Mike
I often time see people say things like "I can't tell if I like it until I hear it in a mix", and that seems very reasonable. But, consider another perspective. Let's say I have a bass in my hands and you are playing drums and we have a rough mix in the head phones. Something about that drum playing has to appeal to me to get my bass juices flowing. So, right here at the moment of inception, I have to either hear "it" and play along so as to make a "mix", or I can stall out and wait for nothing to happen.
In my opinion, you seem to be confusing "drum playing" from "drum sound". You mention "playing" above. This is a totally different animal. You're also over-thinking it. Paul wouldn't have recorded the drum sound you hear if it sounded horrible. The question isn't whether or not it's a good drum sound. The question remains, what will it sound like in a mix of instruments? See, going into something as a solo instrument, you never know what the outcome will be when it joins the others. This is when you find out what a good drum sound is or whether or not something may need to be re-tracked.
Mike
My point is, drums are usually the back bone of a song... you can't "wait to hear it in the mix" before you decide it sounds groovy. You are well served to listen to the drums and play something that sounds real good with them.
What you're missing is, Paul isn't a guru at this. He's going through the paces to learn. With learning comes experimenting. This experimenting or lab work if you will, is what teaches you when a drum sound will work and when it may not. Right off the bat, I would say Jon's initial reaction and comments on this kit were spot on. BUT....with the right instrumentation and Paul literally mixing the kit within a song, the game changes drastically. He just recorded these drums and let us hear them. He didn't try to adjust hats being too loud, over-all eq, compression, kit piece leveling. He gave us a mic'd kit to show us what he was getting. Without any processing, it sounds like drums in a room....mic'd quite decent I must say. But as to how decent, we won't know until we hear it in with a mix. What if he gets a killer guitar and bass sound that sounds larger and more professional than the drums? Right...you guessed it...you don't sit there and polish the turd of a kit, you reset a few mics and you track it again.
Mike
That is one of the mysteries of drum tuning. Many people deny there is any chromatic information in a trap kit... but we have all experienced hearing a bass player lock onto a drum groove and instinctively hit the notes and song key that really gels with the drum kit's tonality. That happens in jam bands all the time. The sound of the drums inspire certain chromatic ideas and discourages others. You can't just wait to hear it in the final mix. Well, you can.
Very true, but most people get to that point of having the pieces gel and inspire because they know what they are doing. That's not a shot at Paul, but he only just got this kit and has only tried to mic them a few times. They didn't even have new heads and have some lower end cymbals. So he has quite a bit against him, but he still seems to be delivering the goods. Other than the cymbals not sounding good enough quality wise and the snare sounding a bit distant, this kit should work with a wide variety of material. But in some situations, it definitely will not because it's simply not tight enough. Maybe Paul can process it to make it tighter, maybe he won't have the desire and will settle for a good classic rock kit. It all depends what he records with this drum kit and what his vision may be. Until he can come to grips with that while recognizing what is and what may not be a good drum sound, you definitely have to experiment and put the kit into a song scenario.
It's like me with guitar tones. I've done them so many times, I know what will sound good and what will not before I hear it in a mix. The same with bass, vocals, piano, the more you work with these things, the less you have to experiment. You just know when something is right. I don't know what's right for Paul other than I know he likes classic rock. If he wants to use those drums for metal or hard rock, he's going to have to tweak them. If he wants to use them for jazz, he's going to have to make them snappier and tighter. Just because a kit seems to have all the right elements doesn't mean it will work all the time and this is what needs to be determined.
The other question is, how pro does Paul expect this kit to sound? See, there are quite a few variables that we DO know, and quite a few that we DON'T know. This is why some instruments will help us out a little. Maybe those cymbals will work fine once Paul eq's them to fit a mix. Maybe he'll lightly gate the toms to control the ring. Maybe he'll use a transient designer on the kick to give it a bit more beater attack. And the big question...when he hears the drums in with a mix, will he know to do the above things? This is what makes a good drum set sound great...knowing what to do as well as knowing how to and when to work a kit. And sometimes, the music inspires what you do with the sound of the drum kit. It all depends.
Mike
The quotes used above are universal... I'm not calling anyone out. These are just some random thoughts of mine. What this means is that Paul's drumming might be ready for a mix... but we just don't know what the song is yet. If you start with some other instrument then you might have to fit the drums onto it. That can be difficult. There's no better or worse way I suppose, but I do find that I like songs that evolved from a strong relationship between the bass and drums so that work flow is probably a good one.
That's a valid argument. The drums MAY be ready for a mix...it depends what mix/genre he chooses. See, what we hear all naked isn't what we'll hear when the drums are put to music. Sometimes a good kit sound may be a bear to tame. And you're right, you wouldn't want to conform a drum kit to an instrument. You usually conform the instruments to the drum kit when you can. The drums are your core along with the bass. These drums wouldn't work in a powerful song in my opinion....but you never know.
See here's another thing. When he goes to eq and process the kit, sometimes you hear artifacts. These artifacts come from bad mic positioning. He may want to put a little high end into something yet it brings on something else that just sounds bad. He may want more thud in the kick yet no matter what frequency he tries, it doesn't give him the right sound because the mic needed to be repositioned in order to have more of that sound. We're just hearing a naked kit. When you tweak it for a mix, it can really go against the grain.
You can't create something that isn't there from the beginning unless you add in samples. So in situations like this, you don't know until you work the kit in with a mix. Heck I re-recorded my last album 2 times due to not liking the drums. They were good both times, but when I compared them to the other instruments, we had way more power with everying else than we had on the drums. The third time we nailed it and did such a good job, the other instruments had to keep up with the drums...which is sort of what you want in a rock situation. But then again, it depends how "rock" you're shooting for. :)
-Danny