# Punchy sound on Drums? Help?



## Cookiedude777 (Oct 1, 2010)

Hello People 

I am working with Superior Drums and I need you guys to give me suggestions and advise on how to make the drums sound "Punchy".

Thanks


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## thesimo (Oct 1, 2010)

im no expert, but from what ive learned.
remove the bleed from the kick/snare/toms into the other mics
cut the snare bottom mic
compress everything
use the velocity to make everything hit really hard


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## leandroab (Oct 1, 2010)

Compression.

Learn to use it: Profit.


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## -Nolly- (Oct 2, 2010)

Hey dude,

I just posted some info you might find helpful in this thread on another forum:

OT: again feedback on my drumsound (SD2.0)/general mix appreciated - Harmony Central Forums


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## Cookiedude777 (Oct 2, 2010)

Thanks everyone for your help! 

I know that compression is one important thing in mixing but I do want abit more explaning


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## Holy Katana (Oct 2, 2010)

You might also want to take out a small band of frequencies around 400Hz to remove any possible muddiness.


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## Cookiedude777 (Oct 3, 2010)

Hey,

Hmm alright I shall try that as well. Thanks


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## Ext789 (Oct 3, 2010)

limiting how much of your drums go to the ambiance and overhead mics can really help. also try compression, especially with the snare mics. putting a limiter on your master track can really bring out slammin' drums. good luck!


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## Rev2010 (Oct 7, 2010)

I have to agree with removing the bleed mics. They're great for edrummers wanting a real "live" acoustic sound while just playing along at home, but in a mix they have always sounded awful to me. They just screw everything up and I've never been able to use them much.

I remove all the bleed mics. For punchiness on the toms I add compression on each tom, you will need to play with the settings to find a setting that really works best on your particular toms. Adding a compressor and tweaking it right brings out more of the body, or shall I say "boom" of the toms. They definitely feel much deeper. Now, you will need often lose a bit of the head "snap" in the process so I then add an EQ on each tom. I use Voxengo's Span to see the frequencies in the tom sound and see where the higher end peak resides. I then boost that a bit with the EQ to increase the pop, or snap, of the tom... it's the higher end sound for the tom.

Kicks, well shit... there's not real one way for kicks. What works for one will sound like shit on another. Again it's compression but more so a bunch of EQ'ing, often drastic EQ'ing - meaning not just 2db raise here or there but like -10db cut in one area, 7db boost in another etc.

Snares take a bit of work too but not as much as kicks. I recommend you use a software compressor that has some basic presets, like Kick, Snare. Most of the time those presets suck, but what you do is tweak from there. I often find the attack is set way too fast making the drums weak and clicky, increasing the attack bring back more punch. Anyway, mess with one setting at a time and observe the sound change so you get what's happening. It all takes a bit of time and learning. And shit, I'm still nowhere near the exact sound I want for my drums lol, but it still sounds pretty darn good anyway.


Rev.


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## Variant (Oct 8, 2010)

leandroab said:


> Compression.
> 
> Learn to use it: Profit.



 x&#8734;

This! I was avoiding it for the longest period of time as I've heard a few big-time producers here-and-there sing the praises of little to moderate compression on programmed drums (being that you can control the velocities, it theoretically negates the need for comp to an extent) and *maybe* that flies in a sparse, relatively dry mix, but for me, I finally just railed on it and BAM: Fucking punch in all the right places in the mix. 

Now, there's one or two right ways (and about a million wrong ways) to do heavy handed compression. *LEARN* to do it right. It's going to be different for each instrument, as well as different parts of the drumkit. Attack and release times are probably more critical than even ratio and threshold... and you really need to have an understanding of the shape of your waveforms to approach this correctly.  That's why there's an included transient designer there as well. Overheads are a total other beast as well, often benefiting from parallel compression, or compressing some sibilance into them with the room return. Anyway, a whole book could be written here. Learn, you must, young Jedi.  

Fact is, Superior is dry as shit out of the box, and to get big, full, punchy life out of it (and not sound like every dry ass bedroom-djent mix out there) you've got to bus everything out, compress, gate, pass/EQ etc. the respective parts of the kit correctly and independently, and send those to the proper subs to limit, verb, post-process from there.


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## gangaman (Oct 8, 2010)

-Nolly- said:


> Hey dude,
> 
> I just posted some info you might find helpful in this thread on another forum:
> 
> OT: again feedback on my drumsound (SD2.0)/general mix appreciated - Harmony Central Forums


Very nice info right there Nolly ,thanks a lot for your time !


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## drmosh (Oct 8, 2010)

-Nolly- said:


> Hey dude,
> 
> I just posted some info you might find helpful in this thread on another forum:
> 
> OT: again feedback on my drumsound (SD2.0)/general mix appreciated - Harmony Central Forums



another awesome nolly post, many thanks!


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## -Nolly- (Oct 8, 2010)

Cheers dudes, glad you found it helpful. Obviously that's only one way to do it, there are many other methods to try as well. 
Recently I've been using more room mic'ing on the snare, but using the fade function in the S2.0 mixer to shorten the decay. That way you can get a natural roomy attack, but you can control the reverb tail to suit and apply your own thick plate verb or whatever.


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## Thaeon (Oct 9, 2010)

Variant said:


> x&#8734;
> 
> This! I was avoiding it for the longest period of time as I've heard a few big-time producers here-and-there sing the praises of little to moderate compression on programmed drums (being that you can control the velocities, it theoretically negates the need for comp to an extent) and *maybe* that flies in a sparse, relatively dry mix, but for me, I finally just railed on it and BAM: Fucking punch in all the right places in the mix.
> 
> ...



I actually think the dryness of Superior is a good thing. Simply because it is a dry drum sound. You get to add all your own ingredients to taste. If it were all EQ'd and compressed to hell, that's what you would be working with and there wouldn't be much you could do to tailer the sounds to your mix... They would either fit, or not. Kinda like mixing a real drum sound... What the program gives you are the ability to mix and match sets to get different sound, a DEAD studio room, and some high end mic selection, so the source is really solid. In this case you can't get garbage because of the recording... Only because of the mixing/mastering.


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## Cookiedude777 (Oct 9, 2010)

Thank you everyone again who is helping me out


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## 7Mic7 (Dec 2, 2010)

yeah ! thanks for the great and usefull info there guys!


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## B-ri (Dec 18, 2010)

Noob question: I'm using Cubase and Superior Drummer. How do I apply reverb to the snare channel alone?


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## bosmaster (Dec 23, 2010)

Defo compression works for me...I use crazy amounts...8:1 with -10db threshold, and a bit of eqing on the kick and the snare, no limiters.

Result is here...

Wolfcrusher on Myspace Music - Free Streaming MP3s, Pictures & Music Downloads


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