[Vince]

This is a great resource, and also a very quick read. I've used Jim's settings before and they're great. I'm going to contact him about re-posting his stuff here (in other words, nobody copy/paste his stuff here until I get permission). Until then, here's the link:

http://www.drum-tracks.com/drumEQ.htm

[eleven59]

Fuck gating, I like drums sounding live, and have never liked the sound of drums that are gated/edited to be really unnaturally clean (sounds like a drum machine after too much processing, and I don't like drum machines)

[Vince]

Originally Posted by eleven59

Fuck gating, I like drums sounding live, and have never liked the sound of drums that are gated/edited to be really unnaturally clean (sounds like a drum machine after too much processing, and I don't like drum machines)

I think you misunderstand. You don't gate drums to kill their sound, you do it to ISOLATE it. Think about it, do you know why most demos sound like ass? Because the dipshit engineer didn't gate the toms. The tom mics should ONLY pick up sound when the tom is being played, otherwise the mic is just picking up the reverberation of the whole kit inside the tom. Multiply this by 4-6 toms, and you've got some major midrange and bad acoustics killing the drum sound. If you gate the toms properly, the sound from those tracks will only be when the toms are played.

Anyone who doesn't gate toms, snare, & kick doesn't know what they're doing, bar none. It's just like running a hush or noise gate on your guitar amp. You don't think it's more 'natural' sounding to have a bunch of hissing and line noise coming through your amp when you're not playing, do you?

[Drew]

It depends on the mix, I guess. Personally, I could see a very live, "in the room" drum sound working brilliantly on a sparse bluesy peice, and I've always loved the sound of the snare reverberating while other kit components are hit, in slower stuff.

Then again, we've established a LONG time ago that I'm a noise junkie.

That said, for fast, tight metal drum performances where you're striving to keep everything clean, even if you just opt to restrain the resonances a bit, you've gotta do something, IMO.

[Vince]

yeah, you'd be surprised what's gated. It's all nuance. You can gate with a threshold of -40 dB if you want. That'd still pick up a great deal of snare rattle that you like and still not contain any of the more subtle drum noise. The biggest thing is that the tom reverberation really really deadens the sound of the drums.

Here, Drew, I have an example for you. This is a session an old drummer of mine recorded that I still have lying around on the computer.

First, here's a short clip with the toms gated:

http://www.vincelupone.com/mp3/gatedtoms.mp3 (0.5 Mb)

And here's the same clip with the toms ungated:

http://www.vincelupone.com/mp3/ungatedtoms.mp3 (0.5 Mb)

A/B the tracks when you get a chance. Notice all the extra sloppy bass and tom reverberation on the second track? Do you hear how it absolutely dominates the mix? I don't want that on an album, ever. From an EQ perspective when put with a full mix, it absolutely kills the guitarist's tone and really muffles the midrange of the vocalist. The drums should never take up that much frequency space.

Also notice how the tom hit at the end of the clip sounds tight and defined on the gated version, but sounds massive and distorted on the ungated version. That's because all the tom mics are picking up the sound. On the gated version, only the tom mics that are on those two toms are picking up the sound, and as a result we have a tighter response.

The ungated version also has some phase problems with the snare hits. You'll notice the snare hits sound louder, but less defined and kinda spread-out. That's also a nasty by-product of ungated toms.

[Christopher]

/yoda mode: Ah yes, tricky business the recording of drums can become. /yoda mode off.

[eleven59]

See, I still like the sound of the ungated toms better (though there's a bit too much room on the kick drum for my liking, as far as what would fit in a mix). Listening to both clips, the gated toms sounded like a drum machine, and the ungated toms sounded brighter and more punchy, had more energy.

As far as isolation goes, it's all in mic positioning. I've never had a large amount of bleed into my tom mics when recording in the studio (once had too much china crash though because it was sitting on top of the tom mic, in which case, I plan on fixing it).

[Vince]

To each his own then. I dare you to find an album that doesn't have the toms gated. I have yet to hear one. I have heard a lot of bad local band demos that have the toms ungated though

Seriously, no one does that E59. No one. Every engineer gates the toms. You have to. Do you hear that reverberation? You must. It destroys mixes and makes it impossible to get a tight sound. Believe it or not, when recording, instruments all take up smaller spaces frequency-wise than they normally would in real life. That's why a lot of guitarists have live sounds and studio sounds. My live sound is way too full to use in a studio. Each instrument has to work together to create one large band sound.

Now, I don't preach to be a be-all-end-all of recording knowledge, and I'll admit I'm barely above novice, but these are truths every engineer worth his salt knows and puts to use.

Check out this sound clip. It's from the guy who wrote the original EQ thing I posted above. Check out how his drums sit in the mix:

http://www.drum-tracks.com/Crystal2SongComp.m3u

Notice it's exactly the same as I have them? Gated toms, drums sitting perfectly in place in the mix.

As for the china/crash thing, yeah, I forced my drummer to put all his cymbals at least 8 inches above his toms. He didn't like it at first, but now he's getting used to it and actually likes it more. He asked why I made him do it, and I said because if you want your toms louder in the mix at any point, I don't want to have a lead china player in the band

[eleven59]

Originally Posted by desertdweller

To each his own then. I dare you to find an album that doesn't have the toms gated. I have yet to hear one. I have heard a lot of bad local band demos that have the toms ungated though

Seriously, no one does that E59. No one. Every engineer gates the toms. You have to. Do you hear that reverberation? You must. It destroys mixes and makes it impossible to get a tight sound. Believe it or not, when recording, instruments all take up smaller spaces frequency-wise than they normally would in real life. That's why a lot of guitarists have live sounds and studio sounds. My live sound is way too full to use in a studio. Each instrument has to work together to create one large band sound.

Now, I don't preach to be a be-all-end-all of recording knowledge, and I'll admit I'm barely above novice, but these are truths every engineer worth his salt knows and puts to use.

I dunno, I just know that my profs have never mentioned it, and have never done it in our demonstrations/projects in class when we build a song from scratch up to a final mix, and I've never heard a problem. And my engineering prof this year loves having his toms nice and loud. (did I mention he's the engineer Jack Richardson's been working with for the last while? lol)

Isolation of drums is a thing that came up in the seventies, and was big through the 80s and onwards, but lately things have been going back to a more natural drum sound. Most drums from the 80s and early 90s I can't stand the sound of, they're just really really processed.

That said, I will agree that really tight processed drums do have their place. I guess it's like comparing the drum sounds of Meshuggah to Dillinger Escape Plan, or The Black Album to Mastadon.

(note: I hate Bob Rock )

[All hail the Gnome]

One thing I've been doing with my recent recordings is using a typical drum mic setup (close mic'ed toms, snare and kick and overhead condensers in stereo) and using a good condenser 6-10 feet from the set as a "room mic". It really gives the recordings a live feel but I can still gate the close mic'ed drums to my liking (which I agree is a necessity). So I can have the best of both worlds. I don't know what a lot of other people think about it, but I really love the overall drum sound on Soilwork's Stabbing the Drama, it has a great "live" drum sound, very roomy, especially on the toms.