OK, so I feel like I've gotten pretty good at mixing drums, but not as
good as I want to be. First of all, I want to clarify the style and
sound of drum mix that I am currently challenging myself to perfect,
so as to provide context for my questions which otherwise would seem
to be vague and redundant. I already know that a lot of it is opinion
and that the best way for me to figure it out is to carry out
listening experiments in mic placement, eq and fx settings, etc...
Also, I am sure that if I had a really nice room and super preamps I
wouldn't need to do so much clean-up in the mix, but I don't have
those things, so I have to make the best of what I do have.

That said, I am trying to mix drums for the "studio rock" sound. By
this, I mean specifically that I am close micing the individual kit
elements and trying to minimize bleed between tracks. The gear I use:

Kit:
Mapex M Series 5 Piece
Zildjian Custom "A" crash, ride, "new beat" hats
Coated heads, EMAD on kick

Mics:
Kick: EV RE-20
Snare,Toms: SM57s
Overheads: a pair of Oktava MK-012

I close mic the toms and snare by mounting the mics on the edge of the
drum, about an inch in from the rim, an inch away from the head, and
angled at about a 45 degree angle with the mic pointing towards the
center of the drum.

pictu

http://undertone.com/close_mic.jpg

I place the RE-20 halfway inside the hole in the passive kick drum
head. The hole is about 6 inches in from the lower right edge of the
passive kick drum head. The mic is angled so that it is aimed at the
point of contact between the beater and the active kick drum head.

I position the overheads directly over the center of the kick drum,
about 2-3 feet above the kit. They are spaced about a foot apart, and
they each point across the edge of the kit, one over the high-hats and
the other over the ride.

overhead view:

http://undertone.com/drum_micing.jpg

view from the front:

http://undertone.com/drum_micing_f.jpg

I track through a Mackie 1402 into a MOTU 828. I use the EQ on the
Mackie to slightly cut(-3db) high-mids(2.5kHz) in the kick and
slightly boost(+3db) them in the snare. I also sharply cut(-9db) the
low end(80hz) and moderately cut(-6db) the mids(2.5kHz) on the
overheads.

I do all my mixing in my recording app (Logic Pro), mainly using Waves
plugins. On kick, snare and toms I generally use a combination of EQ,
expansion/gating, and compression/limiting. Overheads are panned hard
L/R and a high-pass EQ and light limiting are applied. I have mainly
been using the "renaissance" versions quite a bit.

I generally find that on kick, snare and toms, there are troublesome
midrange frequencies that I remove with focused(hi-q), steep cuts. On
snare this tends to take the form of a high-mid "ringing" which is
dissonant. On kick, and toms it is a lo-mid "flub" that I remove. I
try to preserve and enhance the "crack" and "oomph" of the snare and
toms, and to preserve and enhance the "click" and "thud" of the kick
drum. In general I prefer eq cuts to boosts and when boosting don't do
so by more than 3-6db.

Some questions:

On expander / gate usage: I use the waves expander/gate on drums to
help isolate the individual drum and reduce bleed. Unfortunately, no
matter whether I use the expander or gate, and no matter how I adjust
the settings, this effect tends to be sub-optimal in that it either
kills the "attack" of the drum sound, or, with shorter attack times,
creates a bothersome bit of distortion when the exp/gate engages. What
suggestions do you have to optimize my exp/gate usage?

One option I have considered is to literally "strip" out the portions
of the recording for each drum which fall below a certain volume
threshold so that individual drum hits, or fast passages, would be
isolated regions in the arrange window, with silence in between. Then
I'd apply fade-in/out all of these regions, tweaking as necessary. In
essence I would be sequencing the opening and closing of a gate
manually. This becomes cumbersome when it is focused on individual
drum hits, as there are hundreds if not thousands of kick/snare drum
hits in a project.

It would seem that a "look-ahead" gate would eliminate the
"attack-dulling/distortion" effect that the waves gate seems to impart
on my tracks. I can't seem to get them to do this correctly though.

Another tricky problem I have is trying to get the high-hat out of the
snare-drum track. Since they are so close together it's difficult to
prevent acoustic bleed. Also, the crack of the snare seems to be the
same frequency as the most brittle and annoying component of the high
hat. ARRGH!!!

The end result I am going for is to create a "dry" drum mix, with each
of the drums isolated and then feed this into a good reverb for room
emulation such as the Waves TrueVerb, which works well for me.

So, if anyone has any comments, suggestions or constructive criticism,
then let me have it.

Also, if anyone has any suggestions on how I can integrate better
pre-amps into my setup, let me know. I'm sure the mackie is a big
roadblock on my quest for good tone. Ideal for me would be 8 channels
of nice preamps which digitally interfaced directly to both my TiBook
and G4. If there is a compact mixer which adds nice EQs and could
double as a control surface for my software then that might also be a
plus, but it's not necessary. Unless analog EQ/dynamics prior to
digital conversion is a necessity, I'd rather stick to mixing inside
the box. I don't mind the mouse.

Thanks,

Josh Brown
Undertone Productions - http://www.undertone.com
Rock Scar - http://www.rockscar.com

Your overheads violate the 3:1 rule - they should be three times as far from
each other as they are from the sound source. This is giving you a lot of
comb filtering. Try a coincident pair configuration.

Try using the overheads for the main drum sound, and use the close mics to
fill in missing bits. There will be issues however, owing to the timing
difference between the overheads and the close mics.

Try some mics that are more neutral in response. The 57s have a big
"presence" peak and a lot of proximity effect. This makes things both brash
and muddy. (The RE20 is a keeper, though it may not be the best choice for
a "rock" kick sound. You might try an Audix D6 or the new AKG dual capsule
mic.)


"Josh Brown" wrote in message
om...
OK, so I feel like I've gotten pretty good at mixing drums, but not as
good as I want to be. First of all, I want to clarify the style and
sound of drum mix that I am currently challenging myself to perfect,
so as to provide context for my questions which otherwise would seem
to be vague and redundant. I already know that a lot of it is opinion
and that the best way for me to figure it out is to carry out
listening experiments in mic placement, eq and fx settings, etc...
Also, I am sure that if I had a really nice room and super preamps I
wouldn't need to do so much clean-up in the mix, but I don't have
those things, so I have to make the best of what I do have.

That said, I am trying to mix drums for the "studio rock" sound. By
this, I mean specifically that I am close micing the individual kit
elements and trying to minimize bleed between tracks. The gear I use:

Kit:
Mapex M Series 5 Piece
Zildjian Custom "A" crash, ride, "new beat" hats
Coated heads, EMAD on kick

Mics:
Kick: EV RE-20
Snare,Toms: SM57s
Overheads: a pair of Oktava MK-012

I close mic the toms and snare by mounting the mics on the edge of the
drum, about an inch in from the rim, an inch away from the head, and
angled at about a 45 degree angle with the mic pointing towards the
center of the drum.

pictu

http://undertone.com/close_mic.jpg

I place the RE-20 halfway inside the hole in the passive kick drum
head. The hole is about 6 inches in from the lower right edge of the
passive kick drum head. The mic is angled so that it is aimed at the
point of contact between the beater and the active kick drum head.

I position the overheads directly over the center of the kick drum,
about 2-3 feet above the kit. They are spaced about a foot apart, and
they each point across the edge of the kit, one over the high-hats and
the other over the ride.

overhead view:

http://undertone.com/drum_micing.jpg

view from the front:

http://undertone.com/drum_micing_f.jpg

I track through a Mackie 1402 into a MOTU 828. I use the EQ on the
Mackie to slightly cut(-3db) high-mids(2.5kHz) in the kick and
slightly boost(+3db) them in the snare. I also sharply cut(-9db) the
low end(80hz) and moderately cut(-6db) the mids(2.5kHz) on the
overheads.

I do all my mixing in my recording app (Logic Pro), mainly using Waves
plugins. On kick, snare and toms I generally use a combination of EQ,
expansion/gating, and compression/limiting. Overheads are panned hard
L/R and a high-pass EQ and light limiting are applied. I have mainly
been using the "renaissance" versions quite a bit.

I generally find that on kick, snare and toms, there are troublesome
midrange frequencies that I remove with focused(hi-q), steep cuts. On
snare this tends to take the form of a high-mid "ringing" which is
dissonant. On kick, and toms it is a lo-mid "flub" that I remove. I
try to preserve and enhance the "crack" and "oomph" of the snare and
toms, and to preserve and enhance the "click" and "thud" of the kick
drum. In general I prefer eq cuts to boosts and when boosting don't do
so by more than 3-6db.

Some questions:

On expander / gate usage: I use the waves expander/gate on drums to
help isolate the individual drum and reduce bleed. Unfortunately, no
matter whether I use the expander or gate, and no matter how I adjust
the settings, this effect tends to be sub-optimal in that it either
kills the "attack" of the drum sound, or, with shorter attack times,
creates a bothersome bit of distortion when the exp/gate engages. What
suggestions do you have to optimize my exp/gate usage?

One option I have considered is to literally "strip" out the portions
of the recording for each drum which fall below a certain volume
threshold so that individual drum hits, or fast passages, would be
isolated regions in the arrange window, with silence in between. Then
I'd apply fade-in/out all of these regions, tweaking as necessary. In
essence I would be sequencing the opening and closing of a gate
manually. This becomes cumbersome when it is focused on individual
drum hits, as there are hundreds if not thousands of kick/snare drum
hits in a project.

It would seem that a "look-ahead" gate would eliminate the
"attack-dulling/distortion" effect that the waves gate seems to impart
on my tracks. I can't seem to get them to do this correctly though.

Another tricky problem I have is trying to get the high-hat out of the
snare-drum track. Since they are so close together it's difficult to
prevent acoustic bleed. Also, the crack of the snare seems to be the
same frequency as the most brittle and annoying component of the high
hat. ARRGH!!!

The end result I am going for is to create a "dry" drum mix, with each
of the drums isolated and then feed this into a good reverb for room
emulation such as the Waves TrueVerb, which works well for me.

So, if anyone has any comments, suggestions or constructive criticism,
then let me have it.

Also, if anyone has any suggestions on how I can integrate better
pre-amps into my setup, let me know. I'm sure the mackie is a big
roadblock on my quest for good tone. Ideal for me would be 8 channels
of nice preamps which digitally interfaced directly to both my TiBook
and G4. If there is a compact mixer which adds nice EQs and could
double as a control surface for my software then that might also be a
plus, but it's not necessary. Unless analog EQ/dynamics prior to
digital conversion is a necessity, I'd rather stick to mixing inside
the box. I don't mind the mouse.

Thanks,

Josh Brown
Undertone Productions - http://www.undertone.com
Rock Scar - http://www.rockscar.com

"Tim Padrick" wrote in message
...
Your overheads violate the 3:1 rule - they should be three times as far
from
each other as they are from the sound source. This is giving you a lot of
comb filtering. Try a coincident pair configuration.

Try using the overheads for the main drum sound, and use the close mics to
fill in missing bits. There will be issues however, owing to the timing
difference between the overheads and the close mics.

This most often works to your advantage, though. It gives you a sense of
depth.


Try some mics that are more neutral in response. The 57s have a big
"presence" peak and a lot of proximity effect. This makes things both
brash
and muddy. (The RE20 is a keeper, though it may not be the best choice
for
a "rock" kick sound. You might try an Audix D6 or the new AKG dual
capsule
mic.)

Actually, the 57's will be fine if he backs off his tom mikes, he'll be
fine. IMHO, he's miking too close. I'll trade a more balanced sound for
isolation any day of the week. For a rock kick sound, I would use an AKG
D112 as first choice (it will get you there with less EQ than the Audio
Technica mike) or the Audio Technica ATM25 second (or is that AT25?)

Another tricky problem I have is trying to get the high-hat out of the
snare-drum track. Since they are so close together it's difficult to
prevent acoustic bleed. Also, the crack of the snare seems to be the
same frequency as the most brittle and annoying component of the high
hat. ARRGH!!!

I'd love to hear some suggestions for this myself. Its usually my main issue
in getting a clean "cracky" snare sound. In my experience its a combination
of:

Using a mic with a tight pattern....SM57, Beta 57, Beyer M201 (has a very
tight pattern as its hypercardroid)
Making sure the back of the mic (the null) is pointing away from the hi hats
Get quieter hi hats for the studio if you can. some can sound like 2 saucers
being hit together!
I find half (or more) of a good drumsound depends on good technique on the
drummers behalf. i.e. for rock, hit the snare consistent hard hits to the
centre of the drum with the stick at a fairly horizontal angle to the drum
so your almost rimming it. This way you wont be turning your snare track up
so much and EQing on top end for inadequate feeble hits to sound loud.

Unfortunately, if its other drummers your recording you'll have to rely on
your mic techniques and gating. Have you tried any spectral gates for the
snare track. You can set these to open only when they hear low-mid/mid
frequencies so they don't open with hi hat bleed. Of course it still won't
solve the problem that if you put too much hi-freq EQ on the snare track and
your having bleed problems you'll hear a burst of scratch hi hat coming
through on snare hits.

ho hum!

Martin

Martin Quinn wrote:

Using a mic with a tight pattern....SM57, Beta 57, Beyer M201 (has a very
tight pattern as its hypercardroid)
Making sure the back of the mic (the null) is pointing away from the hi hats

A hypercardroid has no null on it's back...


But it's clear what you want to say. The problem in real life is that
you cannot put the mics on the position you want but only on the
positions the drummer likes. And yout mic stand need place too.

Martin Quinn wrote:

Using a mic with a tight pattern....SM57, Beta 57, Beyer M201 (has a very
tight pattern as its hypercardroid)
Making sure the back of the mic (the null) is pointing away from the hi
hats


I think you mean you want to point the null at the hi hats.

Garth~


"I think the fact that music can come up a wire is a miracle."
Ed Cherney

In a controlled environment like a studio, it's best to give drums some
room, both in the sense of the word and in the sound of the room. By doing
close miking you may well be capturing each individual drum very well, but
the relationship of the drums to each other as a whole are left out, and
you're not really capturing even what the drummer is hearing. That's why
lots of guys use room mics. Personally, I like the idea of starting with
the overheads as the meat of the drums, and judiciously add the close mics
to get the essence of each drum's particular characteristic. Room mics in
themselves work fine if you have a nice sounding room and some decent mics
for such a purpose. But to me the starting point is always the overheads.
I want to hear what the drummer is hearing, and that's the closest pair of
mics you have to discern that.

I also don't like doing anything to the sound on the way in. Just whatever
makes the drums sound like the drums when you are right there with them.

--


Roger W. Norman
SirMusic Studio

"Josh Brown" wrote in message
om...
OK, so I feel like I've gotten pretty good at mixing drums, but not as
good as I want to be. First of all, I want to clarify the style and
sound of drum mix that I am currently challenging myself to perfect,
so as to provide context for my questions which otherwise would seem
to be vague and redundant. I already know that a lot of it is opinion
and that the best way for me to figure it out is to carry out
listening experiments in mic placement, eq and fx settings, etc...
Also, I am sure that if I had a really nice room and super preamps I
wouldn't need to do so much clean-up in the mix, but I don't have
those things, so I have to make the best of what I do have.

That said, I am trying to mix drums for the "studio rock" sound. By
this, I mean specifically that I am close micing the individual kit
elements and trying to minimize bleed between tracks. The gear I use:

Kit:
Mapex M Series 5 Piece
Zildjian Custom "A" crash, ride, "new beat" hats
Coated heads, EMAD on kick

Mics:
Kick: EV RE-20
Snare,Toms: SM57s
Overheads: a pair of Oktava MK-012

I close mic the toms and snare by mounting the mics on the edge of the
drum, about an inch in from the rim, an inch away from the head, and
angled at about a 45 degree angle with the mic pointing towards the
center of the drum.

pictu

http://undertone.com/close_mic.jpg

I place the RE-20 halfway inside the hole in the passive kick drum
head. The hole is about 6 inches in from the lower right edge of the
passive kick drum head. The mic is angled so that it is aimed at the
point of contact between the beater and the active kick drum head.

I position the overheads directly over the center of the kick drum,
about 2-3 feet above the kit. They are spaced about a foot apart, and
they each point across the edge of the kit, one over the high-hats and
the other over the ride.

overhead view:

http://undertone.com/drum_micing.jpg

view from the front:

http://undertone.com/drum_micing_f.jpg

I track through a Mackie 1402 into a MOTU 828. I use the EQ on the
Mackie to slightly cut(-3db) high-mids(2.5kHz) in the kick and
slightly boost(+3db) them in the snare. I also sharply cut(-9db) the
low end(80hz) and moderately cut(-6db) the mids(2.5kHz) on the
overheads.

I do all my mixing in my recording app (Logic Pro), mainly using Waves
plugins. On kick, snare and toms I generally use a combination of EQ,
expansion/gating, and compression/limiting. Overheads are panned hard
L/R and a high-pass EQ and light limiting are applied. I have mainly
been using the "renaissance" versions quite a bit.

I generally find that on kick, snare and toms, there are troublesome
midrange frequencies that I remove with focused(hi-q), steep cuts. On
snare this tends to take the form of a high-mid "ringing" which is
dissonant. On kick, and toms it is a lo-mid "flub" that I remove. I
try to preserve and enhance the "crack" and "oomph" of the snare and
toms, and to preserve and enhance the "click" and "thud" of the kick
drum. In general I prefer eq cuts to boosts and when boosting don't do
so by more than 3-6db.

Some questions:

On expander / gate usage: I use the waves expander/gate on drums to
help isolate the individual drum and reduce bleed. Unfortunately, no
matter whether I use the expander or gate, and no matter how I adjust
the settings, this effect tends to be sub-optimal in that it either
kills the "attack" of the drum sound, or, with shorter attack times,
creates a bothersome bit of distortion when the exp/gate engages. What
suggestions do you have to optimize my exp/gate usage?

One option I have considered is to literally "strip" out the portions
of the recording for each drum which fall below a certain volume
threshold so that individual drum hits, or fast passages, would be
isolated regions in the arrange window, with silence in between. Then
I'd apply fade-in/out all of these regions, tweaking as necessary. In
essence I would be sequencing the opening and closing of a gate
manually. This becomes cumbersome when it is focused on individual
drum hits, as there are hundreds if not thousands of kick/snare drum
hits in a project.

It would seem that a "look-ahead" gate would eliminate the
"attack-dulling/distortion" effect that the waves gate seems to impart
on my tracks. I can't seem to get them to do this correctly though.

Another tricky problem I have is trying to get the high-hat out of the
snare-drum track. Since they are so close together it's difficult to
prevent acoustic bleed. Also, the crack of the snare seems to be the
same frequency as the most brittle and annoying component of the high
hat. ARRGH!!!

The end result I am going for is to create a "dry" drum mix, with each
of the drums isolated and then feed this into a good reverb for room
emulation such as the Waves TrueVerb, which works well for me.

So, if anyone has any comments, suggestions or constructive criticism,
then let me have it.

Also, if anyone has any suggestions on how I can integrate better
pre-amps into my setup, let me know. I'm sure the mackie is a big
roadblock on my quest for good tone. Ideal for me would be 8 channels
of nice preamps which digitally interfaced directly to both my TiBook
and G4. If there is a compact mixer which adds nice EQs and could
double as a control surface for my software then that might also be a
plus, but it's not necessary. Unless analog EQ/dynamics prior to
digital conversion is a necessity, I'd rather stick to mixing inside
the box. I don't mind the mouse.

Thanks,

Josh Brown
Undertone Productions - http://www.undertone.com
Rock Scar - http://www.rockscar.com

"Garth" wrote in message
...
Martin Quinn wrote:

Using a mic with a tight pattern....SM57, Beta 57, Beyer M201 (has a
very
tight pattern as its hypercardroid)
Making sure the back of the mic (the null) is pointing away from the hi
hats


I think you mean you want to point the null at the hi hats.

Garth~


"I think the fact that music can come up a wire is a miracle."
Ed Cherney

I do mean that. Sorry, it was a long post and a late night. You guys pick up
on everything! :-)

Martin

You might try an Audix D6

I LOVE this mic!!!

The D112 requires a heck of a lot more EQ than the D6 or the A-T AE2500 dual
capsule (which I absent-mindedly referred to as an AKG).

The difference in distance between the OHs and the close mics gives "depth"
but it smears the transients. One has to be careful.


"Romeo Rondeau" wrote in message
...

"Tim Padrick" wrote in message
...
Your overheads violate the 3:1 rule - they should be three times as far
from
each other as they are from the sound source. This is giving you a lot
of
comb filtering. Try a coincident pair configuration.

Try using the overheads for the main drum sound, and use the close mics
to
fill in missing bits. There will be issues however, owing to the timing
difference between the overheads and the close mics.

This most often works to your advantage, though. It gives you a sense of
depth.


Try some mics that are more neutral in response. The 57s have a big
"presence" peak and a lot of proximity effect. This makes things both
brash
and muddy. (The RE20 is a keeper, though it may not be the best choice
for
a "rock" kick sound. You might try an Audix D6 or the new AKG dual
capsule
mic.)

Actually, the 57's will be fine if he backs off his tom mikes, he'll be
fine. IMHO, he's miking too close. I'll trade a more balanced sound for
isolation any day of the week. For a rock kick sound, I would use an AKG
D112 as first choice (it will get you there with less EQ than the Audio
Technica mike) or the Audio Technica ATM25 second (or is that AT25?)

The D112 requires a heck of a lot more EQ than the D6 or the A-T AE2500
dual
capsule (which I absent-mindedly referred to as an AKG).

I found that the D112 only needs subtractive EQ (usually only one band), but
I need to use 2 bands (one cut and one boost) on the ATM25


The difference in distance between the OHs and the close mics gives
"depth"
but it smears the transients. One has to be careful.