrote:
"TJ Hertz" wrote in message
. uk...

So, what gives? If gating, muffling and generous use of compression can
sound this good, why do so many people say it's a bad thing? Granted, the
sound wouldn't work for everyone, it was definitely a heavy rock sound,

but

within the genre, anyway?

I re-mixed an old track I had lying around the way this engineer did it,

and

got good results with a large handful of gating and EQ, so it's not just

my

gear or his. What are your thoughts on all this, and if you've managed to
get a nice recording using 3 mics or some kind of fairly minimalist setup,
how did you do it? Especially the kick drum? I find I need, without
exception, at least 10-15dB of EQ for the click of the drum to be heard,

yet

I keep reading about all these people who record resonant kick drums with

no

muffling, and seem to have no problem.


The less mics you use the more dependent you are on the sound of the kit and
the room. It's hard to hear with your ears (or mine at least) just from
listening to the kit in the room, but if I record a single mic from a few
feet in front of the kit I can tell pretty quickly if the room is going to
help me or not.

Other than that I have a lot of untested conjecture about what should sound
good, but every time I record I always learn something new, and usually
contray to what I think or have heard. What I know for a fact is that if the
drums don't sound good from behind the kit I'm not going to find a very
inspired performance.

Sean

Wouldn't it be reasonable to assume that the drummer was hearing some
semblance of the final sound in his headphones, rather than the dull
acoustic thud of the muffled instruments?

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