Thanks, Pipeline that was a good read.

Do you have any setting presets or recommendations to make the best out of my flim flam tom tracks? I'm trying to use Waves L1 to even the volume out but since the flim flamming allows more bleed through it ends up boosting the cymbals and such as well. Any tricks of the trade would be greatly appreciated.

How about some of the good-old multiband dynamics? I use that all the time to clean up toms.

How many bands and at which frequencies would you suggest for starters? Thanks.

I use;

Band 1
Low shelf > 315

Band 2
Band-notch 3 octave > 548

Band 3
Band-notch 3 octave > 1,732

Band 4
Band-notch 3 octave > 5,367

The threshold, attack, release, and which bands need heavier compression and gain will be determined by what the source needs. Using "Capture threshold" can sometimes give you a head start.

MJ

Thanks. I'll give those a try.

i have had very good luck with toms since the computer. i use an sm57 about 80 degrees (almost straight on to the head)only an inch off the head near the top rim. i have a crappy room, so i have to close mic. before recording you tune, record a minute of each tom so you get some timeline to tweak them on, rather than looping the tiny fill section (something i learned working with ADAT).

i think the SF track gate works very well to clean out bleed. usually -18 to 20, and set the gate for about 432ms sustain. have been getting good sound even without reverb.
the biggest sound comes from accustic mirror, but i can't use it with 4.0.
those using 2.0 can, and should, try chicago theatre for starters.
when that fails...i paste in samples recorded from my alesis D4 and manually plug them in right under the tom track in question. i do a lot of "flam" type tom fills and have great luck pasting samples, by shortening decay and dropping volume on the first hit of the flam as well as a bit of pitch...am getting pretty natural sounds.
my clients have been impressed...however, i live in the boonies.

two important things: good toms, good drummer.

Gotta love TAMA and Drum Workshop Toms, Excellent. Had a nightmare with top end Yamaha toms, Premiere's have been shocking... few others worth mention. A lot is to do with tuning, skins, damping and of course room sound. Any kit is more or less possible, but great kits are much less work!

Once you have a good room, and good toms, damping's not always necessary, but try 'Moon Gel' or 'Gorilla Snot', then get into the recording technique. 'O rings I've found to be ineffective. They tend to rattle and dampen too much. Tissue paper and electrical tape is a better bet, but only round the edge of the drums, close to the middle will destroy it! Gaffa tape is not favoured by drummers who like their kits to look good - it leaves marks, be warned!

Microphones: -
Shure 57's 58's are adequate, beta 57's are better, but essentially there are tons of options. Funny enough this is the least microphone fussy part of a drumkit, but bear in mind unless gatted or cut, the sound will contribute to the overall kit sound. Avoid crap mic's if you possibly can.

Close mike them, watch out the Mic's not pointing directly at anything that will adversely affect the sound, I.E, floor tom mic too close to ride cymbal.

Try to record each tom to a separate track in Vegas if you can. It'll make your life easier.

I've had luck with various techniques within Vegas...

I find gates are little use, apart from for quick and dirty work. Just not often refined enough.

however with good drummers and good kits I've found the waves C1 expander to be incredibly useful! Although I often cut out the events leaving just where the toms were played. (Decent sustain, and a smooth fade).. useful hint, good for snares and kicks too!

EQ depends on the toms. Pretty safe to say the boxyness between 300 - 600 Hz can go.

Think that your overhead Mic's are a big component of the tom sound, listen to tom mics and overhead mics an EQ accordingly. It will give a clearer picture.

Pan the toms to create a sense of space. Typically, drummers perspective small high pitched to left, large low pitched to right. Use constant power panning. Don't overdo the panning, it may make the toms sound weaker. 50 - 60% tops is a good bet.

Post gating / expansion / cutting out, use a compressor to allow the transient through, but pull up the sustain. maybe 30-40ms attack, sustain depends on the drum, but much longer.

Once compression is applied, THEN think about EQing in some extra attack or bite. (usually 2 - 7 Khz), maybe a bit of bottom (around 80Hz ish, varies according to your mix and the overall kit sound.)

I could never tell anyone exactly what to do because it's never the same. Use your ears and mix to taste. Hope these rough guidelines are of some help.

Jason

>>>>Had a nightmare with top end Yamaha toms

I have to take issue with this. I've had Yamaha recording customs for over 10 years now because they are by far the best toms I've ever heard. The kit you had a nightmare with must not have been tuned correctly. I agree tuning is huge. A crap kit tuned right will sound better than a top of the line kit tuned poorly. I've had to play other's high end kits so choked down with foam, duct tape and crap heads tuned nowhere near where the drum was designed to be tuned that sounded and played worse than Quaker Oats boxes.

With every kit I've had I strip the rims and heads, suspend and rap the shells and record it's natural pitch. Then using Remo Ambassador clear heads top and bottom, never Pinstripe or any hydraulic or thick heads to impede the tone, I carefully tune (one head at a time) to just below the pitch of the shell, then mark the head 2" in from each lug tapping there tuning each lug to the same pitch while tuning the center of the head (sweet spot) to the pitch of the shell.

When this is done the tom will have a clear cutting attack and a pure melodic warm ring.

Pipeline is correct, drums need to be played with authority, especially in rock or dance. If the drums ain't happenin', the song ain't happenin'. Rimshot piccolo snare can split cinderblocks and with a chest thumping kick sets the groove, the foundation, forming the pocket, the engine, that's what it's all about. Not how many 64th notes or stick twirls or tattoos.

The drummer must be precise, tasteful and take charge of the groove, that's his job and when it comes to toms, there is definitely beauty in simplicity. Every note means something, silence is a note too.

Whenever the house sound guy came at my kit with any type of dampening I first knew he didn't know what he was doing and second sent him back to the booth. Fortunately that was rare, most AE's remarked on how great my drums sounded and how easy they are to get set up.

MJ

good man, can tell you are a drummer also.

I was referring to my experience of Yamaha toms, not been good I'm afraid. it was a Maple Absolute kit, a ridculously immaculate five tom, two kick drum metal monster with new skins and no damping of any kind.

My TAMA starclassic maple kit however is more sensibly proportioned, uses clear Evans G2's top and bottom of toms, and really needs no damping or any work to get it sounding great on a recording.

I did get a good sound out of the Yamaha kit, but it took a hell of a long time!

I've not tried the Recording custom, but not a fan of Stage custom toms.

As far as I'm aware, the Maple Absolute is higher end than the Recording custom, am I wrong? what proportions are your toms? this guys' were huge!

The guys drumming skills are not in question either really, he was rock solid. He didn't rimshot the snare which I would certainly have preferred for the style.

Don't get me wrong here, I'm not saying Yamaha toms can never sound good, but I think you should try a TAMA kit... you might never turn back.

I think webpuppy has they key here...good drums well tuned and a good drummer who knows where to put the hits, and hit em hard.

i have however recorded shitty drummers who play really lightly and as long as they play simply, i can get a great sound.

First, i use my own toms whenever possible. they are Pearl Sessions 8,10,12,&16 with pinstripes (yes, i like a bit of damping) top and ambassador bottoms, tuned to the pitch that the drum is best suited for. bottom head usually slightly higher.
i use a bit a moongel on the 12". if you read my earlier reply, you see how i place the mic.

i notice in the thread all this EQ, expansion, compression, techno-talk stuff, which is fine, but as wepuppy said...it really all does come down to the drums. what you hear is what you get.

One aspect of the drum sound discussion that hasn't been mentioned is the "type" or style of sound one is going for. The kind of heads and the size of the drums are key to this. Drums are so well made nowadays, that almost any drum can be made to record well if you know how to tune and play it right. Unless a drum is seriously out of round or the bearing edge is screwed up, I can make it sound great, at least within the context of each particular drum's parameters and possibilites. "Good" drum sound is often pretty subjective. ;-)

drbam

Yeah, thanks for the replies. I've been having some luck with the multiband setting mentioned awhile back. I think all the EQ and effect talk was because I'm trying to make the best out what I already have on "tape". Which is a decent drum set by the way. It's a Pearl something... I can find out exactly. The main problem lies in the inconsistant hits. His timing is rock solid but the intensity fluctuates, letting more bleed through on some hits while the nice hard hits sound nice and full with great attack.

Keep the replies coming they've been very informative. Thanks.

what style of music are you working on?

If the drummer has a problem with consistency, copression can help, as can copying individual hits to other hits.

However the best way is to fix the way he hits them.

For rock I like drummers to rimshot if they can, I'm a drummer so it helps that I can show them how (in a nice way of course).

If you arrange the snare so that when their hand comes down for the hit the bottom flat of the wrist rests on the leg, and the mid of the stick hits the rim of the drum, while tip of the stick hits the middle of the drum at the same time.

A bit of practise means a consistent powerful sound clear and loud enough to cut through all the spill of other mics.

Reasonably new skins are a good idea, although the newest need a small amount of damping sometimes.

Try it out.

Of course, rimshots aren't appropriate for all styles of music, and I've heard good rock drummers who don't rimshot as well... Makes a studio engineer's life easier though!

Pipeline: I just read your post on that other forum! You totally share my pain! brilliant!

It's especially painful for me, because I'm a drummer. Luckily I always have my own kit to substitute poor sounding drums... but you can't really subsitute a poor drummer for yourself when they're paying for your time to engineer them! Sigh