Check out what I did to the kick drum

Mark Legat · Post by **Mark Legat** » Mon Sep 01, 2008 6:43 pm

www.myspace.com/marklegatsmusicpage

It's the one labeled instrumental. I put 2 delay tracks and one I had set to like 125ms and the 2nd track I did it like 250ms and the one I panned to the left and the third I panned to the right. Then left the original kick in the middle. Then for the 2nd hit of the kick, the first delay, I went through and automated the mutes to switch up the rhythm a little bit.

nordberg · Post by **nordberg** » Wed Sep 03, 2008 6:52 am

i find the kick a bit distracting.

Mark Legat · Post by **Mark Legat** » Wed Sep 03, 2008 5:56 pm

Arent you from Pennsylvania?

mattwhritenour · Post by **mattwhritenour** » Wed Sep 03, 2008 9:50 pm

nordberg wrote:i find the kick a bit distracting.

johnnydove · Post by **johnnydove** » Wed Sep 03, 2008 9:53 pm

there was too much going on for my taste, everything kinda got jumbled together, not so much in a good way.

Mark Legat · Post by **Mark Legat** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 3:02 am

Hmmm so far nobody has given any helpful tips to make it better except maybe lower the kick volume. You are supposedly engineers could you guys give me some helpful ideas on how to get my kick sounding better and how things sit in the mix and how you would approach the mix maybe? Which tones are good and which ones I should go back and hit up the EQ?

the finger genius · Post by **the finger genius** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 6:39 am

you didn't ask for help, you asked us to check it out.

T-rex · Post by **T-rex** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 11:24 am

The delay, especially in the right channel makes the kick sound like it's dragging tempo wise. It's a cool idea, but if I were going to stick with it I would increase the delay tempo so the kick hits in tempo. Otherwise it sounds like the drummer is behind the beat (to me at least).

Maybe that will help.

mjau · Post by **mjau** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 12:17 pm

Mark Legat wrote:You are supposedly engineers could you guys give me some helpful ideas on how to get my kick sounding better and how things sit in the mix and how you would approach the mix maybe? Which tones are good and which ones I should go back and hit up the EQ?

For me, it's not so much a choice of eq - it's the artistic choice of using the delay on the kick, which, agreeing with others, I find really distracting. I don't like it, but if you do, roll with it.

nordberg · Post by **nordberg** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 12:56 pm

yes i'm in sunny (at least today) pennsylvania!

Jeff White · Post by **Jeff White** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 1:04 pm

Mark Legat wrote:Arent you from Pennsylvania?

What's wrong with PA?

nordberg · Post by **nordberg** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 1:12 pm

What's wrong with PA?

yeah, wtf!

Mark Legat · Post by **Mark Legat** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 2:12 pm

About Pennsylvania, I just heard that the elevation level there kind of messes with the ears and engineers there kind of have a rep for not doing a good job because their ears dont function correctly. Thanks T-Rex, it does drag a little it sounds like. Some of it is because the drums are off a little bit. I am not real good at quantizing and beat detective. Do you know anywhere that I can read up on beat detective to learn to do it better? Mjau the kick needed EQ really bad, I didnt do a great job tracking it cause it was my first time so it needed a lot of fixing up, and I still cant get it how I want it, keeps sounding kind of basketball like. And finger genius, I am asking now so hush puppy. You should always be using your ears and listening for what could be better anyways so I didnt feel the need to ask in this forum. One of the 1st engineers where I work said the basketball issue in the kick is probably from cymbals bleeding into it cause I had the 421 real close to the beater head on the inside and he said next time to try keeping it further away and it should help. But it doesnt help me now. And I dont really wanna do sound replacement cause I like using my original stuff.

T-rex · Post by **T-rex** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 2:26 pm

I don't have beat detective so I can't help you. I usually don't quantize stuff etc. but I do move some stuff around by hand. I think the bass drum may be in time, but the delayed one isn't. it's hard to tell.

I don't think the cymbal bleed would give it that basketball quality? But a clicky mic right up close will definitely do that (AKG D112 - you know who you are). Pull back on whatever frequency has the most click. To find it, solo the drum, crank up an eq at +10 DB and go through the frequencies till the click is the loudest and most anoying - bam you've found the offending freq (or one of the many). Then cut that frequency till it sounds good. Try frequencies that are double or half the freq you originally cut. Click helps cut through a mix but too much is bad. You could also try cranking the hell out of 60 hz or so on a shelving eq to give it a huge bottom. Of course this brings up all the low end craziness and present a whole bunch more problems, but that's half the fun right? You can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs.

Jeff White · Post by **Jeff White** » Fri Sep 05, 2008 3:43 pm

Mark Legat wrote:About Pennsylvania, I just heard that the elevation level there kind of messes with the ears and engineers there kind of have a rep for not doing a good job because their ears dont function correctly.

However, we can definitely hear delay on a kick drum.

Mark Legat wrote: And I dont really wanna do sound replacement cause I like using my original stuff.

I like to use Aptrigga to augment what I already have. For instance, I tracked drums for a multi-record project back in April and May of 2006. At the time we had two snares to use, but the drummer was more comfortable using his own even after being urged to use a snappier Omar Hakim snare for songs with much more guitars. Anyway, the snare ended up being a problem in those songs, but I was smart enough to record some great mult-tracked samples of the Omar Hakim with all of the original mics in the original room at the time those drums were tracked. I simply used the snare track to trigger the Omar Hakim and layered it on top of the original for a larger and snappier snare sound, and it did the trick.

You may want to see if combining EQ to the original and a triggered kick will give you the results that you are looking for. It can't hurt.

Jeff

Message Board

Check out what I did to the kick drum

Check out what I did to the kick drum

Who is online