big drum sound... your advice?

[jaguarundi]

i'm mixing my band's album on a Pro Tools LE system. I don't have a whole lot of experience mixing drums and we don't have any outboard gear here except for a Focusrite TwinTrak Pro mic pre/compressor and a PreSonus Blue Tube mic pre. Between those and your standard Audiosuite plug-ins and the Waves Renaisance Maxx plug-ins, we're looking for advice on getting a big drum sound... the original tracks were already recorded pretty nicely, though, there is no "room" sound on them, nicely mic-ed but not in a space... i'd guess some combination of reverb and compressors? they are tracked like this:
kick
snare
hat
rack toms
floor tom
Overheads L/R
Room L/R (not much of a room though)

I know "big" is kind of vague, we're thinking, Led Zeppelin meets the Flaming Lips kind of drum sounds, there, that's a bit more specific... : )

thanks!
adam[/i]

[amishsixstringer]

Both of those bands you mention SLAM compressors hard. Compress each track and then send them all to an AUX Bus and compress the shit out of that too. And throw some verb in there with a fair (30ms?) amount of pre delay. G'luck

[BradG]

It's a hard thing to discuss without hearing the tracks. A few things to try are sending those room tracks through a verb and crushing it, then adjusting the verb settings to fit. If you've got the SansAmp (or way better, a real one) plug, put it on a send and send anything with skins through it. 3k and and gated reverb on those toms will get you there real quick too.

[MASSIVE Mastering]

If you have a floor wedge or two that you can put into a reasonably large room and mic up the room, that might not hurt either...

Gotta be the "right" room though -

[vibesof20hz]

Provided you have a decent room, put up a room mic... try a few places to find the best ?biggest? sounding location. Then drive the shit out of it through your tube pre. Maybe some short reverb with a longer pre delay... Or, make a boomy sub mix of what you have now, and send it to the pre and drive the tube a lot. I never used that pre, but I have gotten some killer room sounds by driving a tube. Maybe some Rbass or similar processing in the end.

[getreel]

Yes, great room=compress overheads. If you don't like that, try the parallel compression techniques discussed on a thread awhile back called "I want to marry parallel compression".

[Artifex]

Get big drums. And a big room.

[drumsound]

EQ out things that eat too much freq range and fight with other instruments. That will make space for the drums and allow you to turn them up more. Give everything it onw space in the frequency response.

Parallel compression is a great way to add a lot of presence to drums.

[jaguarundi]

thanks dudes, i'm excited to try some of this stuff. can't really re-mic things, pretty much mixing in the box at this point. i read the parallel compression thread, which i've never tried, sounds like that could work, though I'm a little limited on my DSP on some tracks....

thinking out loud here cause a lot of this is new to me, i could put compressors on all the separate drum tracks, but that would be like 8 new plug ins which i don't know if the system can handle... would the other thing to do be to bus all the drums into a stereo audio track and then smash that? or, i don't fully get how to use bus and aux tracks yet, would you somehow put a compressor on a bus track and send the drums through there onto a new track? have any of you tried to do something like this with the Waves compressors?

also i'm wondering, slightly off topic here, but how important is it that where you pan your drums match up with where they appear in the overheads?

[drumsound]

I set up a parallel comp for the whole drum-set. I might take certain things out, or start with just the drum mics, but not the overheads or room mics. I work with hardware, but I'd do the same if I mixed ITB. I send the drums out a stereo bus to a compressor and return the comp to 2 channels. ITB I think you'd set up a stereo bus or aux track or whatever the hell the software designer calls it on your prefered system. Send the drum to the new pair and to the main stereo bus. Insert a comp on the stereo sub/.aux/bus. Sometimes I'll use a parallel on SD or BD seperate from the group, but most often its the group.

The panning thing tends to mimic the OH which for me mimics sitting behind the drums.

[getreel]

I set up a parallel comp for the whole drum-set. I might take certain things out, or start with just the drum mics, but not the overheads or room mics. I work with hardware, but I'd do the same if I mixed ITB. I send the drums out a stereo bus to a compressor and return the comp to 2 channels. ITB I think you'd set up a stereo bus or aux track or whatever the hell the software designer calls it on your prefered system. Send the drum to the new pair and to the main stereo bus. Insert a comp on the stereo sub/.aux/bus. Sometimes I'll use a parallel on SD or BD seperate from the group, but most often its the group.

The panning thing tends to mimic the OH which for me mimics sitting behind the drums.

This is pretty much exactly how I do it. I've been using either use an old dbx comp or a Dynamite for the drum sub depending on whether I want to thicken or explode the sound.

[dirk_v]

thanks dudes, i'm excited to try some of this stuff. can't really re-mic things, pretty much mixing in the box at this point. i read the parallel compression thread, which i've never tried, sounds like that could work, though I'm a little limited on my DSP on some tracks....

That's the beauty of parallel compression for me actually, it can save quite a bit of DSP by running one compressor in place of 4, or 8, or more...

thinking out loud here cause a lot of this is new to me, i could put compressors on all the separate drum tracks, but that would be like 8 new plug ins which i don't know if the system can handle... would the other thing to do be to bus all the drums into a stereo audio track and then smash that? or, i don't fully get how to use bus and aux tracks yet, would you somehow put a compressor on a bus track and send the drums through there onto a new track? have any of you tried to do something like this with the Waves compressors?

As suggested above, you may wish to compress a few tracks before sending them to a parallel compression bus. If you're short on DSP, I'd suggest you focus on compressing your room, snare, and kick tracks, in that order. Add a stereo Aux track in PT, set its input to one of the stereo busses, and insert a compressor plug-in. Experiment with which plugin sounds best to you, but I'd guess that the BF76 is probably a good starting point since it has lots of 'vintage' character that will hit that Zep/Flaming Lips vibe a lot quicker than the cleaner-sounding Waves comps. Just create a send on each of the drum tracks you want to send to the parallel comp assigned to the same bus as the Aux track you created, and voila. Once your levels and compressor are set up, you should find that as you bring the level of the Aux track up, it adds some weight and body to the drum sounds.

To get a 'bigger' sound, I'd try compressing the room track you have first, with relatively fast attack and release settings and a fairly high ratio, as this will bring down the level of the transients as each drum is struck, allowing you to bring up the level and hear more of the sound of the room. If it isn't happening, then start experimenting with reverb on another aux track. I know that the temptation will be to create a large virtual space to get a large sound, but creating a smaller space with less diffusion may get you there more quickly. Think about how precisely you can hear the dimensions of the room Bonham's drums are in on those old Zep records, and use those dimensions as a starting point. They're definitely not 'cathedral' sounds.

also i'm wondering, slightly off topic here, but how important is it that where you pan your drums match up with where they appear in the overheads?

The answer is, pretty important, but the good news is, it doesn't have to be perfect. If your close mic tracks are panned to the *wrong* spots, it can cause some strange stereo-image shifting when that drum is struck, so listen carefully as you alternately bring the stereo OH/Room tracks and the close mic tracks up and down to make sure that each drum stays in the same place between your two speakers all the time. Fortunately, it's easy to adjust the relative panning of your stereo OH/Room tracks in PT, so you don't have to have drums spread across the whole width of the stereo image, which can make placing them easier.

Have fun!

-dv

[jaguarundi]

you guys are monumentally helpful, thanks!! i've been screwing around all night with this stuff...

experiment with which plugin sounds best to you, but I'd guess that the BF76 is probably a good starting point since it has lots of 'vintage' character that will hit that Zep/Flaming Lips vibe a lot quicker than the cleaner-sounding Waves comps.

i tried messing with the BF76 earlier and didn't quite figure it out, how do you go about setting the input vs. output on it? and, i assume the ratio buttons work like compressor ratio's but, i wasn't having a whole lot of success with it, i got pretty decent results with the PT stereo comp/limiter...

Just create a send on each of the drum tracks you want to send to the parallel comp assigned to the same bus as the Aux track you created, and voila. Once your levels and compressor are set up, you should find that as you bring the level of the Aux track up, it adds some weight and body to the drum sounds.

so if i'm understanding parallel compression right, the way you're explaining it...you send everything you want; which would be...everything: kick, hat, snr, toms + oH's? ; to a stereo bus, create sends, adjust the sends how you like and bring up the aux track for weight in the mix how you like...

To get a 'bigger' sound, I'd try compressing the room track you have first,

if you're room track is on 2 tracks, L + R, wouldn't it make sense as far as this goes to move it to a stereo track for sake of simplicity with plug ins? or is what you're saying, which i think it is, to do basically the same thing with parallel compression on the room track as in, send it to another stereo bus? so basically you'd have all other drums on one stereo bus and the rooms on another... i could see how you might want to use the other stereo busses for parallel compression on vox and instruments too...very tempting

-ac

[ludwig_van]

i tried messing with the BF76 earlier and didn't quite figure it out, how do you go about setting the input vs. output on it? and, i assume the ratio buttons work like compressor ratio's but, i wasn't having a whole lot of success with it, i got pretty decent results with the PT stereo comp/limiter...

The ratio functions the same way as any compressor. Clockwise = fast for the attack and release knobs. Select "GR" (gain reduction) for the meter and use the input knob to choose the amount of compression - move the knob until the meter is showing (and your ears are hearing) the amount of reduction that you want. Then use the output knob for makeup gain. Also note that if you shift-click on one of the ratio buttons you'll set it to "all 4 buttons" mode, which makes it slam things extra hard.

[jaguarundi]

thanks Ludwig, i'll check it out again!