ASG
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Teach me to EQ drums?
No matter what i try i cant put life into my drums. The bass/kick is always weak and the high hat always feels hollow and weak, despite the fact that i crank up the input as far as i can afford to before the compressor kicks in. give me tips for EQ'ing drums. From what people been telling me it sounds like they use a seperate track for each drum, and give em their own compressor and EQ each. I need both my bass and my snares to pack much more of a punch, without adding any more volume. What settings need adjusting?
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pacific
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Re:Teach me to EQ drums?
2011/07/14 18:15:00
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you can try using a display of some kind to look at the frequencies of your various tracks. See if the bass is competing with the kick drum, for example, and causing the kick drum to sound muffled. Then you can notch out a little bit of the bass and or boost the kick at whatever frequency.
The rule is just to sweep through the eq with one band and listen for how it sounds. There are good tutorials on you tube as well as
paid tutorials on groove 3
besides eq, you can try sidechain compression, where the drum hits will cause a compressor to kick in and reduce the level of another track or tracks.
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The Maillard Reaction
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Re:Teach me to EQ drums?
2011/07/14 18:17:29
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Where are you recording your drums?
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kgarello
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Re:Teach me to EQ drums?
2011/07/14 20:27:42
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I've been reading on many forums how much the room and overheads mean to a good sound vs. close mic'ed everything. I didn't really understand until I mixed a good sounding recorded drum set. I was able to get a really good sound from the drums with little processing on this song: http://forum.recordingreview.com/f121/mix-6-bulldozer-32487/ I had my mix almost completed with just the overheads and room, and then polished it off with close mics, rather than the other way around. So my dum tracking energy from now on is going to be spent mostly on room mics (got a get a decent pair of mics). Ken
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Middleman
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Re:Teach me to EQ drums?
2011/07/14 21:52:43
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Jim Roseberry
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Re:Teach me to EQ drums?
2011/07/14 22:36:35
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The solution isn't processing...How are you recording the drums?
With a nice compressor plugin, you can make a great snare track really pop/crack.
The SSL bus compressor is excellent for this.
From what you're describing, sounds like the problem is the source tracks...
If you put up the raw drum tracks... and they don't at least sound in the ballpark... then they're the problem.
EQ/Dynamics/etc will never make poor quality tracks sound good.
Capturing great acoustic drum sounds is one of the hardest tasks for the small studio.
Takes great gear from top to bottom, someone who knows how to tune drums (well), experience with mic placement, and then there's the physical space in which the drums are recorded.
Don't be discouraged, stick with it (keep making mistakes and learning from them)...
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Zuma
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Re:Teach me to EQ drums?
2011/07/14 23:56:35
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ASG
No matter what i try i cant put life into my drums. The bass/kick is always weak and the high hat always feels hollow and weak, despite the fact that i crank up the input as far as i can afford to before the compressor kicks in. give me tips for EQ'ing drums. From what people been telling me it sounds like they use a seperate track for each drum, and give em their own compressor and EQ each. I need both my bass and my snares to pack much more of a punch, without adding any more volume. What settings need adjusting?
Are you refering to software or recording the real thing? If software, yes, give each drum it's own output/ track. And give yourself some headroom before you compress and then use the make up gain on your compressor to add the volume back... don't jack up the volume before you compress.
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ASG
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Re:Teach me to EQ drums?
2011/07/20 17:24:51
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9 out of 10 times im doing software drums. I really dont think i have the experience to record drums on my drumset.
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CJaysMusic
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Re:Teach me to EQ drums?
2011/07/20 18:11:26
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Mic placement and the environment you record the drums are most likely your problem. The slightest move of a mic can change the sound dramatically. Unfortunately there are no set mic placements to tell you. Its really done by trial and error and experience. The mic choice can also play a role in the sound of the drums. Forsoft synth drums there is really no set Eq settings for drums. You mix with your ears and do what ever it takes and use what ever is needed to make them sound ok.
post edited by CJaysMusic - 2011/07/20 18:12:43
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bluzdog
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Re:Teach me to EQ drums?
2011/07/20 18:41:05
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What's your work flow like? Are you tracking real drums and then replacing them with something or are you doing midi drums? Mics? Pre? interface? Have you heard of parallel compression? The obvious EQ is to remove 400 - 500 Hz from the kick and toms to remove the cardboard, boxy sound. There are a lot of EQ cheat sheets online. Compression is a big deal when it comes to drums. Slate digital trigger is the **** when it comes to replacing drums.
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Phonic
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Re:Teach me to EQ drums?
2011/07/20 21:29:19
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Somehow my posts keep ending up in the wrong thread, this post has been deleted.
post edited by Phonic - 2011/07/20 21:31:38
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konradh
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Re:Teach me to EQ drums?
2011/07/20 22:58:11
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I agree with Jim Roseberry and will go a step further: if the rhythm track doesn't sound great by itself, nothing will save the record. And if the drums don't sound great by themselves, nothing will save the rhythm track.
If you are using software drums and they don't sound good, maybe you should change samples/kits/plugins. Most have been EQ'd and compressed already and should sound good without much help.
Consider how short a sampled drum sound is and how consistent the volume is on a sampled snare played at a constant velocity. Compression can change the sound but it is not going to make a fundamental difference.
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yorolpal
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Re:Teach me to EQ drums?
2011/07/20 23:22:34
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60-150 hz for kick definition. 500-700hz, snare "thickness". 3-4khz for "general clarity" and "kick click". 5-7khz for "snare snap" and 10-12khz for cymbal "airiness". Learn this...then toss it out the window...and use your ears;-)
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Kalle Rantaaho
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Re:Teach me to EQ drums?
2011/07/21 01:09:11
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Agree to the others.
You can spice and polish a nice kick sound with comp, EQ and other FX, but you can't make a weak one sound good. You must first find samples that are "almost there" .
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JClosed
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Re:Teach me to EQ drums?
2011/07/21 01:48:21
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Well - if you are using Softsynth Drums (like session drummer or something), take a look at the Master class video "Drum Production Episode I". That will give you a rough idea how to add some "spice" to your drums. You can find it here: http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.aspx?m=2130369 Just scroll down a bit and you will see the 5 parts. It could be it is of no use to you, but at least you have some entertaining moments...
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konradh
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Re:Teach me to EQ drums?
2011/07/21 13:29:49
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In re-reading my comments, I want to be sure I was not unclear. Compression, EQ, and gating are critical in most cases for acoustic drums coming through mics; but with samples where each drum is on a separate track, it is easy to do more harm than good.
Example: Pick a random mic and hang it over a hi-hat and you might get a great sound or might get something that sounds like someone banging metal trash can lids. Hopefully, your samples don't sound like that unless the creator was going for a trashy sound.
A tiny bit of tweaking in the mix can help, though.
YOROLPAL has some good, classic advice that will come in handy, particularly regarding the kick drum. A little EQ can bring it out so you don't have to push the fader up until the kick is eating up all your headroom.
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gdugan
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Re:Teach me to EQ drums?
2011/07/21 20:29:57
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Dave Modisette
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Re:Teach me to EQ drums?
2011/07/22 08:06:46
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yorolpal
60-150 hz for kick definition. 500-700hz, snare "thickness". 3-4khz for "general clarity" and "kick click". 5-7khz for "snare snap" and 10-12khz for cymbal "airiness". Learn this...then toss it out the window...and use your ears;-)
LoL. Ahhhh.... honesty breaks out in the forum. Drums are a lot like preparing a "Show Dog" for competition in an AKC competition. It's amazing what kind of unnatural things you have to do to get something to appear up to an accepted "standard" of image. Case in point - check out some of the Producer presets sold by Toontrack and look what they do in regards to effects and EQ for their tracks. If you solo a particular kit piece, there is nothing natural about the sound at all. In fact, sometimes the instrument doesn't sound like the original at all.
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Middleman
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Re:Teach me to EQ drums?
2011/07/22 10:13:48
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ASG has left the building.
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bapu
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Re:Teach me to EQ drums?
2011/07/22 11:23:59
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Middleman
ASG has left the building.
But Bapu is here to stay.
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konradh
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Re:Teach me to EQ drums?
2011/07/22 11:26:09
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In the 80s, we would tune Linn Drum snares and handclaps as low as they would go and then bathe them in cathedral reverb. What the hell were we thinking?
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SCorey
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Re:Teach me to EQ drums?
2011/07/22 14:26:10
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You were thinking that it sounds awesome. Which it does.
So help me, I love all the various Phil Collins drum sounds from his first solo album until before "Seriously".
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Jim Roseberry
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Re:Teach me to EQ drums?
2011/07/22 14:43:41
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So help me, I love all the various Phil Collins drum sounds from his first solo album until before "Seriously". Gated Reverb...  Loved it back in the day... but grew weary of it (just like the auto-tune vocal effect that's currently being over-used/abused) Phil is a great player... too bad he had to stop for health reasons
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Bristol_Jonesey
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Re:Teach me to EQ drums?
2011/07/22 15:42:08
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Jim Roseberry
So help me, I love all the various Phil Collins drum sounds from his first solo album until before "Seriously".
Gated Reverb...
Loved it back in the day... but grew weary of it (just like the auto-tune vocal effect that's currently being over-used/abused)
Phil is a great player... too bad he had to stop for health reasons
I loved his playing on the first few Genesis albums. I think Selling England and Foxtrot were my favourites. But during the period when they were operating with 2 drummers - Chester Thompson being the other guy, Chester - in my opinion - blew Phil away with his natural playing techniques.
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VariousArtist
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Re:Teach me to EQ drums?
2011/07/22 17:06:33
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Bristol_Jonesey
Jim Roseberry
So help me, I love all the various Phil Collins drum sounds from his first solo album until before "Seriously".
Gated Reverb...
Loved it back in the day... but grew weary of it (just like the auto-tune vocal effect that's currently being over-used/abused)
Phil is a great player... too bad he had to stop for health reasons
I loved his playing on the first few Genesis albums. I think Selling England and Foxtrot were my favourites.
But during the period when they were operating with 2 drummers - Chester Thompson being the other guy, Chester - in my opinion - blew Phil away with his natural playing techniques.
Nice to hear Selling England and Foxtrot mentioned -- great albums from a great band during their greatest period (IMHO). I think the live version of The Lamb has some really interesting drumming from Phil in 1975. Back to the topic at hand. Although I agree with Jim's point about this being all about the drum recording, which the most important issue I agree, but I've found you still have to work quite a bit (more) with the drums when trying to match it to what the rest of the instruments are playing... I've heard (and had) well recorded drums that didn't sound good in the context of the song without some major tweaking (EQ and compression mostly), and then they sounded extraordinary. Unfortunately the same settings don't work from song to song, but whatever you learn to do does...if you get my drift.
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ASG
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Re:Teach me to EQ drums?
2011/08/13 17:31:56
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wow where the hell have i been, sorry guys i havent spent much time in the lab, adjusting to a new job and school schedule, i just flat out forgot to check the forum.good thing bapu is here to stay.. these are badass answers you guys. Im almost always using software drums, ive gotten to know my kits a lot better but giving each drum its own track has worked wonders. Im not too familiar with noise gates, i know what theyre supposed to do for vocals, but i havent bothered with them too much and didnt even think to try them on drums. Describe this gated reverb? sounds intense. And ive never tried sidechaining, if someone would like to school me to that..
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