Making EZDrummer sound better

I use BFD, so don't know EZDrummer well, but the cymbals are rarely miced and only used through the overheads. If you miced them too close with aa specified mic then it sounds harsh to the ears. You need to use overheads for it to sound any good. Thing is you will then get bleed from the other tracks. This bleed gives it life. Kits without overheads sound crap. Full stop.

So, your problem is you don't like the room EZDrummer was recorded in. Firstly, give the overhead track a highpass to reduce the mud. Now get an exciter and put it on your overheads (not always necessary). This will bring up some nice sizzle to your overheads but hopefully not bring up much room sound. Just don't overdo your exciter or it will sound harsh to the ears. Then give the whole lot some nice compression, possibly with the use of a tape simulator, they sound good.

Making it sound like a green day record? ie. highly processed, full, massive, massive drum sounds? Lots of work. Obviously a real kit helps, but appart from that, you use individual eqing, gating, compression, cloning of tracks and doing special things to them.. The list goes on. If I wasn't studying for an exam that's tomorrow I would go into a lot more detail and find you some links..

But I have a question for you, how much do you know about drum mixing? Are you just starting, or have you done a fair bit of it already, that should help in determining what advice to give you! Hopefully tomorrow I will have time to write a long reply.

Oh and another big thing that makes the drums sound so good is the mastering process. Very careful use of exciters, eq, multiband compression and good limiters over the ENTIRE track are one of the important aspects in getting those drums sound huge with respect to the song and all fitting in nicely.

Another thing, often the snare will have some extra VST reverb put onto it as well to simulate a big sounding drum.

Can you post a sample of what you have so far, with other instruments so we can give more specific advice on pluggins and settings etc?

Cheers,
Matt

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Lots of exciters there. Have a look and a play around and see what you can find.

I use the 'Modern Exciter'. It used to be downloadable for free but has since disappeared - don't know where to. See if you can find it, it's really really nice. Otherwise Ozone3 has an exciter.

Do some google searching on what an exciter is.

Voxengo's should work well, as will cakewalks tape fx.

You need tight gates on the snare and kick to get some more snap to the drums.

I see what you are saying about the room though.. I would try a different kit, it's either that I don't like that hi-hat or there is something wrong with the way the room interacts with the hi-hat. Giving it some eq should do a similar job as the exciter. Carve out the mids and boost the lows and highs. Search the forum for some good drum mixing threads, there should be some nice ones. Sorry can't help much more now, in a rush to get back to study!

I'm half thinking is it worth downloading Addictive Drums instead. Obviously because I want to produce records I'll still keep messing about making an awesome drum sound, but for now I want to get a few demos out of my music very quickly cos some record excecs want to hear his and my work

Correct. Big drums, loosely tuned and heavily compressed. I don't think the stock kits are going to nail it. Isn't there a Bonham sample set out there somewhere? The Green Day drum sound is similar in some ways to LZ but close-miked, more compressed and with less room in them. You might try the DFH expansion pack, which is metal-oriented, with big sounds and minimal room. You'll probably want to add compression.

I would assume you're talking about the Pop Kit. There maybe other EZ kits that would be tter suit your needs. Probably not the Vintage Kit because it is more subdued than the Pop Kit.

Another trick you might try is to run the whole kit or specific drums (snare and kick for example) through the Cakewalk Tape Sim. This can give it more punch and edge.

I use EZ and have all of the kits...and run into the same limitations with the sonic quality...its OK but not really what Im looking for in most cases. How to tailor for your sound: massive amounts of compression, often variable band compression on the kick and snare... also reverb, gated reverb on the kick...i totally agree with you on the overheads...typically I pan those L and R (the EX mixer only gives you one stereo channel for the OHs and one stereo channel for the room mic, so I pan those each side to side cause they sound similar anyway) but I dont mix that in very loudly in the mix. I despise the sound of the hi hats in EZ, so I mix that low and fly in a different hi hat using Battery. EZ has its limitations in sound but overall it is a great product cause its so flexible and easy to use... dont be afraid to do whacky sounding stuff to it...it will probably sound better in the mix.