Room Creation after editing

[djmj]

Originally Posted by krheatman

I record drums with stereo OH and individual mics on SN,HH,Toms,FT,Kick.Then I use Slate to change all drum sounds to taste.I then edit any hits to get rid of off hits.This means I only can use my OH's for cymbals.

What is the best way to recreate a room if you will?Drums sound too unreal, dry.I have tried mixing them into a reverb,but maybe I am not doing something right.Hard to make it realistic.

Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk

Acoustic instrument needs acoustiq environment. You must have non-linear walls and ceiling. Otherwise you get a hall of mirror effect on the soundwaves. Drums need more acoustic reflections from the room then many other instruments, like a close micked guitar, violin etc, they have their own acoustic chamber.

A grand piano needs an acoustic room as well etc. If the room is full of acoustic absorbers, then your drum sounds like cardboard paper. Clapping hands is good to find nice acoustc
Johan

[krheatman]

Originally Posted by djmj

Acoustic instrument needs acoustiq environment. You must have non-linear walls and ceiling. Otherwise you get a hall of mirror effect on the soundwaves. Drums need more acoustic reflections from the room then many other instruments, like a close micked guitar, violin etc, they have their own acoustic chamber.

A grand piano needs an acoustic room as well etc. If the room is full of acoustic absorbers, then your drum sounds like cardboard paper. Clapping hands is good to find nice acoustc
Johan

This does not solve my problem.If I move kick,snare or tom hits in the DAW,you can't use room mics or overheads.

I need to simulate the room

[Arthurelletson]

Can you re amp it through a PA system?

[Blaine Misner]

Why don't you try getting better sounds at the source?

[krheatman]

Originally Posted by Arthurelletson

Can you re amp it through a PA system?

I could reamp it into a room,that might work with trial and error.

[krheatman]

Originally Posted by Blaine Misner

Why don't you try getting better sounds at the source?

It is not about getting better sounds,it is about getting a great take out of a not so great drummer.

[djmj]

Originally Posted by krheatman

It is not about getting better sounds,it is about getting a great take out of a not so great drummer.

//What is the best way to recreate a room if you will?Drums sound too unreal, dry.I have tried mixing them into a reverb//
Wasnt that your question?

[gogar]

Create an edit group of ALL the drum tracks, slide the bad hits left/right to taste, but as you move you will move ALL the tracks, and you can still use OH, and room mics. Lengthen/shorten and crossfade to get rid of the holes you create when you slide.


You can buss or aux every track into a convolution reverb; sometimes I use Waves IR/x with the 'direct' button pushed and find a good room reverb and mix it back in.

[psycho_monkey]

If the drummer is really this bad, it's probably better to record Kick/Snare/Toms, then hats separate, cymbals separate.

Most drummers you can edit as a group as gogar says. If you can't get them to hit hat/snare tightly enough together, I'd be tempted to record individually as above, or just program kick/snare/toms and add live hat and cyms. the end result will be broadly similar anyway, it's just a lot less work.

[krheatman]

Originally Posted by psycho_monkey

If the drummer is really this bad, it's probably better to record Kick/Snare/Toms, then hats separate, cymbals separate.

Most drummers you can edit as a group as gogar says. If you can't get them to hit hat/snare tightly enough together, I'd be tempted to record individually as above, or just program kick/snare/toms and add live hat and cyms. the end result will be broadly similar anyway, it's just a lot less work.

This should work on most stuff.I have heard of this before,just never tried it.I typically mix into a room reverb and it still sounds good,that is until you here it next to a great natural sounding drum set recorded in a great room ,by a great drummer.I am a guitar player,but drums are just so much more important to me when mixing,they have to be right or the whole thing sounds contrived.

[psycho_monkey]

Originally Posted by krheatman

This should work on most stuff.I have heard of this before,just never tried it.I typically mix into a room reverb and it still sounds good,that is until you here it next to a great natural sounding drum set recorded in a great room ,by a great drummer.I am a guitar player,but drums are just so much more important to me when mixing,they have to be right or the whole thing sounds contrived.

A room reverb won't replace the sound of the overheads on a kick. I'm definitely of the "ohs = picture of kit" mode of thinking, not "oh = cymbal mics". Close mics DON'T sound like the drum to me - they sound like the attack of the drum. Room verb might compensate for room mic, but not for overheads.

Alternative - use pads to trigger kick/snare toms, live top kit...the tapping on the pads should be relatively unobtrusive once the samples are in there (and then you can quantise the triggers).

Still - the great drummer/great kit/great room scenario SHOULD trump even this setup - that's why people do it! For the right style of course..for quantised pop rock, it probably won't matter.

[Sotsirc]

Isn't there a way to fake OH's in your DAW? I've always thought there was but haven't quite cracked it. Maybe something like the plugin Proximity could be a part of the solution. Would be cool to have a plugin that sounds like realistic OH's. Might be good for electronic drums too.

[psycho_monkey]

Originally Posted by Sotsirc

Isn't there a way to fake OH's in your DAW? I've always thought there was but haven't quite cracked it. Maybe something like the plugin Proximity could be a part of the solution. Would be cool to have a plugin that sounds like realistic OH's. Might be good for electronic drums too.

How can you fake something that wasn't captured in the first place?

Best thing you could do to "fake" it would be to trigger an OH sample for each drum along with the close mics...but if you're getting that detailed, would be quicker to program it in the first place...and would sound pretty much the same!

[nikodemos]

reamping is a nice idea.....regardless if you have a big real live room or a smaller one , you can use reamping in order to capture a unity image of the drum kit, either in mono or stereo. Then you can work further in this single mix of the drum kit in order to recreate an artificial roomy and ambient sound. Compression is pretty useful there as it can help you tame the initial transients of the drum kit and bring forward the sustained kit resonances and the room vibe.

From what i understand your goal is not to just add ambience to your drum sounds but to re-unite the discrete elements (samples) of your mix to a solid sounding drum kit.....as we say, to glue things back together.

So you should aim at recreating an artificial room mix, either by reamping or by simply busing your elements together but in a different balance compared to your actual drum mix in order to mimic a specific room's behavior, distance and type of mics etc etc

[Nick Morris]

Originally Posted by krheatman

I record drums with stereo OH and individual mics on SN,HH,Toms,FT,Kick.Then I use Slate to change all drum sounds to taste.I then edit any hits to get rid of off hits.This means I only can use my OH's for cymbals.

What is the best way to recreate a room if you will?Drums sound too unreal, dry.I have tried mixing them into a reverb,but maybe I am not doing something right.Hard to make it realistic.

Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk

Are you saying you edit the tracks individually or as a group? It should be as a group. Are you saying because of the edits you can only use the OH as cymbals? Have you tried blending in the slate rooms? This should help simulate room sounds for your drums. As for the oh and cymbals, eq and good reverb/IR's can do the trick, just choose wisely.

[TornadoTed]

Pumping through a PA sounds like the best option to me.

As well as compression I find Transient Designer and blending a convolution reverb with the room mics great for shaping the room sound. My room is small'ish and bright, I often knock off the attack with Transient Designer and then blend in a darker, longer room IR in makes for a more balanced room sound.

[Sotsirc]

Originally Posted by psycho_monkey

How can you fake something that wasn't captured in the first place?

Best thing you could do to "fake" it would be to trigger an OH sample for each drum along with the close mics...but if you're getting that detailed, would be quicker to program it in the first place...and would sound pretty much the same!

Well, isn't that what you do with room sound? Surely you could recreate what a drum sounds like from a certain distance with an algorithm? I know you don't have all the information from a close miked recording but if you have a lot of close miked snares and the same ones from the OH maybe you could draw some conclusions and make some math. Ok, I clearly don't know what I'm talking about and it's been a very long day. But I like the thought of this.

[psycho_monkey]

Originally Posted by Sotsirc

Well, isn't that what you do with room sound? Surely you could recreate what a drum sounds like from a certain distance with an algorithm? I know you don't have all the information from a close miked recording but if you have a lot of close miked snares and the same ones from the OH maybe you could draw some conclusions and make some math. Ok, I clearly don't know what I'm talking about and it's been a very long day. But I like the thought of this.

Well yes - if you have a sample of the OH, then you don't NEED to fake it - you just trigger the sample at the correct point in relation to the OH. This is how things like Slate or Superior drummer work - when you use those programs, you can adjust or record the levels of the OH mics and the close mics individually. That's what I said above - it's a lot of work, it'd be quicker to just sample the individual drums, program the drum part, and record live hat and cymbals.

But it's just triggering samples. An OH mic above a kit is different to a room mic in that you're generally aiming to record a direct signal from the whole kit, not an ambient picture of it. A reverb generates reflections based on the source sent to it; with an OH you'd need to generate a whole new sound.

[krheatman]

Originally Posted by Nick Morris

Are you saying you edit the tracks individually or as a group? It should be as a group. Are you saying because of the edits you can only use the OH as cymbals? Have you tried blending in the slate rooms? This should help simulate room sounds for your drums. As for the oh and cymbals, eq and good reverb/IR's can do the trick, just choose wisely.

I can try blending the rooms.I am not editing as a group if I am moving snare and kick hits.This is why I can only use the cymbals from the overheads and you can't use room mics either.Reamping into a room and recording will probably gain quite a bit and you could get a more cohesive mix,and a more realistic feel this way,even adding guitars etc.,basically creating a new room mic mix.

[localrockstar]

Originally Posted by krheatman

I can try blending the rooms.I am not editing as a group if I am moving snare and kick hits.This is why I can only use the cymbals from the overheads and you can't use room mics either.Reamping into a room and recording will probably gain quite a bit and you could get a more cohesive mix,and a more realistic feel this way,even adding guitars etc.,basically creating a new room mic mix.

you absolutely have to edit as a group. even if you are moving the snare / kick hits, you need to also move the bleed into all the other mics from that off hit as well. if you edit as a group, i think you will find this is much simpler than your current workflow.

in other words, when you edit as a group, you move an off-beat snare into position, but along with that you move the room mic / overhead / tom bleed / etc. So you can record a room mic when tracking and edit as a group, all will be peachy.

for your current situation with no room mic tracked, maybe a PA into an empty room is a decent idea. but from now on, it's probably worth tracking the room mic just because, even if you end up not using it.

[krheatman]

Originally Posted by localrockstar

you absolutely have to edit as a group. even if you are moving the snare / kick hits, you need to also move the bleed into all the other mics from that off hit as well. if you edit as a group, i think you will find this is much simpler than your current workflow.

in other words, when you edit as a group, you move an off-beat snare into position, but along with that you move the room mic / overhead / tom bleed / etc. So you can record a room mic when tracking and edit as a group, all will be peachy.

for your current situation with no room mic tracked, maybe a PA into an empty room is a decent idea. but from now on, it's probably worth tracking the room mic just because, even if you end up not using it.

I will try it.I can still get full info from OH on some mixes and see how that works.

[krheatman]

Lots of good input here,Thx.I may have missed other threads with the same conversation?

Sent from my PC36100 using Tapatalk

[localrockstar]

If you are using Pro Tools, just throw elastic audio on the drum group and be done with it! There's got to be some good YouTube videos out there that can help you get started

[psycho_monkey]

Originally Posted by localrockstar

If you are using Pro Tools, just throw elastic audio on the drum group and be done with it! There's got to be some good YouTube videos out there that can help you get started

Sigh....ignoring for the moment that I don't think EA does your drum sound any favours (smeary transients), this doesn't help you much if your drummer can't hit a simultaneous kick/crash or snare/hat! Beat detective and if you must elastic audio can help lock a good drummer to loops, or make a drummer with wobbly timing but decent hitting ability sound pretty tight - but it can't fix everything.

[localrockstar]

Originally Posted by psycho_monkey

Sigh....ignoring for the moment that I don't think EA does your drum sound any favours (smeary transients), this doesn't help you much if your drummer can't hit a simultaneous kick/crash or snare/hat! Beat detective and if you must elastic audio can help lock a good drummer to loops, or make a drummer with wobbly timing but decent hitting ability sound pretty tight - but it can't fix everything.

well if the alternative is slate-replaced kick, snare, tom and a PA-produced room mic, I'd take the smeary transients.

but right on about keeping the relative internal hits tight.

[psycho_monkey]

Originally Posted by localrockstar

well if the alternative is slate-replaced kick, snare, tom and a PA-produced room mic, I'd take the smeary transients.

No, the alternative is to tighten with BD/manually and keep the sound!

There's nothing that EA lets you do that you can't do with beat detective - and BD always sounds better, IME.

Replacing drums is a totally different issue. The 2 are mutually exclusive.

[crying1986]

Convert kick, snare, and toms to midi. Then trigger superior drummer or a similar program that has room mic samples. Done.

[Sotsirc]

Originally Posted by psycho_monkey

Well yes - if you have a sample of the OH, then you don't NEED to fake it - you just trigger the sample at the correct point in relation to the OH. This is how things like Slate or Superior drummer work - when you use those programs, you can adjust or record the levels of the OH mics and the close mics individually. That's what I said above - it's a lot of work, it'd be quicker to just sample the individual drums, program the drum part, and record live hat and cymbals.

But it's just triggering samples. An OH mic above a kit is different to a room mic in that you're generally aiming to record a direct signal from the whole kit, not an ambient picture of it. A reverb generates reflections based on the source sent to it; with an OH you'd need to generate a whole new sound.

Yes I know how triggering works, I'm talking about faking it, not using samples. Just like you fake that a sound is coming from far away by considering stuff like compression, high frequency absorption, lowering of the fundamental, etc. I think it would be possible to create that "whole new sound" (at least well enough to mix it in at low levels to increase realism) by taking into account the position of the different elements of the drum kit, the distance to the microphones, and analysing lots of close miked drums and the same drums through the OH mics. Any reason this would be impossible?

[stafs]

Originally Posted by crying1986

Convert kick, snare, and toms to midi. Then trigger superior drummer or a similar program that has room mic samples. Done.

This! I use BFD for it, but any dedicated drum sampler with great sounding kits will work. Just load snare, kick and toms, a and play with relations between direct, OH, Room and ambience. Then tweak reverb until it sounds close that BFD room and add it to Oh's. Usually i lightly compress whole drum bus, to glue freshly created kit together. That way i have got some killer roomy drum sounds.

My other method is to use PA and mess around with mics and positioning, to get that 'real' roomy sound. PA must be LOUD! In my experience,very snappy, bright sounding samples with sharp attacks, create more problems than solve, when reamped that way. It's crucial to send right mix of elements to PA. You can remove some mids, hi mids from samples when reamping and dial them back in later, at mix stage. Sometimes it's possible to get decent roomy glue by recording edited and sample replaced drums thru monitors in control room.