cymbal bashers revisited

[permanent hearing damage]

so i have a recent project i keep coming back to. reason being that when the drummer really lays into the ride and crash, the wash just seems to eat up the whole mix. otherwise, the drums sound very balanced and i'm getting great stick definition out of the ride, hats, etc.

the band is mid tempo post punky type stuff very much in a dischord vein.

for a lot of my cymbal sound, i can choose to lean on either a pair of 4033s in XY in front of the kit or a single Joly Modded RSM-5 ribbon overhead. the 4033s give me the detail that i want, but even if i switch them out completely for the ribbon, that wash is still there, it just isn't so bright. there are a pair of 414s for room mics as well, in a fairly live, large room.

i think the real issue is the cymbal bleed into the tom mics. they have condensers on em (Oktava MC012 on top, ATM450 on bottom) and they are faily heavily EQd. they are up pretty loud in the mix. i have automated them (ITB) to come down during those bashy passages, but it only seems to help a little.

i think my next step is to try an expander on the toms and if that fails, just full on automating each hit.

i just thought i'd pick the TOMB collective brain for any other suggestions.

[Nick Sevilla]

Without being able to listen to a sample...

Anything goes.

Now, for some football... Spain VS Portugal UEFA semifinals.

[HeavyHand]

edit every tom hit. sorry. but it has to be done. manually gate every hit. it wont take as long as you think... or maybe it will!

cut out everything but the hit it self. then duplicate the track. use a high pass (set to around 1k) on one of them for just the attack of the transient. keep the edited tom wav pretty short to minimize cymbal bleed. then on the duplicate track, use a low pass (around 60hz or so... try higher too) and elongate the edited wav for some nice tom decay. since there will be no high end in this track your bleed issue should be pretty manageable. for this kind of music, heavy tom editing is tough to avoid.

i do similar things to a kick too.

sometimes I also use the original tom track(in addition to the other two) to get a little sonic glue happening. not always though.

[A.David.MacKinnon]

What he said ^^^^^^.
Also think about getting yourself a good sounding but quiet set of hats and cymbals. I'm not a drummer but I've been itching to do this lately after working on too many records with cymbal bashers (or drummers who's cymbals sound like shit).
It's a bit of an investment but probably worth it for the time and aggravation it will save you down the road.

[bluesman]

De-sssssssssss it can help

[vvv]

Just to make y'all jealous, other than the hats (what he's finally getting under control, and I am, thru mic-position on the snare), I have to remind my drummer to even use the crashes on changes, as he defaults to toms every time (world-music oriented).

[roscoenyc]

Can you get him to use lighter sticks?
Non-nylon tips?

[MoreSpaceEcho]

yeah, edit the toms, try some dessing, also try a low pass and/or high shelf on the overheads, you can pull down 10-20k a fair amount and not kill the drums too badly. you could try one band of a multiband comp too. slower release to try and keep the wash somewhat restrained.

[Brett Siler]

edit every tom hit. sorry. but it has to be done. manually gate every hit. it wont take as long as you think... or maybe it will!

another vote for this. Cut that shit out.

I haven't done that extreme filtering like he suggested, but it may sound cool. i usually just keep the tom's as is and fade em out after each hit. It usually sounds fine. I read in the Tape Op interview with Kurt Ballou that he does the tom editing technique like Heavy Hand suggested and his shit sounds fucking awesome.

[Gregg Juke]

Yeah, all that ^^^^^^^^, and maybe compress the heck out of the overheads and bring them way down (almost out of the mix), or don't compress at all and pull them out of the mix entirely?

It is part of the sound of the music genre that you are recording, and it is the way I've seen a lot of young drummers play as their default/de rigguer style... They use the entire shoulder (side) of the stick, not the bead, so changing to wood tips from plastic wouldn't help. If you can get some very dry cymbals next time though (before tracking, obviously), like Zildjian K's rather than A's, it might help. But these modern-day bashers really do bash away, even on "ballads." Not much you can do about that.

GJ

[Brett Siler]

Also are you using the overheads to capture the whole kit or more for the cymbals?

[MoreSpaceEcho]

They use the entire shoulder (side) of the stick, not the bead

that's not the problem, that's how i play, and it's fine. it's just a matter of hitting the cymbals too hard relative to the drums.

[Gregg Juke]

It totally is, Scott, you've just taken the time to develop it as a tasteful technique. It's the same as (or should I say similar to) playing with the bead-- you can over-play with the bead as well, but then you get a lot of nasty sibilant clickety-clicks, especially with plastic tips. You can play tastefully and dynamically with any technique, so I'm not saying anybody that uses the shoulder is over-playing. But I am saying that I've watched a lot of these guys, and the common denominator is that they _do_ play that way, and that it's much harder to control, so if a drummer is using that technique _exclusively_ for riding, and they already have a proclivity for loud/non-dynamic/washy playing, and they're using a bunch of huge A Zildjians, or any of those "metal" specialty lines that add cymbal wash and volume by design, well... Let's just say that the words of the prophet are written on the studio walls (and concert halls)...

GJ

(And echo, with the sound, of cymbal salesmen, of cymbal salesmen, oooooffff SALESmen!)

[fossiltooth]

A lot of what was said here is good. Also: sound replacers/reenforcers were invented for a reason. So were alternate takes -- Once the drummer has heard what he actually sounds like.

You can also try a little perceptual psychology. If I know I'm dealing with an inexperienced player who has yet to learn how to avoid senseless bashing, I'll often just send him just overheads in the headphone mix. Maybe a tiny hair of kick and snare too, but that's about it. When they ask for more kick and snare in the headphones, I'll say "sure," and just boost the overheads in their feed.

Maybe it's a little sneaky, but it can sometimes work wonders.

[farview]

They use the entire shoulder (side) of the stick, not the bead

that's not the problem, that's how i play, and it's fine. it's just a matter of hitting the cymbals too hard relative to the drums.

Or having the cymbals too low and too close to the tom mics.

Editing is usually the best way to get around this. Even back in the analog days I would use automation to turn the tom mics on and odd for the fills when I ran into this problem.