Live Mode Drum Recording

[Microstudio]

I just wanted to know if anyone has used Live Mode to record drums.

How did the gates and Comps work at controlling the individual drums and isolating the sound?

Thanks.

[Microstudio]

TTT..... Come on someone has had to?

[AudioAstronomer]

How did the gates and Comps work at controlling the individual drums and isolating the sound?

Thanks.

They didnt, cause I dont use em. Ruins a drum kit's sound except in a few specific genre's (or is it that it doesnt in a few specific genres? :p ), and even then replacement works even better...

What information are you exactly looking for?

[Dave Labrecque]

TTT..... Come on someone has had to?

Seems silly to me to do any processing live -- to drums or anything else -- when recording. You can always do it later to the super deep 24-bit tracks you laid down (with no tape hiss). And UNDO it if you like. As many times as you like. :)

[Microstudio]

They didnt, cause I dont use em. Ruins a drum kit's sound except in a few specific genre's (or is it that it doesnt in a few specific genres? :p ), and even then replacement works even better...

What information are you exactly looking for?


I would like to know how the gates work on drums. How good are they at isolating the sounds.

IE..... Say you have a 10 piece mobo set and you have mics on all the drums, how good are the gates at isolating each drum and I know that depondes on how good the drummer is......

I am just wondering, I am going to try them on my drums, I just have not got around to it yet.

I have never use gates on my drums because I never bought any gates. I see a TD20 coming around soon, thats the sound I am trying to get.... maybe some time next year after the move.... if I can ever get my house ready to sell.

[sebastiandybing]

You can set the freq. area (on input channels dyn. section)witch triggers the gate or comp. to match the drum you want to isolate.

You can use the listen button to actually hear what the gate gets to
work with.

Sebastian

[Bob L]

The gates will work as good or better as any other gate on drums... but with leakage everywhere on a full kit live miced... any gates are a weak choice at best.

Once the drums are in the MT... the cleanest way to isolate the individual sounds is to split the tracks out removing the silence between drum hits... especially on the toms.... then use a softedge ramp in front and back of each tom region.

I would leave the overheads alone and the snare and hihat... gating them will cause too much weirdness.

Bob L

[antiClick]

I would leave the overheads alone and the snare and hihat... gating them will cause too much weirdness.When it's possible to remove (mouse editing) the in-between silence of the snare hits I get a much more defined kick (I suppose that it's for phase reasons).

The same goes for the snare if I edit the kick.

Dunnow.... but I suppose that the leakage beetween mics makes some type of comb-filter effect that ruins the hit definition.

Am I wrong?

[dhise]

Bleed between the mics is what makes a drumkit sound huge. I prefer to get most of my drum sound from the overheads and add close mics to give it a little more punch. Although I had to deal with a live sound recording recently where the overheads were really weak, but I ended up with a good sound anyways. Just had to use reverb more creatively on the close mics...


ymmv,
Doug




When it's possible to remove (mouse editing) the in-between silence of the snare hits I get a much more defined kick (I suppose that it's for phase reasons).

The same goes for the snare if I edit the kick.

Dunnow.... but I suppose that the leakage beetween mics makes some type of comb-filter effect that ruins the hit definition.

Am I wrong?

[Ollie]

I would never gate during recording. You can make that choice later. If you use any compression in the recording, go easy.

[antiClick]

Is it possible to record pre-fx,
but monitor post-fx?

...and use this schema easily in a studio session. I mean, being able to check takes in the middle of the session, without having to repatch everything.

Im' pretty sure this has already been discussed... If someone can remember, please drop a link to the previous thread
Thanks

[sebastiandybing]

Go to "mixer" - "prefx patch signal flow" - hit ctrl+click to change all channels in one action.

Sebastian

[Sean McCoy]

The gates will work as good or better as any other gate on drums... but with leakage everywhere on a full kit live miced... any gates are a weak choice at best.

Once the drums are in the MT... the cleanest way to isolate the individual sounds is to split the tracks out removing the silence between drum hits... especially on the toms.... then use a softedge ramp in front and back of each tom region.

I would leave the overheads alone and the snare and hihat... gating them will cause too much weirdness.Bob L
Totally agree. If I need a more controlled snare track for reverb, with little or no hi-hat bleed for example, I'll copy the snare to another track, gate the heck out of it and use it as an aux send only. I do not miss the days of painstakingly setting up my Aphex 612 gates on the kick, snare and tom tracks. As good as those gates were, it was never perfect.

[Mark Stebbeds]

Totally agree. If I need a more controlled snare track for reverb, with little or no hi-hat bleed for example, I'll copy the snare to another track, gate the heck out of it and use it as an aux send only. I do not miss the days of painstakingly setting up my Aphex 612 gates on the kick, snare and tom tracks. As good as those gates were, it was never perfect.

Ditto.

I used to do this in the analog days as well, by patching into another console channel and gating the snot out of the reverb send, while using an ungated or lightly gated snare in mix.

Mark

[mikebuzz]

Ok stupid ? of the day I tried to go into LIVE mode and it says "NO OUTPUTS assigned " or something similar , what am I doing wrong ???

LAter
Buzz

[Jay Q]

I tried to go into LIVE mode and it says "NO OUTPUTS assigned " or something similar , what am I doing wrong ??? You have to assign an input other than "MultiTrk" on the Input Source.

Jay

[Microstudio]

Thanks for the input everyone. Like I said I have never gated my drums because I never had any gates to record with. I will try it ... why? To see how tight of a sound I can get. Gate as I record and then more if needed in the mix.... but just the drums. I am going to tweak each drum and then save the whole live mix setup. See how close to that tight digitally sampled sound I can get with my early 80's Slingerland set.

It's all fun and you never know when you might need that sound....:cool:


And to think I have always dreamed of having a digital mixer so I could save all my settings and have effects on every channel.....

[mikebuzz]

DUH thanks Jay
LAter
Buzz

[Bob L]

Another great tool is to look at DrumaGog.

This is a great way to add some separation and clarity to the drum mix. I will sometimes use DrumaGog to create a clean triggered snare or kick or tom sample and then blend those back into the original drum tracks.

In this manner, you can create a large snare reverb effect on the Clean snare trigger and not on the original snare with all the leakage also going thru the reverb. It also allows you to keep all the nuances of the drum playing but add an attack from the clean drum sample... you can eq thge sample radically for extra effect without adding weird eq to the leakage.

I actually patch DrumaGog and build a mix of each of the samples I want to use... then remove DrumaGog from the session... now I have the sampled drum hits along with the original drums... this method also allows you to easily zoom in and line up the sampled drum sound perfectly with the original drum to compensate for any DrumaGog latency that may be added in.

A very nice technique.

Bob L

[Brent Bennett]

Dunnow.... but I suppose that the leakage beetween mics makes some type of comb-filter effect that ruins the hit definition.


You can also time align (delay) your snare track with your overheads so they hit at the same time. It gives you a very strong snare hit. Could be 3 to 5 milliseconds or more difference. Also, make sure you phase reverse all appropriate drum channels.

[antiClick]

You can also time align (delay) your snare track with your overheads so they hit at the same time. It gives you a very strong snare hit. Could be 3 to 5 milliseconds or more difference. Also, make sure you phase reverse all appropriate drum channels.Thanks Brent.
Yes, that's the first thing I did... try to repair it with delays or phase switch plugins, but it really never improved the sound.

As every frequency travels at different speed, moving tracks only altered the center frequency of the comb filter (?). I'v always archieved the best results by editing and cutting KK & SN silences by hand.
Give it a try, and see how it works for you.


Bleed between the mics is what makes a drumkit sound huge. What's a huge drum sound? :o
Punchy? Spacey? Stereo?
I'm very intereseted in this. Could you post a sound file, or give an example from a famous track?

... in my short experience, a well thought OH/AMBience set uses to be enough, if the room works.
I like coincident-XY for OH, as it naturally filters the lows from the kick, and doesn't conflict with the phase of the kick's mike.

....sorry if I said something stupid :D
Maybe I like too much punch :eek:

[Sean McCoy]

What's a huge drum sound? :o
Punchy? Spacey? Stereo?
I'm very intereseted in this. Could you post a sound file, or give an example from a famous track?:
I think it's probably a safe assumption that about 90% of all the recordings you've ever heard where you were really impressed by the drum sound included ample amounts of mic bleed and absolutely no time realignment.

[Mark Stebbeds]

I think it's probably a safe assumption that about 90% of all the recordings you've ever heard where you were really impressed by the drum sound included ample amounts of mic bleed and absolutely no time realignment.

It may be closer to 95%. :) And typically using fewer mics. With toms ringing.

Mark

[Sean McCoy]

Thanks, Mark. I was leaving myself 5% more flame buffering.