Question about squashing a drum room track

[Rockman]

Hey guys,

Got a simple question. For those of you who squash / compress your drum room tracks, is it possible to do so without making them sound too ambient? I know this question sounds like a paradox (after all, it's a room track). But what I mean is... when I compress the hell out of my room tracks (mostly to bring out the aggressive element and the attack), I end up with an overly live sound... and it makes the drums sound too far away, rather than upfront.

Incidentally, I use the "British mode" on the distressor, with a ratio of 1:1

Do you guys have this issue? And how do you deal with it?

To put it simply... how do I get my drums to sound very aggressive, without making them sound too far away in the mix?

I tried gating it, but when you're squashing the sound of an entire kit, it's a little hard to find that perfect setting on a gate.

Any thoughts?

[AlexLakis]

Try moving your room mics closer to the kit, and maybe deadening the room a little around the drumset with baffles, gobos, matresses, etc.

[Rockman]

Wow, that was fast reply. I had barely finished submitting my post Thanks Alex.

Uhh.. I forgot to mention something important. I use drum samples (very old fashioned... on an MPC-3000)... and I simulate a room track with a Lexicon 300.

[peat]

i would try a much higher ratio
something like 8:1
squash the hell out of it

the trick is to bring it in at a very low level
have it turned off
have the rest of the mix how you like it
then slowly bring it up until you feel its right
you may need to change some of the other mics

also try whacking a LPF or HPF on it
that may remove some unwanted ambience

[AlexLakis]

Originally Posted by Rockman

I use drum samples (very old fashioned... on an MPC-3000)... and I simulate a room track with a Lexicon 300.

Well, in that case, use less reverb! Right? Are you squashing before or after the reverb?

[peeceebee]

You could try using HEAVT compression with a short/medium release time, so you get extreme "pumping"-
Will sound very effecty & huge, but less ambient.
The kind of sound you get with a level-loc-

[Rockman]

Thanks Peat. I guess I could try a higher ratio too. I just tried the recommended settings that came with the distressor manual (a simulation of pressing all 4 ratio buttons on an 1176).

Alex, I squash after the reverb. What I do is send the drum kit (minus the hat and cymbals) to a Drum room preset on the Lexicon (it's a pretty large sounding room), and then I bring it up in the mix to taste, behind the dry drum samples. Then, on a separate track, I squash the room track through a distressor with the settings I mentioned, and I try bringing that up as well... but usually, I can only manage to raise those faders a tiny amount before the drums start sounding too ambient. I can almost hardly use them at all because of that ambience.

P.S. I also HPF and LPF those nuked room trax.

Hmm.. would you suggest I change the parameters on the Lexicon to make the room smaller? or simply send less of the kit to the verb?

[AlexLakis]

Hmm, sounds to me like you just need to shorten the verb on the preset. Keep HPFing and LPFing like you're doing, the LPF probably helps with the ambience (at least in the high end, where it might be most noticeable and distracting.)

Also, try adjusting the attack/release times on the compressor. Maybe a longer attack/release time?

[Screws]

Room mics are there to pick up the room sound, thus they are ambient by their very nature. I think you're trying to get a sound using the wrong source.

If you want more attack and agression, try working toward the sound you want by using a mix of the close miked tracks instead of the room mics.

[Mike Caffrey]

Exactly. The purpose of smashing a room track is to bring up the ambience. You could use a transient designer, but that's not what you want.

Think about squashing for a moment. That decreases the ratio of peak to average or peak to silence. You even out the levels, meaning the direct sounds in the room mics and the reflections are more similar in volume.

Try running all of the drums through the Distressors as a group. Include the room mics, but expereiment with leaving them out. Don't use the Brit Mod, try 4,6 or 10:1 with an attack between 8.75 and max and a realase between 2-3. Light up a lot of leds worth of GR and see if that gets you to where you want to be.

[not_so_new]

Ummmmm guys....

He said

"I forgot to mention something important. I use drum samples (very old fashioned... on an MPC-3000)... and I simulate a room track with a Lexicon 300."

Forget about the thread title and first post, we are not talking about a "drum room" here we are talking about reverb.

Rockman, yeah maybe make the verb smaller or send less kit to the verb, or run a parallel set up, or compress before the verb, or compress after the verb....



The point is, experiment.. right?

[thethrillfactor]

Originally Posted by Rockman

Alex.

Uhh.. I forgot to mention something important. I use drum samples (very old fashioned... on an MPC-3000)... and I simulate a room track with a Lexicon 300.

That is not a real room so different circumstances.

If you want to try what a real room might do pump the returns through a pair of speakers and mic that.

[Mike Caffrey]

That changes everything.

If you want less ambience, turn down the reverb.


Compressing it is just going ot make it longer. Try distorting it instead. You'll need a lot less and it won't sound so sterile.

Compressing all of the drums sounds as a group is still potentially a good thing.

[Rockman]

Thanks for all the tips guys. Yea, I guess my situation is a bit unorthodox, being that I use samples and a reverb unit, to try to simulate a live drum kit.

I'll try sending a little less reverb to the compressor... and maybe try to make the reverb room smaller (change the parameters).

Thanks again. Still working on it.

[u b k]

Originally Posted by Mike Caffrey

Don't use the Brit Mod, try 4,6 or 10:1 with an attack between 8.75 and max and a realase between 2-3.

all good suggestions for the room. the british mode can also work as long as he makes the release SLOW, like 8 on the knob. ratio on nuke, naturally.

grab that input and crank it. don't be shy, and (as always) ignore the meters.


gregoire
del
ubk
.

[Rockman]

Thanks u b k..

For the record, these are the settings I've been using on the distressor, to squash the Lexicon room: (which by the way, I think is called the "Live Drum Room" preset)

Distressor:

• Brit mode on
  
• Ratio 1:1
  
• Input knob: 10
  
• Attack: 2
  
• Release: 10
  
• Output: 6.5 (or so)
  
• Both Detector buttons on (and I choose between Dist 2 or 3 as well)

The "Live Drum Room preset" has a room size of 18 meters and zero pre-delay.

That's it.

Would you suggest I try to make the room size smaller than 18 meters? for the squashed room tracks?

[nervouscircuits]

you are not doing any compressing with a 1:1 ratio.

[Rockman]

Originally Posted by nervouscircuits

you are not doing any compressing with a 1:1 ratio.

No compression with the British mode activated?

That's what I thought the distressor manual said... (to emulate the "all buttons pushed" on an 1176

[Dave Derr]

First, you may just simply be compressing too much. Watch recording all your tracks with compression especially. Lots of compression on everything almost always sounds a little sloppy and overly ambient. Too much compression or the wrong compression could possibly be a big part of the problem.

Compressing digital reverbs can thicken them up and make them sound more natural, but again, you will make them sound bigger and sloppier.

A few ideas:
*) Use less, or even NO reverb on the drums, or perhaps just on snare etc
*) Perhaps shorten the reverb time
*) Use less compression on the verb
*) Gate the reverb using external triggering such as only the snare and toms, or snare and kick, keeping the cymbals out of the reverb

Most of todays drum sounds are pretty dry, with small tight reverbs, if any. Often you have to use a seperate reverb for the snare to keep it from washing over the whole kit, or being gated on and off with all the drums. Watch putting verb on the kick drum, since the low freqs can quickly muddy up the bottom.

As far as taming cymbals, shakers, tambs and hats, often panning and correct levels can keep them from piling up and sounding harsh or sloppy. You can bring them in and out in different sections of the song for dynamics. Learning when certain midrange frequencies pile up and sorting those frequencies out, takes lots of experience and practice. I have heard some otherwise great mixes ruined by just tooooo much cymbals and high frequency percussion. Id say its often better to error on the side of too little cymbals, than too many splashy bright cymbals. Sometimes pulling out 2K - 5KHz on some of them can make them sweeter. Again, panning some things hard left or right can help balance and tame frequencies, while at the same time exciting the listener with more of a "stereo" soundfield.


Try monitoring really softly and see what dominates the mix. Listen on little mono speakers at low volumes to get your overall balances. Compare your mixes to other "pro" mixes... something relevant of course. Trying to approach the sound of another person's mix that you really like can be very educational.

Just some thoughts.... one's that you should probably completely ignore.

GOOD LUCK

[Screws]

I'm beginning to get the picture here. You're doing what I used to do years ago with drum samples and using reverb to make them sound more realistic, right?

I found that the 'verb helped hide the sound of the samples a bit so with the right performance and nuances I thought I could get decently close to real drums.

The fact is, most reverb works a little bit against clarity, and if you want an edgy, aggressive sound, reverb is sometimes the exact wrong direction. Possible exceptions to this are the huge, gated reverb sounds of Phil Collins stuff in the 80's. But that's a very specific sound, and I think they piped the drums sounds into a large warehouse with mics recording the results rather than using a digital reverb.

Several of us recommended that you take a bus (sub-mix) of the drums, run it through an aggressive compressor (like a Distressor) and then mix that squashed, distorted sound back in with the dry, uncompressed sound. Use a fast attack and time the release to the song to get the compressor to accentuate the "bloom" of the drums. I do this all the time with my beloved Fatso.

If you use a Distressor, try the various distortion settings to rough up the sound as much as you want, since the attack of the drums will still be covered by the dry tracks. This can get as nuts as you want to get. You can run the sub-mix through a guitar preamp, or even better, a full guitar amp, miking it up and re-recording it to mix with the dry samples. Remember, you can still mix in a hint of reverb for a nice room sound to mix along with the dry, compressed and distorted stuff.

By the way, I've given up trying to use samples and now work with a real drummer. Huge difference.

Just my .02.

[Drumsound]

Originally Posted by nervouscircuits

you are not doing any compressing with a 1:1 ratio.

Thats how I understand it...

[Screws]

Yo, Dave is here!

Obi-Wan, where are my Fatso options? Did you find that this wonderful, overly-complex-to-build device can't support anymore complexity? (Heaven forbid!)

[Rockman]

Originally Posted by Dave Derr

First, you may just simply be compressing too much. Watch recording all your tracks with compression especially. Lots of compression on everything almost always sounds a little sloppy and overly ambient. Too much compression or the wrong compression could possibly be a big part of the problem.

Compressing digital reverbs can thicken them up and make them sound more natural, but again, you will make them sound bigger and sloppier.

A few ideas:
*) Use less, or even NO reverb on the drums, or perhaps just on snare etc
*) Perhaps shorten the reverb time
*) Use less compression on the verb
*) Gate the reverb using external triggering such as only the snare and toms, or snare and kick, keeping the cymbals out of the reverb

Most of todays drum sounds are pretty dry, with small tight reverbs, if any. Often you have to use a seperate reverb for the snare to keep it from washing over the whole kit, or being gated on and off with all the drums. Watch putting verb on the kick drum, since the low freqs can quickly muddy up the bottom.

As far as taming cymbals, shakers, tambs and hats, often panning and correct levels can keep them from piling up and sounding harsh or sloppy. You can bring them in and out in different sections of the song for dynamics. Learning when certain midrange frequencies pile up and sorting those frequencies out, takes lots of experience and practice. I have heard some otherwise great mixes ruined by just tooooo much cymbals and high frequency percussion. Id say its often better to error on the side of too little cymbals, than too many splashy bright cymbals. Sometimes pulling out 2K - 5KHz on some of them can make them sweeter. Again, panning some things hard left or right can help balance and tame frequencies, while at the same time exciting the listener with more of a "stereo" soundfield.


Try monitoring really softly and see what dominates the mix. Listen on little mono speakers at low volumes to get your overall balances. Compare your mixes to other "pro" mixes... something relevant of course. Trying to approach the sound of another person's mix that you really like can be very educational.

Just some thoughts.... one's that you should probably completely ignore.

GOOD LUCK

Dave,

Thanks very much for taking the time to give me your input. I take it you got my PM (since you also commented about tamb, shakers, etc... which I had asked you about).

Just for the record (and to clarify what I've been doing)... When I record my drum samples (which I assume have already been processed to a small extent, when they were created), I never compress them. I record them dry. But.. after that, I will run the snare (and sometimes the toms, each on their own respective tracks) through the distressor, and squash them hard (just to get the attack accentuated), and I'll print those on separate tracks. I'll then mix the dry drums with the squashed ones to taste. I then send all the drums (minus the hat and cymbals) to an aux buss, and put a Waves Renn Comp compressor (with 4:1 ratio, and only 3-4 dB of GR), just to "glue" the kit a little bit. I've been purposely keeping the hat and cymbals out of that signal path (I process them separately). Finally, I run that entire "gelled" drum kit into my Lexicon 300 ("Live Drum Room" preset), and print the room (100% wet) on it's own stereo track... and I blend that in with the dry kit, to taste (usually, just a little bit).

.. which brings me to the original topic of this thread... squashing the room track... (and which you guys have already been kind enough to give me your input on).

I just wanted to explain the previous stuff, so you knew that I didn't compress the original drum samples.

Even though I've been getting some good aggressiveness and attack by simply doing the parallel compression on the dry drums, I was thinking I could get even more by squashing the room tracks. That was my original intention.

And furthermore, I'm still a little confused at the various modes of the distressor. My understanding was that when the British mode was engaged, even at a ratio of 1:1, that some squashing was going on.. (provided the attack knob was set at around 2 or 3). I'm still not 100% clear on this issue. So Dave, if you're still reading this, please set me straight.

Thanks guys for all your input.

[Rockman]

Originally Posted by Screws

I'm beginning to get the picture here. You're doing what I used to do years ago with drum samples and using reverb to make them sound more realistic, right?

I found that the 'verb helped hide the sound of the samples a bit so with the right performance and nuances I thought I could get decently close to real drums.

The fact is, most reverb works a little bit against clarity, and if you want an edgy, aggressive sound, reverb is sometimes the exact wrong direction. Possible exceptions to this are the huge, gated reverb sounds of Phil Collins stuff in the 80's. But that's a very specific sound, and I think they piped the drums sounds into a large warehouse with mics recording the results rather than using a digital reverb.

Several of us recommended that you take a bus (sub-mix) of the drums, run it through an aggressive compressor (like a Distressor) and then mix that squashed, distorted sound back in with the dry, uncompressed sound. Use a fast attack and time the release to the song to get the compressor to accentuate the "bloom" of the drums. I do this all the time with my beloved Fatso.

If you use a Distressor, try the various distortion settings to rough up the sound as much as you want, since the attack of the drums will still be covered by the dry tracks. This can get as nuts as you want to get. You can run the sub-mix through a guitar preamp, or even better, a full guitar amp, miking it up and re-recording it to mix with the dry samples. Remember, you can still mix in a hint of reverb for a nice room sound to mix along with the dry, compressed and distorted stuff.

By the way, I've given up trying to use samples and now work with a real drummer. Huge difference.

Just my .02.

Screws, I wanted to thank you also for your input. I've addressed some of the issues you brought up in my previous post to Dave. I'll also consider trying the distortion aspect (maybe with Amp Farm, since I have no amp).

Thanks agian.

[Dave Derr]

Originally Posted by Rockman

Dave,
keeping the hat and cymbals out of that signal path (I process them separately). Finally, I run that entire "gelled" drum kit into my Lexicon 300 ("Live Drum Room" preset), and print the room (100% wet) on it's own stereo track... and I blend that in with the dry kit, to taste (usually, just a little bit).


I'm still a little confused at the various modes of the distressor. My understanding was that when the British mode was engaged, even at a ratio of 1:1, that some squashing was going on.. (provided the attack knob was set at around 2 or 3).

You're correct, the 1:1 becomes a fairly high ratio when the Brit Mod is installed. Theres a jumper inside to turn it back to 1:1 with no compression. It's meant to be used in conjunction with the Brit Mode Switch to emulate the "All Buttons In" of the 1176 Limiter.

Your submixing of the compressed and uncompressed gives you lots of control and is a great technique. You keep the transients and lots of dynamics, while adding the sustain and exciting detail. It still kind of sounds like you are compressing everything at least once, most things twice. As long as you like what its doing then great.... but overcompression on drums can really be messy ... and this is from a guy who makes compressors for a living.