Try doing a submix of the drums through a Manley vari-mu. Yowsa!

For the mic pre, try adding an 1176/MC76 to the end of the chain if you want "aggressive".

now, i'm no expert on this, but i've started doing the Fletcher 3 drum mic thing. think of that in future, perhaps with a few extra mics to use as FX mics. with your current tracks i'd recoment getting your hands on 1. a distressor w/ brit mode [GREAT MOD...you can do even some super agressive stuff the 1176 can't because you can do wierder stuff with the attack and release times].

also: GET A SANS AMP PSA-1. this is the coolest lil box on the planet for making stuff ROCK. put the manley through this...magic.

or you can stick it on the ass-a-phonic mic .

well, that's my humble suggestion kit anyway.

new mic pre:

try pendulum MDP-1 and distressor. works great for me. i have the normal transformers, but you can get it with custom "vocal emphasizing" transformers too.

--owen

Yo man, I got the PSA1. What types of settings are you using? I tried running the snare through it and it sounded like shite. Of course probobly a wrong setting. It always seems like it thins it out a bit. Also am checking into the distressor as we speak. thanks guys for the info. I'm gonna try running the Manley through it tonight.
KBP

well, maybe i'm just not paying attention, but i've never heard the sans amp thin out much...at lower volumes, i guess i agree. i always work with HOT signal though, so if you pump it going in, it's a lot happier.

on snare, i think:

gate. this is important, usualy.

lots of crunch, more drive distortion than preamp gain.

other stuff to taste.

i usualy just use it to add to a clean signal:
i fuck the sound up more than you should on the sans amp track, and then mix it in with the clean one. basicly i use it as a dirty eq.

but on a room mic is where i think it is the coolest. you have all this clean attack from the regular kit mics, and than you run 1 room mic in and make it filthy.

and it outputs in stereo if you want.

but if you don't like it you don't like it.

personaly, it's my fav for kick drums. the buzz knob is rad.

basicly it is a "twidle the knobs till it works and save the settings" box, because the controls are SO variable.

let me know how it turns out

--owen

My F-16, and more recently, soundreplacer have made me a million bucks. I use it even when my drum kit sounds pretty good, because the seperation allows MUCH more creativity as far as mixing. I wish soundreplacer could pitchshift (like my F16). You can pitch shift Kicks (snares, hell everything) in the KEY OF THE SONG! Pretty cool. Dare I say "musical drums". Like the DW kits, where each drums has the key stamped on the inside.

e-cue
I take your point re soundreplacer but how do you get over the problem of the differing sounds on the overheads tracks. Whilst I love the principal of the freedom allowed by soundreplacer when I pushed up the overheads truth to tell I was less than happy with the fact hat the sonic differences were very noticeable.

Simon

Shit I did not know that the key of DW drums is on the inside of the drums. My drummer just got a new DW kit, I'm gonna have to check that out.

I don't use pro tools or else I would have already been using sound replacer religiously. All the drums I've recorded on this session have been retriggered, So I have the choice to use different sounds if I want. Usually what I do is gate or edit the tracks then apply a audio to score process which leaves me with a midi sequence of the drums. Sometimes I have to go in and fix a few hits that are off of the originals but for the most part It works like a charm. Then I usually trigger a bunch of samples to find whats right for the track, ending up with usually 3 to 4 kick tracks (808ish for low/original kick for punch and mids/a real cracky one for the high end) and the same for the snare drum. I usually spend endless hours editing to make sure that the retriggered tracks faithfully reproduce what the drummer has done, sometimes what I'm rettrigering will have up to 30 velocity layers (30 dif samples). As far as you're question about it not meshing with the other drums in the Overheads, Obviously it very well could not mesh. But usually the samples you end up using are tonally complimentary to the original tracks. For me I usually end up using the retriggered tracks as an enhancment rather than a complete replacement. I rather enjoy todays highly processed sound but at the same time enjoy the air of older recordings. So I am going for a mix of the 2 styles. Again I spend countless hours making sure that what I am doing does not hurt the original recording.

I'm almost finished with this mix and would like to up it somewhere where you guys could listen and comment on. Do you know how I could do this?

Thanx
KBP

KBP

Upload it onto mp3.com should do the trick and post the url on this forum... should be cool.

Simon

Originally posted by nrgmusic:
e-cue
I take your point re soundreplacer but how do you get over the problem of the differing sounds on the overheads tracks. Whilst I love the principal of the freedom allowed by soundreplacer when I pushed up the overheads truth to tell I was less than happy with the fact hat the sonic differences were very noticeable.

Simon
Good point Simon. I have several approaches. 1st, forget about OH's & 'create' overhead tracks. I'll send a drum sub mix to a stereo set of distressors & set them on nuke to swash the dogcrap out of them. Then send that back to protools (I know, I know, there's a convesion delay- big deal, they're overheads) and into say, Renaissance Reverb, with the "Studio A" preset & tweek it. (or send to a tiled room if your studio has one) I actually think it sounds better most of the time, mainly because the phase seems much tighter.
2nd, in protools, even if I don't soundreplacer, I try to nudge my OH's foward so they are more sample acurate to the orignal drum/cymb being hit. It won't be perfect, but it helps to get your kit more bangin'. Something I notice a lot when I mix drums I didn't record is that most engineers turn overhead tracks into what I call 'mush tracks'. I usually use my overheads for cymbal definition & a little ambience. So while I suspect the tracking engineer considers it to sound 'wide', I just hear out of phase crap. That being said, I don't replace cymbal samples very often.

Originally posted by KBP:
Allright so here is my situation, I'm in the middle of mixing a tune and it's style is along the lines of Kid Rock/Crazytown but a little more of a live thing. I'm getting close to the drum sound that I'm hearing in my head, but not quite. So I was wondering if anyone might be able to suggest something different that I might not have tried. Now let me be sure everyone understands, I'm looking for aggressive, borderline about to explode but yet tight as a babys ass.

Try this...mult the drums, one goes where it normally goes (into the kit balance) the other goes to a gate...from the gate, into something like a 'distressor' on "Nuke" or an Alan Smart 'C-2' on "Crush"...then return those additional "drum helper" tracks along with the rest of the drums. You can do these individually, or in a sub bus mix (though I generally suggest gating the secondary drum tone singly and using the compression as a bus thing). Try it with a long attack, and a quick release.

Being in Pro-sTools you may have to time correct for latency (whatever).

You also mentioned that the drums were originally cut to 2"? Perhaps getting the 2" and locking it up to the P-T along with the little "drum helper" thing might get you harder than Chinese Algebra...then again, might not...as always, YMMV.

What's the Fletcher 3 drum mic thing?

i might be off on what you are hearing in your head but agressive drums sounds [snare especially] get some distortion happening either by reamping or putting some nasty distortion box on a mult. try a RNC on a mult compressing the living shit out of it but keep attack and release at their fastest times. mix it in with the real tracks. or try a moogerfooger analog delay and turn up the drive on it and keep the delay setting very short and very fast [turns it into a sort of verb]. gotta run right now. ill be back.

Originally posted by litenmupp:
What's the Fletcher 3 drum mic thing?

I didn't invent it, I merely a practitioner. You can find a primer here: http://mercenaryaudio.com/3micdrumstuf.html

Good luck with it...it's kind of a bitch the first few times you try it (especially getting up the balls to try it)...but some of the techniques are often appropriate to the song if you have a really good drummer with a good set of drums in a really good sounding room.

Thanks Fletcher, it was interesting reading.

When using this teqnique you describe on drums do you usually compress all the drum mics at tracking and/or mix?

Sorry for stepping in here...
Cheers

Thank guys for all the info, I'm not a pro engineer. Just a guy that's in the beginnings of a pro production career and have been doing alot of the demos for the company myself. finally got the shopping mixes approved. fuck what a headache. I can't wait to get the right guys on this stuff, so I can consentrate on what I'm best at. Smoking pot, drinkin beer and comin up with musical ideas. I'm proud of the mixes I have been doing and will always mix in some sort of way, but I would rather not be the main guy behind the boards, I would rather just mix for fun.

Thanx KBP

Now let me be sure everyone understands, I'm looking for aggressive, borderline about to explode but yet tight as a babys ass. The drums are full out 157bpm slow groove. I'm not going for a "totally natural sound", But something more now. For a visual, the drums from Chili Peppers Blood sugar sex magic with alot more round low end. Below I give a list of drums and mics used to give you an Idea of the raw sound. I am also looking for suggestions on how to set up mults properly.

KBP

PS Also, I'm purchasing a new mic pre hopefully by next week.
Avalon 737 / Millennia Orgin / Neve 9098 / Amek pure path / Focusrite producer pak / Red series / Vintech and distressor / Brent Averill and distressor. Which one is best for warm fat aggressive but clear vocals for a singer that is Punk/Rap type thing.

Hi KBP,
First, If you want an aggressive drum sound you might want to heavily compress the room track (if there are any). I like distressors at 10:1 for this...sometimes you can get away with faster ratios...be sure to make the release time fairly fast but don't go to crazy with a quick release time or you'll just end up with loud room tracks. Even better than the distressors are Pye limiters (providing you can get your hands on some). Pye limiters are a ridiculous way to "smash the shit out of your drums". For multing your drums, there are a few ways to do it...
1. You can mult at the patchbay with the mult points that are there.
2. If you are working on an SSL or similar type console, you can just bus them and take input from the subgroup of the channels that those subgroups are on.
For ex: Channel 25 would take input from subgroup 25 so any channels that are assigned to bus 25 will feed that channel when its "subgroup" button is "in".
3. You can simply bus them and patch the bus outputs to whatever channel you want them on.

Now as far as your punk rock vocal goes, I once again recommend an aggressive sounding compressor/limiter to do the job. ive found that distressors set at about 4:1 maybe higher if needed with one of the distortion settings in works very well. You could also try an 1176 with a high ratio or perhaps the 4:1 and 8:1 ratio buttons "in" together or find a comination of those buttons that work for your application.

i would stay away from the more high end "perfect sounding " equipment like the Avalons for this type of aggressive sound.

By the way... you may or may not know that the i/os on Pro Tools ( assuming that your using ProTools ) can be used as insert points to patch in "real" outboard gear.
Keep in mind that there are many ways to skin a cat.

Let me know if any of this helps

Later On,
SpecialK
:cool:

PS Also, I'm purchasing a new mic pre hopefully by next week.
Avalon 737 / Millennia Orgin / Neve 9098 / Amek pure path / Focusrite producer pak / Red series / Vintech and distressor / Brent Averill and distressor. Which one is best for warm fat aggressive but clear vocals for a singer that is Punk/Rap type thing.

I'm a big fan of the Avalon 737. It's a jack of all trades. Some of the pot's get dirty, but that is mostly on the older units. The DI input is pretty sweet too.