I think that much of the separation you hear in those recordings might be
the result of really good miking techniques and good engineering and mixing.
The use of supercardiod microphones and noise gates helps with bleed-in when
spot-miking, and good use of EQ and compression during mixing integrates
everything so that each instrument is visible in the mix but the kit also
works naturally as a single instrument.

In other instances it's the result of triggering, where the drummer plays a
real kit but what is recorded are impulses from triggers attached to those
drums -- those impulses are used to trigger samples in a drum machine or in
the computer. Then the overhead mics are mixed in with the triggered sounds
to add the cymbals and room sound. OFten triggering is employed in addition
to miking the individual drums and the triggered and acoustic sounds are
blended together. This is done a lot in metal music where each drum hit is
supposed to kick you in the head but it still can't sound like a drum
machine.

There are also some pretty impressive velocity-sensitive multisampled drum
kits out there that can be sequenced -- you can get great results out of
them if you know learn how to use them and how to work within the
limitations of the technology.

Tim




"David" wrote in message
m...
I hear in many modern-day recordings songs sounding like the drums are
so isolated but not so much that they're programmed. They still sound
live and all but the cymbals are so big and in your face without
sounding like there's any snare in the overheads. The snare sounds
different every time it hits but no cymbal bleed behind it in the
centre. Overall, the drums sound like they are all live but so
polished that there's no way gating or anything like that could get it
to sound so punchy and seperated.

My question is, could this be the result of the drummer recording the
snare, kick and cymbals seperately? Such a technique makes sense to me
in my head but since I've never tried it I wouldn't know how realistic
the resulting sound would be.

Any comments are welcome.

Thanks,
Dave