Is Compression the Answer?

I’m working on my first recording project which is going surprisingly smoothly thanks to this forum…

But I can already tell this is going to be an issue when I start mixing seriously: The snare hits vary greatly when the drummer is playing a fast beat from when he is playing a slow, “breakdown” beat. I don’t want to totally create a performance that didn’t happen (i.e. use triggers or whatever), so how can I make the snare hits on the fast parts audible? Should I just ‘squash’ it all to hell? Any equalization tricks??? The genre is punk/metal if that makes any difference.

Thanks.

ORIGINAL: mhukill

I’m working on my first recording project which is going surprisingly smoothly thanks to this forum…

But I can already tell this is going to be an issue when I start mixing seriously: The snare hits vary greatly when the drummer is playing a fast beat from when he is playing a slow, “breakdown” beat. I don’t want to totally create a performance that didn’t happen (i.e. use triggers or whatever), so how can I make the snare hits on the fast parts audible? Should I just ‘squash’ it all to hell? Any equalization tricks??? The genre is punk/metal if that makes any difference.

Thanks.

The best way is to use the Clip Gain Envelope to automate the track. It's going to be a lot of work but you only have to do it once, then the track is done for good. Same with Vocals and Bass Guitar, you can adjust each note (pre effects bin) and get it perfect so you can turn it up without swamping the mix every time a loud one comes along. Then use the Track Volume envelope to set the overall volume level in the mix.

If you have to use a limiter on top of that it will have a lot less work to do and can do a better job if you catch the big ones with the Clip Gain Envelope.

the problem with snare drums is that a soft hit sounds much different than a loud one even if the levels are the same. i would look into sampling one of the good ( loud ) hits and layering it with the soft ones. compression will never give you the "crakk!" or "pwwwaaang" of a snare that's really being punished.

Make a duplicate of the snare track. Compress the copy into oblivion and deep threshold. Bring this up underneath the original so just the peaks of the original top out over the compressed track. You may need high pass around 150Hz on the compressed track if there are excessive low end artifacts. When you find the sound you are after group the faders on both tracks and adjust to the volume of the mix.

Tell him to practice... I'm a drummer, and I honestly think he need to play his drum more consistently. If that's how it is when miced, how mushed do you think it will/is live when the PA usually can't make all bands sound to great.

If all else fails, cut the blast beat parts to a new track and EQ/compress/level them differently. I've done that with soft drumroll parts before since it can be easy for a gate to mess with press rolls.

If a drummer can't stay in time and play well then that person needs to practice. Just like saying "wow, that guy can play a mean guitar riff in perfect time but half his notes were weak".
It doesn't work like that. Blast beats = loud heavy and fast. If you take away the heavy and loud then you get a weak, uninspired sounding sound.

When saying 'in time', I mean relative to the music. As in music can ebb and flow, even the band Tool (who are knwon for their complex time sigs and amazing drums) don't record with click tracks. I found it amazing in an interview when their drummer said "It pains me when our music slows and speeds up, but its part of the music."
Music is meant to sway, not be like machines chugging along, but people chugging along. =)

Now dynamic tweaking is normal, but trying to get heavy metal blast beat hits from a soft performance will kill the tune.

BTW, I'm by no means degrading your drummer!! I'm just giving advice. I'm sure he can play very well!

A couple of thoughts:

Everything is happening between 200 - 600 Hz. It doesn't sound like there's anything above that, and the stuff below it is mostly noise. Try cutting a bunch of the bottom out of the guitars.

The snare needs a gate. This will be a problem with inconsistient hits, so you may be left with finding a really good snare hit and replacing the bad ones with it.

Use overhead mics for the drums along with the directs. This will allow you to 'open up' the drums and add space to the entire mix.

It sounds like the guitar(s) have faulty electronics or there is noise problem with the amps or there are too many gain stages in the signal path. While it seems like the noise will be drowned out when the guitar is playing, this isn't really the case. It will muddy up the mix, especially if the guitar tracks are heavily compressed. Try to eliminate the noise.

The kick drum is being drowned out by the guitars. After cutting the bottoms from the guitars, try boosting the treble on the kick drum track. If this doesn't work well, try copying the entire track, cut out all of the low end, gate it and compress it. Bring up this second track until the kick is well defined.

Sounds like the snare is the least of the trouble, too much bottom on the guitar. I hate when that happens.

ORIGINAL: Jonny M
When the volume was down low, the drums really stood out, but in a sort of airy way. They sounded a little tinny. Would it be an idea to pull the top frequencies off the drums (or use a low-pass filter or low shelf - or something?!).

a low-pass or high-shelf might be in order (high shelf deals with the highs). i definitely wouldn't do it to the cymbals unless there was a definite problem with them, but the snare and toms and kick for sure. your ears must be the judge of how aggressive to filter the drums - a guitar heavy metal/punk mix doesn't call for the type of airy drums that you'd hear in an acoustic/folk rock song.

there really isn't much to concern yourself with over 15k so i'd start there with the low-passes and go down until you notice a difference in the mix. then enjoy some silence for a few minutes. play the mix again and see whether it still doesn't have enough highs (the highs are the first to go ear-wise when you are mixing).

i may not put a low-pass on the cymbals but once i've done it on all the other tracks (vocals included) i find the high end of the cymbals tend to take care of themselves without the need for boosting. they might need something below 10k but not above. as always, cut first to fix something before trying a boost. many times things tend to sort themselves out (provided the source recording is decent).

As far as compression (for the guitars and drums), would it be a good idea to use a slow attack so that the drum hits and guitar shredding is more defined? A slower attack will let the initial hit through and then start compressing immediately after.

for electrics you should play with the attack - you want the attack of the shredding to be free of compression but the "meat" of the chugging to be even. before you compress consider a high-shelf on the guitar, and cuts at 100hz and 800hz. in a heavy mix, the distortion guitar can take a lot of cutting in the low-mids (up to 1600hz or so) and not suffer tone-wise. dipping the fundamental (at 100hz) will even out the tone considerably and you can use the high-pass to adjust how much warmth and body to leave in. then add compression to taste.

personally though, i think it's important to critically analyze your guitar tone before you lay down a track. when you are soloing it's easy to miss the sounds that you don't actually want - the rumble below 150hz, the clangy resonance around 800hz, the vacuum-cleaner-ish sound in the mids (~1500hz), the screechy, piercing highs (2-4k). once you've got a mix-friendly tone (which will still sound great solo'ed) you'll have a lot less work to do.