Un-reverb... Is there such a thing?

Hey all-
  Haven't been around much lately, but all that is about to change as I am about to embark in a pretty major studio project.
  At any rate, this weekend I had the band over to record a "live demo" of a few songs, all playing at once, that sort of thing.  For the sake of brevity, my drummer brought all his channels into a passive mixer and pre-mixed the drum set, complete with compression and effects.  It sounded great on its own, but I have yet to drill in to my drummer's head that even if the drum mix sounds great on its own, as soon as you try to add it into a complex arrangement, that mix isn't going to sound as good.  I digress.
  The drum sounds I have are coming out pretty dark and muddy, and I'm wondering if there is a way to get rid of, or de-emphasize the small room reverb that is making it sound like he was playing in a breadbox.  Below is a one of the songs, not fully mixed.  Please let me know if you have any suggestions for making the drums sound a little less lame.  Thanks!
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/page_songInfo.cfm?bandID=949606&songID=8190457
 
**Please pay no attention to the sax solo.  This was a one take deal, and I really want another crack at it before we call it a day.

Re-record them?

... and maybe some of the vocal while you're at it. I don't know, but I've been told... to avoid lyrical cliches:

http://www.sslifer.net/video/idontknow.html


Sorry, Richard. I know this isn't helpful. I just couldn't resist. Just having some fun. They're not your lyrics anyway, right?

What the heck is a passive mixer?

A definition of passive is 'no power' This means that the mixer would offer no gain in fact there would be some attenuation as there are no gain stages in there to add gain. The mixer would just be passively summing the input signals. There would be no eq either. Maybe just level, panning and perhaps an effects send.

If the drummer added reverb then the reverb must have been powered but the mixer was not. Sounds like a weird setup to me. If you needed power for the reverb then you would be better off with a normal active mixer that adds gain.

Drumagog may not work as the drum sounds are mixed and does it not need the parts individually to be able to replace them.

What the heck is a passive mixer?

That's that guy you see sitting behind the FOH board looking cool and chatting up groupies while the singer's mic is feeding back.


EDIT:
My apologies to the OP for inserting a joke into a serious thread. The short answer is no, there is no such process as de-reverberation. The closest I've ever managed was using expansion, which can take out reverb tails although the effect doesn't sound natural. In some cases it sounds cool, though. Download the Wave Arts Multidynamic5 plugin demo and give it a go. It does a great job on expansion.

   cut some highs on the drums. Some of that verby sound is
in the high end sizzle. Of course its a trade off. It just depends
on which is better.

Let's be real.

There is NO WAY to go in and remove reverb from ANYTHING that is already printed.

You can diminish the reverb tails by using gates on a single instrument, but only during those times when the instrument is not playing.

In the case of a stereo mix of drums, there is absolutely no way to remove reverb from individual elements of the kit.

Transformers can provide voltage gain but there is also the issue of the impedance also being stepped up. So if you use a step up transformer to go from say 600 ohms to 50K then you will get a gain of around 83 times. But you had better make sure the 50K side of the transformer is feeding into a high input impedance input amplifer. If it is not, then the low input impedance of the next stage will act as a voltage divider and drop the gain again.

But yes transformers are handy for providing gain (and adding a sound) Most true passive mixers would not have them as they would add to the cost. I dont think there are many passive mixers around anyway. The only ones I have seen were a 4 into 1 type of device just for a quick fix.

The word 'passive' in the OP was a bad choice of words. A mixer is either a 'mixer' or a 'powered mixer'
But how do we get rid if excess reverb that has already been printed. Hard to do for sure. Actually a good rule of thumb is that if musicians want to add reverb to their sound then allow it but cut it down. eg guitarists using too much springreverb in a session.

It s still not clear how many channels were used to record the drums in the OP but if its only one then there is not a lot you can do.

But stereo signals can be processed in interesting ways especially MS techniques I spoke of earlier. It basically allows you separate out the mono and stereo components and effect them in different ways and then add them back to form normal stereo. In mastering you can use it to change the vocals for example (panned centre) in a mix. Maybe turn them down a little or use EQ and compression. One can also modify the panned sounds or more stereo placed signals in different ways too.

The are  analog stereo to MS and MS to stereo converters available now and it is easy to do digitally as well. Not sure if Sonar offers it up (I am sure its in there!) but there are Waves plugs that can do it for sure. It is still better to get the recording and mix right. But it does allow for some control after the event.

(Check out the ultimate mastering processor, Rupert Neve's Masterpiece. Its only $20,000 or so of your dollars!!  http://www.legendaryaudio.com/ This thing can change all the reverbs in a final mix after the event leaving everything else in tact. Is that cool or what)

But doing stereo miked recordings in MS is absolutely marvelous! You have so much control over the stereo image after the recording is done. And what is great about it, is that the Mid microphone is pointing directly at the source unlike Co Incident and Near Co Incident miking techniques. And the Side microphone is 90 degrees to the source which is also great.

A great way to record a string quartet is to put them in an arc and do an MS recording.

It's nice out here. :-)

Its $17,500 actually for the full monte. Was over $19,000 but yes they did drop the price. You can buy it in various stages. You were looking at the maniframe plus 6 module price. But the comprehensive unit would be the way to go. But who of us have got that sort of cash to spend on a mastering processor. You would need a lot of work to justify it. But it does have some fabulous features though. I got the DVD which is well worth a listen by the way.

i'm in agreement..... once it is recorded..... you're stuck...that's why you always record dry tracks.

Hi Ikaru

Drummers eh!! 

Un-reverb method

We've sometimes recorded our drummer in less than ideal acoustic conditions, and here is one method you might like to try which does reduce the ambience and keeps the drum sound reasonably unchanged and natural sounding - it assumes you have the VC64 which I've so far found to be the best thing for the job?

Clone your stereo drum track and then inverse the phase of the new track.  This should produce silence as both are being played together at the same volume! Now add the VC64 and use the "Quiet up & Down" preset.  As soon as this is activated you will here a some drums coming through, although they will be heavily 'gated'.  If you then decrease the volume level on this track the effect should reduce and the drums should start to sound more natural but with slightly less ambience. If the bass and snare are sounding ok but the hi-hats are too gated you can use a tiny amount of eq on the cloned track which will affect the phase cancellation.  I've also used the same method but split the the drums so that all the high frequency is on one track and the low frequency is on another and then cloned both tracks. 

Hope that helps

Andy

How about running the drum track through a transient shaper?