Lessons

Lesson Info

Tracking Drums with EQ

No, they'll start with like a default cq here's my kick drum q and as I was mentioning earlier I usually could specific amount of mids uh and I you know, he's pretty typical uh for kids room whatever to cut the ex the extra loans like I said, I'm getting ready rid of, you know, thirty hertz and under there's no real low in free with their new that's ah that's desirable or that you want to hear just makes it like rumbly in noisy same thing for the highs of whatever I usually you know, you know, for metal you might want to, you know, preserve upto like, you know, twelve fourteen k you like you can have the click, but for tommy's we've we've acted all the down to like, you know, three k so there's no high information, you know, in that area is that just to create space for other everything else? Exactly, yeah. There's a there's a couple of weeks in terms of the queue there's a you know, in the analog round, just like with the, uh with, you know, the pre empts there's you khun do boosts in...

analog realm and it's a pleasant thing but to my opinion and a lot of professionals opinion and boosting and digital in the digital realm county yield a different result it's not you know oftentimes I feel like it just it just boosting in the digital realm increases noise and you know, it's more of a hissy type of you know sound is about you know, anil into you know, analog around this kind of boost harmonic distortions just like as it was just boom because you're actually increasing the game so it can be a positive thing, but a digital I prefer to could is most much is possible to create the same q curve that you would create with boost but just, you know, just by cutting the frequencies that you don't want to you know in this case like I said for the drums with for this kick drum sound the tommy wants the big you know, sound he doesn't want a lot of metal clicks I'm just getting rid of all the high on the inside kick drum the mids like said we're cutting a hefty amount, you know, like for metal I would go, I would go crazy and just really cut the mid you know, um but for this particular for this from four of iraq's and we're gonna leave a little bit of the mids in there um and like, so this is just these are just starting points like I said is it was just ah you know, something to kind of get us in the ballpark and I'll get into more fine detail like said it you'll notice I have ah another e q on the same track that has some like pretty extreme notches and these air based off the drummer who tracked tommy stuff his drum kit and like so I can actually bypass that right now no bypass this detailed thank you also but this is what I start with things that I have a temple and I'll try to make it available to everybody on the outside kick you'll notice what I'm doing here so max it generated everything but the lows uh pretty standard they're also like said I'm because all I want from that mike is the boom and the you know, the low end and that cuts out you know it's it's nice girls like that's outside there's no symbols goingto come through and things of that nature uh aerodrome mrs like said this is a pretty radical, pretty radical what's going on here but this is usually a good starting of a place where I start uh cut the lows in the snare um you know, it's kind of makes it wolf for your box he sound cut the mids same thing I do kind of look high roll off this helps keep keep assembly the high hat believe the hyattes air usually in this area frequency wise and this stuff is, you know, there's other creative life stuff because if you those of you out there want to get into more of ah you know the details and you cueing things like that there's other creative lives stuff out there that can really do you really teach you in detail like how you accuse work and things of that nature but more technical stuff yeah, I think it's cool to see what you're doing there and how you do it yeah, you lay your temple it out so that when you walk into the studio you open up your session, you don't have to do all this stuff exactly is it sees this time saver you know I don't talk about more as we go along I do a lot of things to make it official because a lot of bands don't have a lot of time I'm only and it's the stuff you know, having stuff kind of in the ballpark said it makes it you know, mohr inspiration for the drummer of the drum sound good in his headphones and uh plus like a set of you know, these are all just educated guesses, you know, kind of you know, for things whatever but up yeah, I just really saves time and really, you know, makes it more inspirational overall the toms, for instance ah, I've got my toms bused to a tom bus next do a unique thing, a lot of people e q there tom separately I actually just seek him altogether, which is kind of crazy and then I think about it but because you think you think tom's like said that use of the low they have different free low in resonant frequencies and things like that but, you know, I want the drums to sound natural, particularly in this case or whatever. And, you know, a lot of times I hear people's tom's and they just sound really a natural, you know, in terms of, like, how much lohan's boost and things like that by killing them together, you kind of get you more of a natural type of, you know, like, you know, you know, obviously we doing from radically you rattle mid range could and some high and low cut or whatever, but you get more of a natural feel of like, hey, these are really just drum tom's and it's not so process that it just sounds like, you know, electronic drums or something like that. You know, you start processing the each tom and pick and resonant frequencies and, you know, specific attack frequencies of each drum starts that really separated and really, you know which, like I said, for some projects, that might be desire type metal stuff of super yeah just people who want to really produce toe viable whatever you might want to get into that but for this particular project again this is this is where it started. Um symbols I normally see if we've got this going on here for the symbol tracks is the ride the high hat the, um the overheads and I we don't have any auxiliary symbol stuff like splashes or china's and we didn't talk about that but normally I actually mike those is will if I have enough input you know actually you know the exit tracts whatever all michael, you know china separate to splash anything you could mike symbol wise of course you have to wash up or phrase or whatever but um well usually mike those and but I treat all the symbols the same I usually get rid of anywhere between three hundred fifty hertz two, five hundred hertz I usually just get rid of completely and that's a pretty you know, that just leaves the sheen and the cut of the symbol it takes out the gong kilos of you know and you know there's not a lot of symbol information below this point and then and luckily, like, say what? Those normans they have a nice high and boost whatever so often I don't have to do any other symbolic you um you know, you know with the exception of what's on my master bus and my master drum bus and things of that nation but I usually do that with symbols with the room likes kind of do the opposite with the rooms and this is another kind of normal thing I you know, I get rid of the lows and I go with the highs and I'm focusing mainly on the you know, it's capturing the mid and the ambiance of the drums to kind of blend that back into the drums you know, obviously we've done the opposite with the the direct mike's you know but this is going to bring that put the mids back in and you know, with the ambience of whatever so we get you know, cutting the mids to get it all the punch in the attack in the low end or whatever but if the room likes like I'm cutting the lows and highs you know we could blend back in the mids in the natural sound of the drums you know, to taste that's cool but I used to do all you know my overheads and is like said, this is just a good starting guests like this is ah, I think obviously I use this for tommy's and I don't even tweak it at all uh it's very and then you know, for my drums I have all my drums these air actually percussion things and I'll get into talking about that we've already we've actually for this particular song we've already pre recorded just a shaker and a little bail symbol um but I've got it sent to my drum bus or whatever because I want it sound sound like it's in the same aim space like say that one thing I do this a little differently don't create like a verb us or anything like that and infirmed different things a different amount I want the drums to feel like said again to sound more organic for tommy's viable what the drums to feel like they're in the same space I don't want to different a lot of engineers will do a different river for us, the mountain and stuff for the snare and the toms and things like that to me it starts to sound more process and kind of just unnatural you can create cool effects and extra depth and things like that with those techniques and some of them or, you know they want some more process toe back in the eighties they got crazy with gated reverb cz and just different types of, you know, fix on different drums and you know, but you know that I think you know, it's kind of out of favorite for the have their sounds on records these days I still level for the for def leppard or whatever you don't get many people wanting that drum sound now well I said so basically what I do I send all the drums to a uh you know, through them through this one verb like except for the kick of course I want to use it to be a little more dry uh uh but I said all that you know the snare of the cape stare the tom's the overheads, the rooms everything through one common verbal whatever to kind of likes to tie it all together make put in the same environment and then I also bust that through a drum bus or whatever I'm doing a little bit of the q here you noticed on the drum bus and this is not necessarily typical sometimes I leave it more flat but I'm rolling ofsome makes your lows some extra highs for tommy's ah tommy's drums uh it's making a little warmer um you know this actually takes a little the air off the drums but you know, because this is a rock song won't kind of more of advantages right type, you know, drum sound and a lot of the vintage equipment you know it didn't produce frequencies beyond fourteen k you know, some of the poll techie accused of it just didn't pass the frequencies through so part of that sound was is missing highs and stuff and it's a good sound so warm sound you know it's so you know, but I'm kind of, you know, emulating that by just going ahead and cutting out the frequencies uh and they're just doing a little bit of, you know, do a little bit of a low cut their basic slight stuff whatever on this was just, you know, in the mix kind of decision s o this affecting all the drums so obviously, like said, I'm in your cue here like, you know, you could create kind of a similar type of thing I just taking that away and in cutting five hundred hertz here or whatever, you know, I'm saying, like, on each individual, but instead of each individual feel like the drums just overall had a little too much lower in the mix, so I just went here and did the did the cut instead, you know, a supposed to do it to age individual thing and then again along master bus, I've got a master q that I'm doing some kind of same type of deal and this affects everything guitars, the vocals and we'll get into that later, but um yeah, I've got a couple process plug ins or whatever he's like, for instance, this up you know, the wave solace, technological master bus compressors, famous loads of people use it it's got it just sounds cool owns rooms, you know it just has a really cool character the compressor you know like also yeah, you know and I'll go into this later whatever I don't use compressors on drums so much for dynamic processes which is going toe it's going to freak some people out probably but I use auto some limiters like the waves l one l two from because it it doesn't change it doesn't actually change the transit actually even stuff out it keeps the sound the maximum natural eyes but compressors actually changed the character of the transit union sharpened trans fat and trans it's you know the actual change what the form what forms the actual way form the way we hear it and it can actually change that more so than like a daughter yeah, I'd rather have, you know, a natural dynamic the ma dynamics limiting and stuff I'd rather preserving natural and but I still like a little bit of the color like said this actually you have the analog in this simulates the harmonic distortions that that this particular unit contributed to the sound cold and this is on your master jump us yeah someone master from bus sometimes I'll use it on my master busses well, you know, if you noticed I've got a couple layers of this and it's not someone like says not so much for dynamics control I just want the character that adds, like said it just it has a certain snapped like a warm round of snap to this kick in the snare I've got like these air slightly different settings or whatever but adds extra harmonica, you know, content and it adds a certain character to the cake and snare uh and then I'm adding it to the whole kit again here on the tom bus I've got it, I've got tom bus again and obviously you have got, you know you've got waves offers the channel strip this is still trying to, which is very useful there's got a very cool compressor and you could do the same type of thing, I just you know, I'm a big fan of the surgical, you know, there's two standard uh uh, pro tools e q it's very surgical, very flexible uh, you know, as opposed to the you know, if you pull up a, uh you know, imagine and there's a channel strip on here, um, I said the ssl channel, if you look at this, I mean, it has all the q and the compressors and everything integrating one, but it doesn't give you a graphic you read out, yeah, but this is cool because like so this adds feelings that emulates the harmonic driving distortion that the rial board components haven't but you could get a little. You know, I just liked it. Could be a little more surgical with it. Go with this, and then add the harmony with just the one compressor unit.