Can someone recommend a 2 or 4 ch. gate for toms?

BobbyRay · Post by **BobbyRay** » Wed Jun 24, 2009 9:03 am

Is it common to put a gate on toms? Thinking it could be helpful for a rock drummer with a light hand on the toms. He hits the kick, snare, and cymbals well. When it comes time for the toms he just does not hit them hard enough. BTW I use the sennheiser 604's into a mackie pre then to a TSR-8.

My logic is: when turning up the mics to compensate, I am increasing the cymbals more than I would like. Am I overthinking this and looking to buy unecessary gear?

I do not use a computer & I am not a pro. Recording is a hobby for me. So top of the line is out of the question, however I don't necessarily want cheap either.

rty5150 · Post by **rty5150** » Wed Jun 24, 2009 9:55 am

it's not going to help really. if you use a gate, the transients will suffer. either ride them in or just use better mic placement to get a better stereo mix of the drums. a good pair of OH, room mics will be good for that: especially ribbons.
even close mic'd dynamics will bleed the rest of the kit in.

rich

thunderboy · Post by **thunderboy** » Wed Jun 24, 2009 10:00 am

Whether or not it's a good idea aside, the Rane G4 quad gate is pretty great. The "look-ahead" thing means no more lost transients.

jt

protoolsman · Post by **protoolsman** » Wed Jun 24, 2009 11:15 am

Don't always like gates as well, but if I use 'm I use Valley People Gatex. Great 4 channel machines. Got 2

rty5150 · Post by **rty5150** » Wed Jun 24, 2009 11:49 am

have any of you used the dbx 1046? i am looking for that for toms that i'll trim up ITB, but i was wanting to use them on guitars and bass for live/rehearsal.

rich

BobbyRay · Post by **BobbyRay** » Wed Jun 24, 2009 11:52 am

I record the toms on the same track as the o/h's so riding them is not an option. So I do have o/h's they are not ribbons however.

rty5150 · Post by **rty5150** » Wed Jun 24, 2009 1:54 pm

BobbyRay wrote:I record the toms on the same track as the o/h's so riding them is not an option. So I do have o/h's they are not ribbons however.

well, as long as you have a decently wide enough pan, you can simulate the tom rolls.

so why are you looking at a gate if your not mic'ing every tom?

rich

BobbyRay · Post by **BobbyRay** » Wed Jun 24, 2009 2:11 pm

I bus/combine the toms along with the o/h's to one track. The TSR-8 has 8 tracks, so I'm limited in that department. If I had a track for each tom this would not be an issue, I would just edit out everything except the tom hits. I have real simple old school setup.

cgarges · Post by **cgarges** » Wed Jun 24, 2009 2:52 pm

If I'm combining toms to a pair of tracks (in a multi-tom setup) or with the overheads, that's WHEN I'll gate them to tape. Otherwise, I leave it until mix. I've also recorded all the drums to separate tracks and then bounced the toms and sometimes the overheads afterwards, at which point, I'll gate.

I'm not sure if there's a better analog expander/gate than the Aphex 612 and 622. Pretty perfect for toms.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

rty5150 · Post by **rty5150** » Wed Jun 24, 2009 5:07 pm

BobbyRay wrote:I bus/combine the toms along with the o/h's to one track. The TSR-8 has 8 tracks, so I'm limited in that department. If I had a track for each tom this would not be an issue, I would just edit out everything except the tom hits. I have real simple old school setup.

do you submix before you hit the 8 track? you could gate via the inserts of a console that way and treat the busses as stems to the recorder.

honestly i could see 7 tracks with that.

snare top
snare bottom
kick
tom l
tom r
oh l
oh r

1 track left for click and scratch.

back when i had 8 tracks to work with, i had a behringer mx3282a which had 24 channels and 8 busses. i would just group to busses and record each buss to a track.

rich

BobbyRay · Post by **BobbyRay** » Thu Jun 25, 2009 1:45 pm

My 8 track setup:
1 kick
2 snare
3 o/h & 3 toms (each with there own mic.) mono
4 bass
5 guitar 1
6 guitar 2
7 vocals
8 overdubs

TheGreeneSound · Post by **TheGreeneSound** » Thu Jun 25, 2009 7:28 pm

How con you talk about gates and not mention Drawmer? Have you tried doing a stereo mix of your overheads, toms, and snare with a separate kick track? For me that yields a much larger drum sound when limited to 8 tracks. I feel better off this way cause you are going to get snare in your overheads anyway and now the drums are in stereo.

jaguarsg · Post by **jaguarsg** » Thu Jun 25, 2009 9:35 pm

drawmer ds-201. the only way to go, IMHO.

they've got some mojo working.

cgarges · Post by **cgarges** » Thu Jun 25, 2009 10:01 pm

jonnyamerica wrote:How con you talk about gates and not mention Drawmer?

I sold my Drawmers and replaced them with Aphex 612s. Made a profit and have better-sounding, much more flexible and accurate gates.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

BobbyRay · Post by **BobbyRay** » Fri Jun 26, 2009 11:44 am

Yes, I will try stereo.

Have been scared to go with stereo, yes scared to go that route. Having control over just snare alone has always beeen important to me. Parallel compression seems to happen on all the rock related music I do. With having the snare and O/h's on the same track that would give me some problems in that respect.

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Can someone recommend a 2 or 4 ch. gate for toms?

Can someone recommend a 2 or 4 ch. gate for toms?

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