Hi guys,
Recording a song with a heavy tom-tom beat. Using Superior Drummer, just racktoms 1 and 2, snare, kick. I used the envelope control to trim back a bit of resonance on the toms, to clean it up a bit. No EQ on the toms. They sound good and tight on the drum track.  When I add the bass track to the mix, there is an interaction between the toms and bass track, the result being a sort of warble or random fast very uneven vibrato (best way I can think of to describe it) to the bass track.  Some sort of audible distortion. Each track on their own sound fine. Together, there is some conflict. 
I've tried to use the EQ 64 that's in Sonar, trimmed Bass track frequencies all over the place, notching everywhere I can think of, but still can't seem to find the problem frequency. 
Why is this happening ?   I've played around alot with EZDrummer before, done several songs, and never seemed to run across this issue.  This same song seems to work fine with EZDrummer.  The toms do sound fatter and fuller and more real on Supererior Drummer, though. 
What's the fix ?

It could be "beats" caused by the kick and toms being tuned very close to each other or close to a fifth or an octave apart. The beats would come at the Hertz that's the difference between them - e.g. kick at 100Hz, tom at 110Hz = 10 beats/second. You could try re-tuning the kick or tom to a different pitch to see if that helps or makes the problem worse.

That would be my guess as well and is a good example of why tuning of percussive instruments can make or break a song.

And a good example of how something can sound perfect when soloed , but it just plain doesn't work when mixed in with the rest of the instruments. 
Low end is the trickiest place to work. And to add that you could even get it sounding good on your system and it might not work on other systems. 
You'll have to decide which instrument gets priority at each of the low frequencies. 
Possibly the tom beats needs very little low end and will stand out just fine at say 300-600hz. 
It's certainly going to be a learning curve about using EQ. 

The TS-64 transient shaper is your friend for the toms. Accent the attack, and use the weight control to damp the ring/resonance. Only problem is the TS-64 has look-ahead, so there will be a significant increase in latency. Best to copy the tom track, mute the original track, process the copy, then render it. If it's not right, you can always go back to the original and try again.

Is the PX-64 Percussion Strip look ahead too, I'm guessing yes if it's using the same transient shaping technology

OK, thanks for the input...  hmmm....   I'm building the song up from drum and bass tracks...  if the bass and drum tracks sound good by themselves, would you proceed with the rest of the song, counting on the idea that the interaction will be sorted out at a later date / mastering / someone better equipped to handle this sort of thing? I'm not familiar with mastering yet, so I dunno.  Or should I keep working at it till it sounds right before proceeding ?  Sort of reluctant to freeze/bounce the whole drum kit, tweak it to perfection via eq and plugins, then realize later that I wanted a change in the drums and have to do the whole thing all over again...   ?

It's the sum of it's parts. If the parts are conflicting, you should address them. If you like the shape of the toms, then tuning them may help, if you like the tuning, then re-shaping may help. Maybe a touch of both.

It's the sum of it's parts. If the parts are conflicting, you should address them. If you like the shape of the toms, then tuning them may help, if you like the tuning, then re-shaping may help. Maybe a touch of both.

OK...  tried something else...  eq'd racktom 2 inside of Superior Drummer, and found that if I notched out 100hz, the problem is reduced dramatically. Made the Q as sharp as possible (4.0). Funny how taking out 100hz on the tom helped so much, but taking out 100hz on the bass guitar hardly did anything for the problem...  ?
Now that I know for sure where the problem lay, what is the best way to approach it ?  I'd like to leave the toms full-bodied for the rest of the song, as there is no problem there...  just on the 2 steady/strong tom tom beat instrumental sections.  In the final frozen/bounced audio SD drum tracks, I could just insert an eq envelope for that portion of the tom track, leaving the rest of the track full-bodied, right ?   But till I do that, how do I keep that section of tom track pinched at 100hz?