Live drum sound

[PoisonGodmachine]

ok guys...our next show where going to be micing the drums..and i was just wondering for the bass drum how do you eq that shit into sounding super tight. death metal drum sound...at least..where do you start with. and..just kinda fool around to your liking....i just want a basic guidline..for like a Mixer....the three band eq...ya know... your help is appreciated

[Endrik]

Re: Live drum sound

you can't do nothing with 3 band eq when mixing drums.

[Oogadee Boogadee]

Re: Live drum sound

well, i'm not much of a sound enginer...

but, for a tight sound suited for fast loud patterns, i'm thinking

lots of muffling
ported resonant head
very loose resonant head
medium tension batter head
impact pad for the pedal beater
a hard-surfaced pedal beater (wood, plastic, etc)
a good mic, close to the batter for attack, closer to the resonant for body.

mixing - i think it's all venue specific. if you have a sound man, he'll tweak the knobs. if you don't, you'll have to tweak them, from the front, while your drummer plays. rolling back the treble for more bass, rolling back the bass for more treble, etc. i would think your #1 prioroty (after tuning & muffling) is getting the drum to project with very sharp definition, which doesn't necessarily mean volume. The challenge is achieving this while maintaining the low end punch, so don't muffle too much or tune too high.

check out: http://home.earthlink.net/~prof.sound/index.html

Talk to Matt Crooks... he knows a lot about micing.

[Fragle]

Re: Live drum sound

use a trigger !

[Endrik]

Re: Live drum sound

triggers blow big time but for death metal they are good.

I suggest using 2 kick drum mics, one inside and one outside of the kick drum. Also if you have any room mics, USE 'EM.
If you have a good sound guy and good gear, let him use compressors and/or gates, you have to find out wich one sounds good with certain drum. Make sure that the kick drum and the bass guitar aren't in the same frequency.

[Fragle]

Re: Live drum sound

"triggers blow big time but for death metal they are good.
"

sorry dude thats BS. triggers can make a drumset sound bad when used all over the place, but having the kick triggered is a huge plus imho. for example, if there's enough time to do a proper soundcheck etc, we normally go for a mix between a triggered and a mic'ed signal. however, if there's not the time for this (and thats almost always the case, normally there's only enough time for a line check), only use the triggered signal - this way the kick CONSTANTLY sounds HUGE. sure, if it's done right a mic'ed kick tends to sound better, but if you don't have the time for that crap just use a goddamn trigger and have a kickass clear kick sound.

/rant

[Endrik]

Re: Live drum sound

as I said it is good for Death Metal or something similar where strong kick drum attack is essential. But using triggers you have ZERO dynamics, IMHO huge isn't a good word for describing triggers, they are very powerful, you can hear the kicks clearly. It is good for extreme music. Triggers are good if you don't have a lot of time. But when we talk 'bout other music, then trigger's are awful plastic sounding piece of shit. NO dynamics. "Huge" sounding drums are very hard to do. You need an awsome gear and an awsome soundguy. Huge sound comes when tons of mics are used and the drums are EQ-ed, Gated nad Compressed HEAVILY. Some bands like Slipknot use mics and triggers on the kick drums. So they can have the constant power sound and the dynamics and the hugheness. Also good drum heads and a great drummer are essential for getting a good drum sound. Good drummers play dynamically, kick and snare drums with full power, cymbals with medium hits, china cymbal gently etc. Dynamical drummer is essential. I've seen many extreme metal drummers who beat the cymbals with all their power and gently hit the drums. They are assholes and can't play, it WILL ruin the whole band sound, this is lack of dynamics. All these things are very important. IMHO Metallica has BY FAR the best metal drum sound in live and studio. It is IMPOSSIBLE to get that kind of a sound with triggers. Samples and artificial verbs etc. can't simulate real drums with all the live air. The bigger the room and the bigger the PA system, the more possiblities you have to make drums sound huge. It is all about physics and shit. Trigger's are good for death/extreme metal if you want yor kick drum to be heard and you have very little time, to make them sound GOOD and HUGE you need an awsome soundguy, gear, tons of mics, an awsome drummer and a drumkit etc.

[Fragle]

Re: Live drum sound

"Trigger's are good for death/extreme metal if you want yor kick drum to be heard and you have very little time, to make them sound GOOD and HUGE you need an awsome soundguy, gear, tons of mics, an awsome drummer and a drumkit etc. "

dude, thats exactly my point. in all honesty, who has the time to use A++++ gear and a ton of A++++ mics in a live situation? i totally agree, in the studio when you have the time and money there are much better ways to achieve an awesome drum sound, but i thought this thread was about a LIVE situation. i'm not talking some theoretical BS here, this is my personal experience: doing what you just said above in a live setting more often results in a bad tone than just using a trigger.
but i also agree, this is also different for less extreme forms of music. i can't picture a jazz drummer using a trigger [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img] but then again, does poisongodmachine play jazz? [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[Endrik]

Re: Live drum sound

maybe poisongodmachine has a lot of time [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]
Triggers are funny things, Dream Theater and a lot of high budget US NU-Metal bands use triggers in the studio. Mostly for the snare and the kick drum but they also use tons of mics for the same things and later mix the triggers and real drums together and voila massive drum sound. Money counts, these bands have a lot of $$$$ so they can afford the best gear, producers, engineers nad they will have amazing sound. Euro powermetal bands don't have a lot of $$$$, they use all triggers, all the time, no wonder they sound like shit. Using triggers on the snare live is stupid IMHO, you can do only one sound, jazz drummers would die before they use triggers, because triggers wouldn't allow to play all those rudiments, paradidels, rolls etc. sick techniques. That's why Dream Theater doesn't use triggers live, but on their early albums they only used triggers. Poisongodmachine if you have time, use all the stuff you can, all the mics, triggers and mics on the kick drums, heavy EQing etc. Use the google and see if you can find some articels 'bout mixing drums, I remember there were many good interviews with some dude who makes Metallica's, Slipknot's etc. drums live, hey said how to EQ all that stuff.

[Newc]

Re: Live drum sound

[ QUOTE ]
you can't do nothing with 3 band eq when mixing drums.

[/ QUOTE ]

You can if you try hard enough. Drop the mids, set the bass and highs at middle, and tweak from there. If you're going for a "click" with a bit of low end more than a straight "foom", that'll get it for you.

You can also suspend the mic from the portal in the top of the drum and point it at the pedal.

[gemini8026]

Re: Live drum sound

Mic'ing and mixing drums is deftinately a challenge when it comes to getting things right.

For a good tight sound, you'll want some gate's. Im not sure if your mixer or post processing gear has anythign like that. But proper compression and gating can make or break a good drum mix!!!