my guess is that you did not try the right things with EQ comp and reverb

Well, thanks!!!

TheFraz wrote: my guess is that you did not try the right things with EQ comp and reverb

Yeah, right...
All of the signal processing in the world isn't going to fix it in the mix. For starters, EQ'ing the frequency band that the snare's tone lies in will make the cymbals sound like trash can lids. And adding compression to the overheads will cause the cymbals to "hang" like a Carlos Santana solo. Adding reverb? To overheads? Talk about mud!
Can you go back and re-track the kit? Whoever recorded it (not you?) obviously didn't treat this kit as a SINGLE instrument, played by a SINGLE player. And didn't have the monitoring environment to make the right decisions on mic technique before commiting the sound "to tape". Or disc, whatever the media.
Is the snare part simple enough to be "flown in" by overdubbing or a sample?

moonbaby wrote:
MY guess is that you didn't mic the kit correctly when you recorded it in the first place.

Well, yeah, i know that, but i'm not the one who did the tracking so there's not much i can do about that...
Ain't there any trick to help me with that...???

I edited my original reply. SOMETIMES you can fudge it with a sample played over the snare part, if the part is simple enough. That's a big IF.
You can TRY having the drummer play the snare parts over and "fly " that in. I have had very little luck with that unless the part was a simple part played by a skilled drummer.

Thanks for your answer...

But no there is no way of redubbing it since it's a pretty tricky part, plus the drummer is not THAT skilled, and will never be able to do it again...

"All of the signal processing in the world isn't going to fix it in the mix."

Well, that's what i think, but i wandered if there could be a trick to make things better... Well, i guess i will have to live with that then...

i guess that is why we have that saying " shit IN, well, shit OUT"... No miracles...

Thank you so much anyway...

Hey niclaus, a few questions. How many tracks do you have of drums total? Just the OH? or OH and snare? or a bunch of mics? The more we know the more we can help.

well, i do have a whole bunch of tracks...
OH, Snare (2), kick (2), tom-toms, HH,...

So you have a lousy sounding snare drum track? And it's actually 2 separate tracks? Top & bottom? And you don't hear any snare drum in any of the other drum microphones including overheads? WTF?

No problem. There's plenty of ways to fix this. I need tohear this so, can you post a mix or separate tracks?

None of the other suggestions are appropriate and certainly won't help to fix your abortion. This is where experience is necessarily. And I'm talking phase flipping, noise generation & gating, side chained selective dynamics. The right reverb algorithms and voilà! Oh yeah, some equalization to taste.

Mixing in analog or digital or both?

Doing it all
Ms. Remy Ann David

I'm with Remy, post an example.
Your statement that there isn't any snare in the other mics is just too weird.

If possible, post an example of all the drums, all drums with snare mics muted, and one of just overheads.

well, you got it right... The different tracks are close mics so you don't have that much snare in there...

I'll try to post some sample as soon as possible, but i'm away right now so it should take a cuple of days before i can put a hand on the disk...

Phase fipping??Noise generation?? What would you do there? Can you explain a little bit??

Anyway thanks for your help, and again, i'll post some samples ass soon as possible...

Well, first off, is it always up front if you mute the snare tracks?

I realize that sounds like a dumb question, but until we get to hear some of it I can't tell you whether you have an EQ issue, a phase problem, or if simply moving the track a few ms will help...

BTW, what are you recording to?

see, if i mute it, well, there is not so much left of it...

Can you explain your phase flipping thing idea??

Again, i really appreciate and post samples as soon as i can...

BTW, what are you recording to?

Tape? Software?

I'll tell you about phase flipping if you'll answer my question.

I think the drum kit was recorded through a digi002, while i'm using a ProTools HD...!!!

Phase simplified:

If you have mics that are out of phase, like the example on the right, you've gotta flip one of the two (or more) to get them to work together as shown on the left.

In some cases it's preferable to move a track forward in time a few milliseconds to make something stand out.

That said, I don't think your problem lies there.

How long have you been pushin' the faders?

1. Remy was right. Not a lot of useful information posted ahead of her.
2. I would bus all drum tracks together and put a phase meter on that track.
3. Try different combinations of the tracks you have. Move them around(pan). Go with the setup that has the best phase relationship. This will be the best sounding choice, probably.
4. Remy is very wise. If she refutes anything I've said, she's right.
5. Sweet graphic, bent!

hey guys,

thanks for those usefull infos... I'll sure try them out as soon as i can...

other than that, it's tree in the morning here, and i just woke up with an isea. Tell me what you think...

I thought that maybe, after proper "rephasing" of the two OH mics, i could use a MS encoding to try and get the snare and kick up, even if this means narrowing the stereo...!!!

Well, it would mean proper use of EQs and comps to get something good, but i thought it could be something to try out...

The snare tends to overwhelm the overhead microphones, so try with a very fast-acting peak limiter on the overhead to keep the snare drum from doing that.

Am I missing something here? :shock:

Did you say you have lots of drum tracks with snare on two and a set of overheads with NO SNARE in em???

How easy does this need to be?

I musta missed something.................................................................?

Splain yoursef agin Loooceee.

I really think we're hearing the classic song "I shot the phase shift. But I didn't shoot the A2D..."? And now he knows what that little "0" is with the line running through it, for.

My basic advice is to " build the bass by pushing buttons". Always in mono. Bass drum too flabby? Push the button. Problem solved !

I think I want to become a supermodel?
Ms. Remy Ann David

Hello there!

Sorry i haven't been able to get back here for quite some time cause i've been pretty much sucked up in a bigger project.
And so i haven't been able to get some sample of the problem but i'll sure do it as soon as i'm back on this one.

Anyway, Let me try to explain again...

It looks like the OH were tracked as if they were, let say, another part of the drum kit. All i've got there is close miking of the cymbals. And of course, with no phase relations between them.
So i just can't use the OH to get an overall image of the drum but can just use them as two other close mics...

To sum up, i have nothing to get an overall image of the drum and so it sounds like everything is disconnected fromthe other part of the kit. And the bigger problem is with the snare since you can hear that it was tracker with only a close mic, and then sound as if in front of everything else.

Like when you record a too close voice for example...

Hope i'm clear.

Anyway, thanks for the help.

How about posting some samples?

I'm clueless
Remy Ann David

well, that's what i was saying, i haven't been able to get back on that project for the last couple of weeks but i'll sure put some samples as soon as i'm back on this one...

To rescue this, you're going to have to create a stereo sub-bus of the drums alone. Then you're gonna have to put a compressor and a reverb across the bus and dink with it till it all glues itself together. You can also add predelays on the cymbal track and compress the snare individually before the stereo sub.

Theres no way around it. Its going to take a lot of work and a lot of cpu to get it to gel.

Well, i already tried that, but even if it helped, this was not totally the answer. Or maybe i didn't spend enough time there.

I'll sure give it another try and let you know.

Anyway, thank you so much for your kind help.

I'm sure we've gone down this road already, but - how many separate, discreet tracks of drum mics are we talking about?

It appears that you've got two OH, one Snare, maybe one Kik?

Just a quick list would suffice, like:

Track# -- Instrument
1) Kik
2) Snare
3) OH-L
4) OH-R

Am I missing something here? If you're close miking the kit, wouldn't you want the least bleed possible? If it's too upfront, can't you just pull the fader down?

I'm sorry for being so obvious, but I just don't seem to understand...

EDIT: Didn't see there was a second page in this topic, and just noticed Davedog already posting this question, and yes reverb would be the answer... :oops:

niclaus wrote: Hello!

i do have to mix this project where the OH tracks are really lacking snare...
Well, there is none of it in there...
The problem is i can't get the snare to fit with the rest, it's always in front of everything...

I tried EQs, comp, reverb,... but it still up infront of everything...

Has anybody ever dealt with that kind of problem???

thanks for your help.

Rob.

Are you sayingthere was a snare mic used and the sound doesn't fit?

niclaus wrote: Hello!

i do have to mix this project where the OH tracks are really lacking snare...
Well, there is none of it in there...
The problem is i can't get the snare to fit with the rest, it's always in front of everything...

I tried EQs, comp, reverb,... but it still up infront of everything...

Has anybody ever dealt with that kind of problem???

thanks for your help.

Rob.

Are you sayingthere was a snare mic used and the sound doesn't fit?

Maybe the recordist who engineered the tracking process used high pass filters on the overheads before hitting the tape. Or maybe the drummer put something (towels) over the cymbals and recorded drums and cymbals seperately... some people have been known to do that. Or maybe he did use the high pass on the overheads, and super gated everything else. I vote for Drumagog with a semi dense room verb set to 100% wet as a backing track for the snare batter. Either that or mess with some frequency selective stereo expansion (Ozone?) and see if you can bring the rest of the kit out.

I seriously think EQ and verb (compression too) could do the trick (unless the snare just plain ol' sounds bad). Without audio examples, its tough to get a real idea of what we are dealing with. If the snare sounds out of place and too forward, perhaps dropping the mids (450-750) down a few dB, or perhaps take a fairly wide Q and sweep a mild cut across the band to see if you find any favorable results? (Try cutting first always!!!!)