Gating Drums Stacey T.

Heydon -------------------------------------------------------------------------------"The difference between rally musically effective drum gating and disastrous gat ing is a fine line. Ambience, crash cymbals, resonating skins and snare and hihat bleed are among the most common pests when recording acoustic drums. The fo llowing tips may help you elude any of these bleed problems and allow all drum e ffects or equalizers to receive the cleanest of uninterrupted, natural drum soun ds. For key mic, routing and patched, gated signal. Step 1. Set up two SM57s on the snare, one underneath, almost touching the snare s (key mic), your second SM-57 normally positioned one to four inches away above the snare (snare mic). Step 2. Set up gate setting on snare mic, not choking signal with too much thres hold. Step 3. Solo key mic input; set up gate on key mic with fast release, fast attac k, tightest possible threshold (you'll just hear a tick with snare contact) and maximum range. Step 4. At this point you must patch output of gated key mic signal to external imput or key input on snare mic gate. (Check for external input or key input swi tch on snare mic gate). This method of gating will completely separate snare, tom and kick signals witho ut injuring in any way the natural sound qualities of each of these drums, there fore allowing effects and equalizers to receive the cleanest possible send." Stacey T. Heydon - producer/engineer (Sheriff #1 single), guitarist (David Bowie ).

MIKING DRUMS Whenever I record drums for a rock session I use two AKG 452s as my room mics, w hich act as my overheads as well. I set them up facing the front of the kit, as high as possible, and usually they're off to the right hand side of the kit. B oth mics are side by side, and I route each mic to a separate track. I don't ha ve true stereo separation doing it this way, but I find it works well in the sit uations I've worked under. As far as equalization on the mics, I usually add a little sizzle (which allows them to be my overheads as well as a room sound). T his obviously depends on the room you're working in and the type of session you are working on." Noel Golden - engineer (Triumph, Gowan, Rita Coolidge).

MIKING SNARE When miking snares I always use Shure SM57s. I use one on the top and the other one on the bottom to give me a full top and bottom response. Always check phas ing when assigning both mics to one track. (Note: One of the mics should be set out of phase from the console. This will ensure that when you assign both mics to one track the snare signal will be in phase.)" Hugh A. Cooper - engineer/producer, Tom Cochrane and Red Rider, Dan Hill, Myles

Hunter, The Jitters.

Keep That Mix Under Control -------------------------------------------------------------------------------When mixing, combining different treatments of the same track gives more control . I often split my snare track to two channels - one channel slightly gated (3-1 0 dB attenuation - long decay) resulting in a natural sounding drum which feeds reverbs nicely. The second channel I very tightly gate (60 dB attenuation - shor t decay) followed by a dbx 160 compressor (4:1 ratio 8-10 dB gain reductino) wit h lots of 60 Hz EQ added. I use channel two dial in the impact portion of the so und so that the drum still sounds BIG on small speakers or radio. Rob Porter - Engineer, Mushroom Studios, Vancouver, BC (Barney Bentall & The Leg endary, Love & Sass, Lava Hay, Mae Moore)

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------Tips for Mixing Drum Samples -------------------------------------------------------------------------------When mixing drum machines or drum samples, try using a very short early reflecti on reverb program to simulate overhead mics. Make sure the diffusion parameter i s not set too high. You want a good attack, not a smeared sound. Adding this typ e of reverb will greatly improve your drum kit's depth. Also, don't be afraid to experiment with EQ on the reverb to simulate different surface textures. John Albani is a guitarist and producer/engineer who owns Landshark Studio in To ronto.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------Drum Miking Techniques -------------------------------------------------------------------------------One the most common mistakes I've seen in the miking of certain drums - such as djembe or any other drum with a strong low end - results from the misconception that one microphone alone on top of the drum will do the trick. Unlike the typic al one microphone method of miking toms in a drum kit, miking just the top of mo st other drums will not necessarily get the best sound for the situation. Using only a top microphone will give you plenty of "slap" but not enough of the bass. Most of these drums are usually played slightly off the floor that makes it eas y to put another mic directly up into the drum from the bottom. A Sennheiser 421 microphone or an AKG D112 works extremely well for this. For the top of the drum, the 421 works well but any good condenser microphone al so works well. Ideally, if tracks are available, I always put the two microphone s on two separate tracks. That way, in the mix, I can balance the two microphone s to my taste. During recording, I EQ the bottom mic by taking out a lot of the mid-range and highs, leaving a very muddy track when you hear it by itself. Howe ver, when you add this muddy track to the top microphone you end up with a crisp , fat drum sound. If you don't have enough tracks, EQ the bottom mic similarly, record the two microphones to one track balancing them according to the situatio

n. Karen Kane has been engineering and producing music since 1974. Her credits, pro file and other published articles can be seen at her website: www.total.net/~mix mama.

Susan Rogers on miking a drum set: One thing that always stays the same is that I don t like any mic better than a Sh ure SM57 on the snare. The overhead mic, that can be anything. Sometimes I don t e ven put it overhead, I put it underhead. I ll take those new CAD mics; just whatev er. As long as it s a microphone I like, it doesn t matter if it s a dynamic, condense r, or tube. Sometimes I ll put it above the cymbals or sometimes I ll put it about 1 0 feet back from the drums, or sometimes I ll put it just a couple of feet above t he kick drum, maybe like four feet back, just to hear how it sounds. If it sound s appropriate for the song, then that s what I ll use. incresing frequencies between 100 to 150 Hz range to a snare sound, can bring s ome good weight in it.

---Q2.3.2 Should I use compression on drums? Vocals? Bass? ertrinid@girtab.usc.edu (Elson R. Trinidad) writes: If you mic up your kit and route it through a separate mixer before going to your 4-track, put the snare through a compressor (the kick, too, but through a separate compressor) and you'll have a more "professional" sound. But never try to compress the entire drum mix, especially if you use cymbals a lot - there will be a lot of unnatural-sounding "pumping and breathing". brianb@scorpion.iii.net (Marc?) writes: It's great for snares and kicks. (fattens up the kick alot) But I find that it kills rides and hihats. To really compress drums you need to have a system that can compress some, but not all. RE: Beat Production Apr. 16, 1999, 7:39 AM The Thump -------------------------------------------------------------------------------Here are some methods I use for kick drums: 1. Sample rate -I always choose a sample rate compatible with my end media (usua lly CD) to avoid having to downsample and dither. My sample rate of choice is 44 .1kHz, 16-bit Stereo. I can't hear anything over 18k (wear earplugs when jamming !!!!!) so I don't receive any benefit from a higher sampling rate other than I g et to see how fast my hard drive will spin. 2. EQ - To give your kick drum the thump that rattles the chest, boost by a deci bel or two at 80Hz, prefably with a small Q or even better, a notch filter. 80 H z is the sympathetic frequency of the human rib cage, hence the method. 3. Compression - I generally use light compression - 2:1@-18dB. 4. DC offset - I always adjust the DC offset before I do any other editing to a sample to avoid nasty artifacts from mismatched voltages........it takes only a few seconds, and improves the end result greatly. 5. Time compression - I always stretch/shrink my samples to 125 milliseconds whi ch equals a 16th note at 120 bpm, since this is a standard tempo for most people

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