Mixing question

[Esurreal]

Howdy. Do many people cut out the audio in between tom hits? For example, if you don't want the bleed from a tom mic, do you cut or mute the audio between hits? Or do you use a noise gate? The noise gate is good but there are spots where it sounds choppy, so ive been muting the space between hits. Its really clears up the sound. Any insight is helpful!

[patrox247]

Originally Posted by Esurreal

Howdy. Do many people cut out the audio in between tom hits? For example, if you don't want the bleed from a tom mic, do you cut or mute the audio between hits? Or do you use a noise gate? The noise gate is good but there are spots where it sounds choppy, so ive been muting the space between hits. Its really clears up the sound. Any insight is helpful!

Either/or - If I gate I'll usually grab a Drawmer DS201. You can really tune them so they open,close, and decay in a natural fashion. They also add a certain punch that you don't get from editing or Strip Silence.

[swisha31]

Originally Posted by Esurreal

Howdy. Do many people cut out the audio in between tom hits? For example, if you don't want the bleed from a tom mic, do you cut or mute the audio between hits? Or do you use a noise gate? The noise gate is good but there are spots where it sounds choppy, so ive been muting the space between hits. Its really clears up the sound. Any insight is helpful!

I was taught to cut out audio when you edit to keep the track as clear and clean as possible. its actually why silence detector in PT comes in handy for me. So if i have a part in the track where the piano only is played during the hook or so, then i just edit out the parts b/w the hook to make the track as clear as possible.

[Joe Porto]

Originally Posted by Esurreal

Howdy. Do many people cut out the audio in between tom hits? For example, if you don't want the bleed from a tom mic, do you cut or mute the audio between hits? Or do you use a noise gate? The noise gate is good but there are spots where it sounds choppy, so ive been muting the space between hits. Its really clears up the sound. Any insight is helpful!

Depends on the sound your after. I'm not a fan of isolating every drum, so I would not want the tom tracks edited. Even when I use a gate, I never gate the sound completely, only about 10dB or so to get the drum to snap. If you have the ambient mic thing covered, then give it a shot. It's nothing you can't undo. There are no rules.

[psycho_monkey]

most of the time I've got ambient mics, so using protools will tab to transient and cut for the start of the hit, then add a natural fade-out.

Gates have never really done it for me personally - unless it's keying a trash mic off the snare but not the kick, for example.

[Benmrx]

Personally, I can't stand gated/edited toms. I always find that too much of the drum sound is in the bleed. Usually the more I gate the shells, the thinner the overall sound gets.

Now, overdubbing extra toms hits.....I'm all for that!