Your Favorite Gear for Fattening Sterile Drum Loops??

[undermind]

What is your favorite gear for fattening drums? The problem I often end up with is harsh sounding highs or generally thin sounding drums. Usually the loops are already somewhat "processed", so there's not a whole lot of room for compression, reverb, etc. Regarding the icepick highs on some cymbals and hi hats I'm finding that EQ'ing isn't usually the answer. So I'm thinking of hitting them with some good analog, tube, tape love..

It doesn't matter to me whether it's hardware or software. I was gonna pick up some compressors and EQ's for my lunchbox, but now this drum smoothing thing is sort of occupying my GAS.. So I'm considering things like a Fatso or a HEDD.. I don't have a lot of outboard, and I'd like to find something that could help fatten up drums AND be useful in other areas where I'm lacking in outboard.


And by the way... I know loops are never as good as real live drums, and I know offensive snare beats and such can be replaced.. But right now I've got to work with what I have. I'm recording a solo album and I'm writing as I'm going, and I'm not going to put a real drummer through my snail paced writing routine..

Thanks!

[TonyBelmont]

Pair of Pultecs?

[Zarathustra]

FATSO and 1073 EQ.

Makes the beats move your feet and all the sucker MC's retreat.

Z

[kittonian]

Run the samples through some 1073's using the line input and eq. You'll be amazed at the sound after its been run through those puppies.

[Toasterboy]

Slam it to tape. I almost never deal with drum loops but when I do they go straight to my 1/4" 2 track. And hit it hard, no compression but the tape compression. And I use 456 so it gets really messed up when hit hard.

[e-cue]

Cranesong Phoenix

[undermind]

Originally Posted by e-cue

Cranesong Phoenix

I'd love to.. Forgot to mention I'd need VST. There's a definite lack of tape plugs for VST..

[manofsong]

Bitcrusher plug-in.

[e-cue]

Originally Posted by undermind

I'd love to.. Forgot to mention I'd need VST. There's a definite lack of tape plugs for VST..

I suppose I'd get a Hedd then.


ugh.

I swear that pun was unintentional.

[3rd world order]

DI in chandler germanium pre with feedback cranked, pad IN, and thick IN.

thermionic culture vulture.. why use a hedd when you can use a real tube?

SPL transient designer

HEDD doesnt change things that much... 5% mebbe... tho i like the sim of a tube crapping out.

[SighBorg]

Cranesong HEDD can do some great stuff to loops.

Outside of that my 3 favorite drum bigifiers are software: Digidesign Lo-Fi, Reason's "Scream" set to tape mode, and Izotope Ozone.

Also check out the CamelCrusher plugin. My listening area wasnt exactly optimal but I was fairly pleased with the plug.

[NL5]

Best gear for fattening sterile drum loops? A drumkit! (Cheaper than a pair of 1073's! )

[Akoppenheffer]

I just did some stuff running the beat through Massey's Tapehead. Big difference there. I don't have 1073s and tape machines, so I gotta make the best of my digital realm.

[RCM - Ronan]

A pultec style EQ, a Fatso and a sansamp.

[Mike Caffrey]

A drummer.

[mixerguy]

Originally Posted by rcm

A pultec style EQ, a Fatso and a sansamp.

+1!!

[undermind]

Originally Posted by rcm

A pultec style EQ, a Fatso and a sansamp.

Which sansamp?

[3rd world order]

Originally Posted by undermind

Which sansamp?

probably any of them.. but the rack is typical

run the sans in parallel or on a send so you can keep some hi-fi'ness

[Andreas G]

What sounds fat to you? I think that's really subjective.

Andreas

[studiogeek]

Culture Vulture
Germanium Compressor
Portico 5033

[matt thomas]

fat boy slims favourite were his pair of dbx 163's. He said he put pretty much every loop through them and that were his favourite piece of equipment in his studio.

he was obviously very succesful with this technique, and its a much cheaper option than some of the others listed here!

narco

[redroom]

Originally Posted by undermind

I'd love to.. Forgot to mention I'd need VST. There's a definite lack of tape plugs for VST..

VirSyn Vtape is a great vst tape plug

[Jaques Beraques]

Pultecs into G-Series Bus Comp.
Boom

[RCM - Ronan]

Originally Posted by undermind

Which sansamp?

I have the rack mount version. Tchad Blake who really helped make sansamps hip as a mixing tool, uses the sansamp classic (according to his Q&A here on GS)

[Paul_G]

Although the question is about gear I think there is also another issue about screwing loops up, so....
I would split the loops to 3 channels/tracks (One low pass, one for mids and one for high pass) and then process them individually. I use tape, or if I am in a hurry a fatso with a lot of warmth on the cymbals/hats. Warm old style eq will also work wonders.
I hope this helps.

Cheers
PG

[undermind]

Originally Posted by Paul_G

Although the question is about gear I think there is also another issue about screwing loops up, so....
I would split the loops to 3 channels/tracks (One low pass, one for mids and one for high pass) and then process them individually. I use tape, or if I am in a hurry a fatso with a lot of warmth on the cymbals/hats. Warm old style eq will also work wonders.
I hope this helps.

Cheers
PG

Good point regarding splitting into 3 tracks. What's your favorite way of doing this? Some better loops are broken down by drum, but how do you usually separate the frequency bands? And what are your usual frequency points for separation?

[writethis]

The mighty Resonator from Frostwave. Clone of the filter section from the Korg MS20. Really a fun and versatile piece of kit.


http://www.frostwave.com/theresonator/index.html

[gsqd]

Originally Posted by TonyBelmont

Pair of Pultecs?

What he said!

<GM>

[Paul_G]

Originally Posted by undermind

Good point regarding splitting into 3 tracks. What's your favorite way of doing this? Some better loops are broken down by drum, but how do you usually separate the frequency bands? And what are your usual frequency points for separation?

Thanks
After working with loops for twenty years - because I like loops, not because I don't know great drummers - I don't have a real formula, sometimes I will chop it up and process each drum i.e. add weight to the kick, get the snare to crack and high pass and tweak the hat. The only problem with this method is that while you gain a great, hard "single hit" sound you can lose the breathing atmosphere and glue if you want the drums to sound more natural. (you also may as well just use better sounding individual hits to begin with)
So my favourite method for keeping an overall "vibe" for a loop is to do as I described above by splitting the whole loop into 3 channels(mono or stereo). I don't have a regular set of frequencies that I automatically use as it all depends on the pitch, resonance and tempo etc. of the drums.
I suggest you experiment creating one that sounds filtered and deep for the big booming speakers with low pass shelving at around 50hz, a midrange one that takes over from there and will have most of the punch for the nearfields up to maybe around 5K or so and then treat the highs separately again with a high pass and warm or brighten them accordingly.
If I still need more attack I will use single hits tuned appropriately and blended with the loop.
Then I will parallel compress everything to glue it back together and blend this in.
I usually do all this OTB but It'll also work fine ITB I'm sure.

The Hip Hop forum will have some tips on all this too.

Cheers,
PG

[DanGo]

One thing that I find usually kills loops is too much low end. Use some sort of analyzer (Roger Nichols' free Inspector will do!) or your ears, but I think you'll find that most loops and even drum samples (esp. in virtual instrument plug ins) have too much info below 40Hz and sometimes too much in the 100-150Hz range. Since a lot of times people run multiple loops simultaneously, all that low freq info really adds up to mud. Kills off all kinds of good stuff in the drums and throws off the balance.

My recipe for fattening sterile drum loops depends on the loops and their source, but here's one method I use (and I second anybody who suggests 1073 type sounds)...

Run the loops through some kind of eq (I really like either the Sonalksis eq or Wave Arts TrackPlug) and tame the subs a bit (cause this recipe does require compression, which, contrary to what you suggested, does help!). Then run the loops out through some kind of board, summing amp or my current fave: a pair of Avedis MA5s (again, the 1073 sound!).

Bring those loops back into your session and hit em with a fast compressor, but lightly (1:8 to 2:1 or maybe a touch higher ratio). Make sure your attack isn't so fast you lose the body of the notes and make sure your release is sufficiently long so you don't just get transients, but not so long you get wacko pumping. Set threshold to just grab the kick and snare, but not to turn the whole loop into one big mess of hats and cymbals.

That should really do it.

But another thing... loop source is important. Garbage in/Garbage out. If you don't have fat sounding loops to start with or they're mixed poorly, there's only so much you can do.

There are lots more tricks, but that's a start...