Getting the drums out

What tricks do you guys use to emphasize your drums? I find that a lot of times my drums just fall in the background.

Layering seems to be a popular technique.
EQ'ing also seems to be popular.

Volume! Record that shit hot!!!

a small amount of tube distortion

"Volume! Record that **** hot!!!"

Mos def! In fact, all your samples should be recorded to the MAXIMUM level. It's easier to turn a loud sound something down, harder to turn a soft sound up. You get white noise in the background.

This works great on kicks and snares:

In a wave editor decrease the volume of the attack part of the sample: the hit.
After that normalize the whole sample. Works like a compressor.

attack and s h i t..

dubnov wrote:This works great on kicks and snares:

In a wave editor decrease the volume of the attack part of the sample: the hit.
After that normalize the whole sample. Works like a compressor.

90% of the punch you get is in the attack portion of a sound. I can't agree with that but it's just a personal opinion. A lot of sounds can benifit from some Aural Excitation in the first miliseconds of a sound and using an oral exciter subtly, you can make t hat attack portion of the sound stand out... this will bring life to your drums... I agree with you saying that it needs a bit of grit from a tube preamp... normalizing is not the same a<s compression and the two should not be confused.... the compressor will soften the peaks but the normalization just brings the whole level up without affecting the value between peaks... You should definately try emphasising the attack, sometimes, inaudible changes will make it stand out like crazy....

as peeps said above, record it hot cause if you record low and have hummm, the relation between the recorded sound and the noise will stay proportionate, so when you raise the sample volume, the noise is also being raised by the same amount.

experiment will eq, but try not to mess with eq too much before you record the sample, you might not want that eq once it's on tape and then there's no way back except for recording the whole sample again. try keep and original of each sound you tweak... subtractive eq will go a long way in creating windows for your mix... try panning percussions and stabs subtly, don't go for the full 100% left or right, 30 to 50% is more than enough... Just experiment, it'll suddenly click one day, you'll listen to your beat and say this sounds hot in the car, at my friends, at my moms on her shitty stereo.... you'll find the key but just work....

i just do it all on the mix down , like put the drums where you think they sound good over the mix and then fit every thing else into place, it all in the mix use your mixer thats what it for mixxing.
peace

dj e.d.e wrote:i just do it all on the mix down , like put the drums where you think they sound good over the mix and then fit every thing else into place, it all in the mix use your mixer thats what it for mixxing.
peace

I second that, that's why I said don't eq too much before your in the mixdown stage cause when you eq, you have to do it in relation to the other sounds, ie the difference between tracking and mixing. tracking is really all about geting the right signal level to tape and then the rest is all in the creative mind... mixing is the key to a HOT sounding beat.... Practice makes perfect, it's an artform....

peace

when u do track, do u want each every channel/track to be as loud as it can go ? so that u mix with everything at top possible levels ?

If you are recording digitally, it is best not to record at too high a level (ie as close to 0db as possible.) One reason for this is that by the time you got your 16 tracks down, the master bus will be overloading like hell, and you will have to pull everything down a lot. A good average to track at in the digital domain is between 12 and 6 db, with highest peaks around 3db.

The headroom and sound/noise ration of today's 24bit soundcards means that you will not get noticeably more "hiss" by doing this, and the benefits are more headroom on the master buss as well as less danger of overloading your send busses.

deaf-mute wrote:90% of the punch you get is in the attack portion of a sound. I can't agree with that but it's just a personal opinion. A lot of sounds can benifit from some Aural Excitation in the first miliseconds of a sound and using an oral exciter subtly, you can make t hat attack portion of the sound stand out... this will bring life to your drums... I agree with you saying that it needs a bit of grit from a tube preamp... normalizing is not the same a<s compression and the two should not be confused.... the compressor will soften the peaks but the normalization just brings the whole level up without affecting the value between peaks... You should definately try emphasising the attack, sometimes, inaudible changes will make it stand out like crazy....

I'm not changing the punch of the attack. After normalization the attack is like before, only the tail of the sample is louder. Gives the impression of a louder snare/kick while the VU value is the same.

Maybe i didn't tell it right. First I'm making the attack softer (fade in from 50% to 100 for example) after that I restore the original volume of the attack by normalizing the whole sample. The attack is like before but the tail of the sample is louder. You can do the same proces with a compressor with a high attack value but I like this way because you can hear and see what you're doing.

[quote="dubnov"][quote="deaf-mute"]90% of the punch you get is in the attack portion of a sound. I can't agree with that but it's just a personal opinion. A lot of sounds can benifit from some Aural Excitation in the first miliseconds of a sound and using an oral exciter subtly, you can make t hat attack portion of the sound stand out... this will bring life to your drums... I agree with you saying that it needs a bit of grit from a tube preamp... normalizing is not the same a<s compression and the two should not be confused.... the compressor will soften the peaks but the normalization just brings the whole level up without affecting the value between peaks... You should definately try emphasising the attack, sometimes, inaudible changes will make it stand out like crazy....[/quote]

I'm not changing the punch of the attack. After normalization the attack is like before, only the tail of the sample is louder. Gives the impression of a louder snare/kick while the VU value is the same.

Maybe i didn't tell it right. First I'm making the attack softer (fade in from 50% to 100 for example) after that I restore the original volume of the attack by normalizing the whole sample. The attack is like before but the tail of the sample is louder. You can do the same proces with a compressor with a high attack value but I like this way because you can hear and see what you're doing.[/quote]


youre doing it the other way around...... for example when you compress you allow a bit of attack so that the compressor works just after the initial attack hence you get a nice bang instead of a swelling up sound the way you process your ish!!!