John Sayers' Recording Studio Design Forum Archive

Here are a raw clip of some drums recorded in my drum room. The main room sound comes from the untreated adjacent room, where I left the door opened and put a mike in there
The room by itself its pretty dry, but both rooms together really gives it some magic. dont you think?

Drums are flat with no eq, just some compression over the group .

Cheers

Javier

very nice drum sound indeed!! I'm also fan of bid drum sound with lots of reverb. If that reverb is natural even better Javier, is it possible to hear your drum room without that reverb?. only your drum room sound.

-janne

Actually, there is no reverb. its the room microphone from the other room
Do you really meant to mute that room mike?

Yeah, I agree with Janne: I'd like to hear it the same way, without the "other-room mic". Is that mic actually located in the other room, with the door open? Is that how you recorded it? Because there does seem to be some resonance going on in the low end, which probably is that room mike. It would be good to hear the same drum kit without that mike: just the mics actually in the room, with the door closed.

The toms and snare sound pretty good, by the way! What snare is that? Also, How did you mike the kit? Got a photo?

- Stuart -

jbassino wrote:Do you really meant to mute that room mike?

Yeah that's what I meant

-janne

Ok!
Will post some clips later
I'm just checking the session INDEED I had some EQ going on in the kick track, so thats probably that resonance your talking about.
I'll post new clips with no eq at all, with and without room mike.


Stuart, sorry don't have any pics now, I might check with the band tho.
It was an old Yamaha 8x14 steel snare.

I like it.

I like the room mike in the other room

Here's Harbal's interpretation of the track
and here's the track after Harbal Eq.
and here's the mp3 of the file after Harbal Eq. @ 320.
This is not an ad for Harbal - but it should be

http://har-bal.com

and finally - here is switching between the two - starting with the original and changing every 4 bars

John Sayers wrote:Here's Harbal's interpretation of the track

before.jpg

I assume the first curve is the actual response of the track, where the first peak would be the kick drum, and the second one the snap of the snare.. guessing something arround 120hz right?
And whats the next curve, the one that looks more flat?

and here's the mp3 of the file after Harbal Eq. @ 320.

But that's badly clipped, John! The kick peaks are smashed into oblivion:
OK, so how about if we all have a go to see what we can do with "Javier's Drums"!

Here's my rough attempt:

http://www.digistar.cl/images/javier-drums-S00_01.mp3

Comments welcome...


- Stuart -

Soundman2020 wrote: OK, so how about if we all have a go to see what we can do with "Javier's Drums"!

Here's my rough attempt:

http://www.digistar.cl/images/javier-drums-S00_01.mp3

Comments welcome...


- Stuart -

Sounded nice and open. What's your recipe? Or is it big secret

-janne

Sounded nice and open.

Thanks!

What's your recipe? Or is it big secret

Hehehe: well, I could tell you, but then I'd have to shoot you!

Seriously, not a secret, and no big deal. I use Samplitude Pro software, which is a well-kept secret among DAWs, but you can probably do something similar with any other good DAW software.

Recipe:
I applied two sets of parametric EQ: one broadband to tame that resonance at around 120 Hz, and tweak around 850 Hz to bring out the toms a tad more. And another one much tighter (high Q) to take a bit off the top off the kick at 47 Hz, and highlight the snare at 205 Hz. Then a final gentle shelving EQ to raise the highs just a tad from about 4k on up, mostly for the hi hat.

Then I added a "multiband enhancer", which is kind of like a multiband compressor except that it works on the stereo spread in separate bands, not the dynamics. So I centered the lows and narrowed the spread (almost to mono), to keep the kick nicely settled in the middle of the image, them fractionally broadened the mids (2%) and highs (5%) in two different ways, and put them off centered just a bit. mids to the left, highs to the right, but with lots of overlap, to give a more "airy" sense.

Finally I used the "Am-munition" compressor plugin in Samplitude, which is a really, really great compressor. I love it. It can be very subtle, or it can be totally in your face. It has about a trillion and ninety variations, and you can get some really great sounds out of it if you try. I didn't add much compression here: just a little to bring out some more of the overall room sound. And a final brickwall limiter, set to -0.1 dB.

To finish the recipe!
Blend all of the above ingredients in a suitable high-speed mixer, simmer over a good hot CD burner for 30 seconds, turning regularly, season to taste. Serves millions.


It sounds complex when I put it in words like that, but it took me much longer to write about it than it took to just do it! It took me max. a couple of minutes to set that up. I could probably improve on it more if I spent more time on it, but I think it sounds pretty good like that. Especially considering that its all done just from a stereo pair.

Of course, the original recording is a big part of getting that sound: If it had not been well recorded with a decent drum kit in a good room (shameless plug for Javier there!!!), then there's no way it would have turned out like that. So it's basically thanks to Javier that it turned out OK, not thanks to me! (Call him for rates and schedules.... )


But thanks for the kind comment!


Anyone else want to have a go with "Javier's Drums"?


- Stuart -

The harbal graph is not in time - so the peaks aren't kick and then snare - it's an overall analysis of the response of the track.

Stuart - here's the peaks of the track:

before
after
as you can see it was clipped to start with. Javier did mention he's compressed it.

Here's Stuart's waveform: similar clipping.
here's Harbal's analysis of Stuart's track. The 200hz peak is still there and the lift above 4khz is evident.

Actually, Javier's original and mine are not clipped, john. They peak to 0 dBfs, sure, but they aren't clipped.

I put all three on 3 tracks here, lined up perfectly (sample accurate), so you can see the same beat. I adjusted the vertical scale of the display down by 50%, so you can see the full waveform (not the scale of the actual wave, just the scale of the display. so the wave peak on all three is still 0 dBfs. Or rather, on mine it is -0.1 dBfs)

The top track is Javier's original, the middle one (clipped) is yours, and the bottom one is mine. As you can see, the EQ you added has clipped the kick drum, and you can clearly hear the clipping if you listen to the track. That's why I went looking for it: I heard it first, then searched for it.

You are absolutely right about the 205 Hz peak in the spectrum analysis that you showed for my version, though! I wanted to enhance the snare a bit, bring out the fundamental a bit more, but I way overdid it! So I tried flattening it out, like you suggested, and I have to admit it sounds much better, snappier.

Here's the same track with the 205 Hz peak leveled out a bit more:

http://www.digistar.cl/images/javier-dr ... vel_01.mp3

Good suggestion!


- Stuart -