Drum tracking - EQ ???'s

[Herman Munster]

Post-production has just been completed on a project I tracked. The artist is a friend of mine who is a drummer (arghh!)(just kidding). He has recently begun playing guitar and is a decent singer. The drums were tracked at another studio and everything else was tracked here. He is not totally happy with the way the drums turned out and is thinking that he would have been happier if the drums could have been EQ'd during/before tracking. He thinks this would have enabled him to get more of the sound he wanted.

My question is this - how many of you guys do this? Who out there EQ's the snare for instance to taste before/during tracking?

I'll try to post some samples later to point out what he doesn't like. FWIW, I think it sounds fine....

[Ironklad Audio]

i prefer to wait to EQ the drums until mixdown...you never really know what you're going to need to boost/cut until you have a bunch of tracks fighting for space in the mix

[Herman Munster]

Originally Posted by Ironklad Audio

i prefer to wait to EQ the drums until mixdown...you never really know what you're going to need to boost/cut until you have a bunch of tracks fighting for space in the mix

This has been my MO, but my drummer friend who has quite a bit of studio experience says he just likes the sound better the times they've EQ'd during tracking. Any other opinions?

[johnbohn]

I end up EQing the kick during almost every tracking session. A lot of the time the snare too. Not much more than that. I do it all the time and it's never burned me. Granted I tend to use high end EQs (1073, 560, 550, etc) that I know very well.

[Marty J]

If your drummer friend knows the sound he's after, why doesn't he try moving the mics to get that sound instead of EQing?

[Janesaid2me]

I add alil eq before hand but usually nothing drastic...some high pass, add a lil to a frequency i like on that certain drum...usually move the mics first to find a good sound...then a tad of eq...never compress or gate when i track.

I dont think that eq'ing during the tracking would have allowed him to achieve his sound because there is nothing you can due during tracking that cant be eq'ed that way afterwards. Moving mics around is a whole nother story!

[A LaMere]

There are many things that I don't/wouldn't need to eq while tracking... though, in my opinion drums is not one of those. Until only recently I'd pretty much only recorded thinking that you should fix the drums with the mic and pre selection and with tuning, etc...

In the past year or two I've worked with people who eq drums on the way in and the results really have been night and day. From now on, I'll probably always eq and compress the drums on the way in. Get them as close as they can be from the beginning... I've had much better luck with sounds this way.

Ymmv but... I'm not afraid of eq at all.

There are a couple of these type threads alive right now here at the slutz, to eq while tracking or not to eq while tracking... I say, do whatever works.

[MarkRB]

Agree with A LaMere.

I always prefer to tidy the sounds up with a little EQ and/or compression when tracking drums. It just makes working over them easier for me, and saves time come to mix.

But I don't think you are going to lose anything by not EQ'ing while tracking, it just means they will take a bit more effort and time to mix them.

[C_F_H_13]

I always EQ somewhat when tracking.

Sometimes it's super subtle like some filtering....sometimes it's so radical I actually feel bad...it's all about the sound at the end of the day.