need less 'thwack' in cymbals...

[jared]

thwack, hit, attack, whatever you want to call it, i need less of it in my cymbal hits. see, i've been trying (in vain) to adjust the cymbal sounds in DFHS, but can't seem to get the settings (compression, etc.) right for getting less 'hit' and more ring out of the cymbal samples. i attribute this to my lack of practical knowledge when it comes to compression settings. normally i just move the knobs until it sounds good.

i've tried using my waves c1 to lessen the attack (quick attack -30ms, slow release), but i don't think my settings are helping matters. i've also tried psp vintage warmer to add that ring, and that works pretty well however it doesn't really help with that harsh attack problem. right know the cymbals are more or less raw and just too harsh in my opinion picture it this way:

want less: TSSshhhhhhh
and more: tSSSSHHhhh

any ideas?

[Jay Kahrs]

I've got NO idea what DHFS is but I'm assuming some kind of drum sample program? Sampled cymbals usually never sound real, but regardless try this;

Ditch the compression.

Muck with EQ.

Sounds like you've got too much midrange...are they kinda 'gongy' for lack of a better term?

Maybe rip some of that out so the top end, the decay can ring better.

Compression will affect the envelope of the cymbals & IME usually does more harm then good. If you have to use it try really low ratios like 2:1 or 3:1 rather then settin' it to vaporize.

Peace,

[u b k]

i think the sound he's after is the bonham-in-the-back-of-the-room thing, like a slow explosion with serious sustain.

put the cymbals thru a large room verb along with a little kick and snare, mix this back in *generously* with the dry drums, and compress the snot out of everything, fast attack fast release high ratio.

it won't sound like bonham in a room, but it's the closest you'll get with samples and plug-ins.


gregoire
del ubik

[The True Buck]

I just started to use DFH (without an S) and I like PSP's MixSaturator on the cymbals (among other things). I use it on the Tape 1 setting and compress the highs a bit (or high mids). I also have the Vintage Warmer but I think it only looks cool, the MixPack is much more useful IMO! That is, when I'm too lazy to run them through the FATSO! But that kind of saturated sound seems to be what you're after... I find that more useful than using a straight compressor as the mix is gonna be compressed even more later on and there's nothing worse that this washes of waves of overcompressed cymbals.

Just thinking out loud here, cause I think I know what you're saying and I'm kind of looking for the same thing at the moment...

[dtucker]

I've gotten this kind of sound with Distressors on Brit Mode.

[Alexi]

1khz - -4db

[Jason Poulin]

it's absolutely amazing what a distressor or a pair of distressors can do to a sampled drum kit.


Jason

[BB Bill]

I use DFHS every day, and I think I know what you mean.

Try to turn down the offending cymbals in the OH tracks cos that's where most of the thwack comes from, and use mainly the Ambience tracks for cymbals instead. The sound of the cymbals through the ambs is much smoother and with less attack, then you can add OH to taste for more bite.

[aapee]

Originally Posted by Big Bad Bill

I use DFHS every day, and I think what you mean.

Try to turn down the offending cymbals in the OH tracks cos that's where most of the thwack comes from, and use mainly the Ambience tracks for cymbals instead. The sound of the cymbals through the ambs is much smoother and with less attack, then you can OH to taste for added bite.

I can't keep on looking your avatar and feeling mutual pain... ouch!

AaPee

[Markus Stock]

A fast compressor with fastest attack and release should usually cut the transients and brings the ring of the cymbals out. But it might be pumping a little depening on how deep you go with the threshold. RNCs work great for that.

[jared]

wow! thanks for the replies everyone!

looks like i'll definitely make some progress tomorrow!

[seb37000]

Originally Posted by u b i k

i think the sound he's after is the bonham-in-the-back-of-the-room thing, like a slow explosion with serious sustain.

put the cymbals thru a large room verb along with a little kick and snare, mix this back in *generously* with the dry drums, and compress the snot out of everything, fast attack fast release high ratio.

it won't sound like bonham in a room, but it's the closest you'll get with samples and plug-ins.


gregoire
del ubik

which verb and which comp do you favor for this ?

[Jay Kahrs]

Originally Posted by u b i k

i think the sound he's after is the bonham-in-the-back-of-the-room thing, like a slow explosion with serious sustain.

put the cymbals thru a large room verb along with a little kick and snare, mix this back in *generously* with the dry drums, and compress the snot out of everything, fast attack fast release high ratio.

it won't sound like bonham in a room, but it's the closest you'll get with samples and plug-ins.

Ahhh. That kinda thing.

Hmmm...how about something more organic?

A couple three weeks ago I had mixed some stuff where this guy had actually ERASED his overheads when the drummer wasn't playing cymbals! It might not've been too bad but it sounded like they were tracked in this little padded room & with no room mics things were sounding pretty wonky. I never thought I'd say this, but at least there was a hi-hat mic mixed in with the 17 others!

Long story short...

I made a stereo mix of the other 18 drum mics (consisted of about 6 or 7!) and sent the "new" drum mix to a pair of speakers that I stuck in a 20x20 concrete room...tossed up some mics...hit record.

Wham!

Now we've got real honest to goodness drum ambience from a real honest room.

That might work in this case too. Any highly reverberent & reflective room will do. The best way to "simulate" space is to actually use space! Nothing beats the real thing.

[Nosound]

What kind of cymblas are you recording? How hard are you or drummer is hitting them? what type of sticks are you using? how big is the room your tracking drums in? How about your mic placement's? I had the same problem awhile back ago. The drummer I used whacked the shit out of my cheap Sabian's with nylon tipped sticks and love tap the the toms in a all paded small room with the OH's way to close to the cymbal's I was trying to pick up more toms because of the lack of exprience from the drummer. Then I brought a seasoned drummer over to record we moved the kit into my garage he went back to his house brought over some Zidjian K cymbals moved my OH's away from the kit,Threw away the nylon tipped sticks re-tuned the kit and we recorded a killer drum track. cymbals sounded pristine as with the rest of the kit. It was like night and day between both sessions.

[dokushoka]

I'm having a hard time figuring out what the sound you have now, and the sound you have in mind is, but my spidey sense says you should experiment with low ratio (1.5:1, 2:1) compressor with a low (as in deep into the signal) threshold, slow attack and timed release. This can work WONDERS for smoothing out your overheads and won't give it the very obvious "HI! I'M COMPRESSED OVERHEADS!" kind of sound.

[Jeff16years]

for less attack place the OH's obove the opposite side of where they are hit.

[BB Bill]

Originally Posted by Jeff16years

for less attack place the OH's obove the opposite side of where they are hit.

If you read the original post you would see the guy uses DFHS, we're not talking about a live kit here.

[Kiwiburger]

Considering they are samples, you could play them from a different sample player that has ADSR and simply shape the attack to taste.

Or - shape the samples with an audio editor (e.g fade in) and then rename them.

[BB Bill]

Originally Posted by Kiwiburger

Considering they are samples, you could play them from a different sample player that has ADSR and simply shape the attack to taste.

Or - shape the samples with an audio editor (e.g fade in) and then rename them.

He is using DFHS, the samples can't be played from a different sample player.

Just pulling the cymbals down in the OH's and up in the AMB mics should solve the problem.

[Kiwiburger]

Au contraire ... even if DFHS hides it's samples in a proprietory format, you can still access them easy enough.

Create a midi track with a single midi note - at the note and velocity you need to trigger the sample you want. Bounce that track to a wave file - trim in an editor, and you have it. If there are multiple waves, it's a little more work, but there is no reason why you can't extract all the samples out manually if you have the will to do it.

I choose to only buy drum samples in wave format.

And for cymbals - there really is no substitute to recording the real thing.

[BB Bill]

Originally Posted by Kiwiburger

Au contraire ... even if DFHS hides it's samples in a proprietory format, you can still access them easy enough.

It's not a proprietary format, they're all WAV samples.

Originally Posted by Kiwiburger

Create a midi track with a single midi note - at the note and velocity you need to trigger the sample you want. Bounce that track to a wave file - trim in an editor, and you have it. If there are multiple waves, it's a little more work, but there is no reason why you can't extract all the samples out manually if you have the will to do it.

If you've invested in DFHS it's probably because you want to try to fake a live kit for whatever reason, and you're probably gonna be using different cymbal hits at different velocities throughout any given song.

And if you just edit the cymbal samples in the OH mics you're going to run into phasing issues with the bleed to all the other mics, so then you'll have to edit all of them for every velocity of every hit you'll be using, and then reimporting it. Doable but unbelievably tedious.

There are much easier ways of solving the original problem.

[Kiwiburger]

If they are wave samples it would be even easier - I don't understand why you said they can't be played in another sample player.

I appreciate the phase relationship with the room samples would be important - but you could batch process a slight fade in on a bunch of samples without affecting their phase relationship.

I use Linplug RMIV, and collect WAV samples from everywhere. If DFHS had any sounds I liked, I would have no worries just using the samples I liked in RMIV.

[u b k]

Originally Posted by seb37000

which verb and which comp do you favor for this ?

if i had to use plugs for this job (and i'm sure i will someday soon!) i'd reach for the tc classicverb or altiverb, and i'd try the uad1176 or bluetubes cp2s because they're fast as hell.

once upon a time i did a mix for a band that had waves trueverb (sp?), and thought it was actually quite good at putting drums in a room. come to think of it, that may be the only good thing i've ever said about a waves plug.

i'm with jay, i'd personally use a real space to re-amp the things, but something tells me if the original poster is working with a sampled kit, he doesn't have a place to play/record drums in the first place.


gregoire
del ubik

[BB Bill]

Originally Posted by Kiwiburger

If they are wave samples it would be even easier - I don't understand why you said they can't be played in another sample player.

I appreciate the phase relationship with the room samples would be important - but you could batch process a slight fade in on a bunch of samples without affecting their phase relationship.

I use Linplug RMIV, and collect WAV samples from everywhere. If DFHS had any sounds I liked, I would have no worries just using the samples I liked in RMIV.

I was a little unclear. You can obviously trigger single DFHS hits in another sample player that can play back a 12 channel WAV file, but this negates the whole concept of DFHS.

DFHS is not just a sample library, equally important is the virtual instrument itself with its ability to control bleed between all mics (in addition to randomize/humanize features) and thereby creating as close to 'real' sounding drum tracks as is possible today.

If you program a drum track in DFHS you will have (among other things) a stereo OH track. Soloing it you will hear close miced cymbals along with hihat bleed, snare bleed, kick bleed etc, all of which you can add to taste. Same goes for all drums/mics. By compressing the OH's the other drums interact with the cymbals and the compressor, behaving much like a normal drum kit.

Your suggestion of using a separate sample player for cymbals would give you the cymbals separated, not mixed together with bleed from the other drums (which would still be played from DFHS).

You can't get the most out of the DFHS concept by exporting samples to another sample player, unless you export all drums from all kits and set up your own mixing matrix for bleed control, program velocity layers, randomization, humanization etc. Which I'm sure is theoretically doable, but far from practical. We are after all talking about close to 90,000 samples for the Custom&Vintage edition alone.

[jared]

just wanted to thank everyone again, as i've had some very positive results based on your suggestions.

sorry for not making it clear but DFHS is a drum sampler program similar to BFD. it's a sampled kit that allows one to simulate mic bleed to add a depth of realism.

anywho, by bringing up that ambient mic track in place of the OHs as the 'main' cymbal mic, and putting a decent amount of compression (not to mention that 1khz cut, thank you) and a slight reverb tail i ended up with a very swishy and sustained cymbal. that might sound horrible alone, but once i bring up the level on the OH mics, what was before a nasty, biting track becomes the perfect compliment and results in a defined but not overly harsh cymbal hit with lovely ring.

thanks again!