Drums...help and advice?

[Soundlurker]

My band decided to record a couple of songs so that we put them on the site for free download. We're just a bunch of teenagers, we didn't have a lot of money to invest so that's what we got for 10$ :

http://www.freewebs.com/sw1tch/DrumsDry.mp3

Here's what I've managed to do with the kick, snare, tom1, tom2, floor tom and 2 overhead tracks that we've been given :

http://www.freewebs.com/sw1tch/Drums2.mp3

Any piece of advice will be appreciated I hope the links work for you.

PS: That's my first post, hello

Edit: Try copying the links to a new window if it doesn't work by simply clicking on them.

 

[marcust]

hi,
doesn't sound bad what you have done with it
but there's some kind of weird delay thing going on with the kickdrum ?
or maybe it's a master delay/verb you put over it can't quite get it
sounds way better than my first drumrecordings though ...

 

[Soundlurker]

Hey marcust 10x for the reply, I thought no one would say anything.
I was pretty surprised when I read about the delay and was wondering where did that come from . Well, it's from Ozone's Harmonic Exciter, I've modified a preset and left the exciter (though I've reduced the Amt on all of the bands). I rely mostly on my ears and since I didn't hear the track go worse with the exciter I thought it might actually be better ..after all I don't have any monitors ..mixing on the hi-fi

Thanks again for the comments, I hope more will come

Edit: Eny help on the kick? It seems to me it lacks power but I can't figure out how to change that :| And the floor tom is quite difficult to deal with ..

 

[A Gruesome Discovery]

I detect something strange going on in the stereo imaging of the second one. I assume some sort of spacial enhancer, but I'd recommend against using one when kicks and snares are involved. Do you have all the elements on seperate tracks, i.e., a kick track, a snare track... or is the first file your source?

 

[Soundlurker]

As I said "kick, snare, tom1, tom2, floor tom and 2 overhead" <- these are the tracks I have. Could the problem be related with the Ozone multiband dynamics and harmonic exciter that I used on the exported mix? I guess I shouldn't do things that I'm not sure I'm capable of doing

 

[A Gruesome Discovery]

As I said "kick, snare, tom1, tom2, floor tom and 2 overhead" <- these are the tracks I have. Could the problem be related with the Ozone multiband dynamics and harmonic exciter that I used on the exported mix? I guess I shouldn't do things that I'm not sure I'm capable of doing

I think Ozone has a Stereo Imaging thing that might be causing some trouble; see if that's set on. I'd personally refrain from using such mastering tools on individual tracks, but there's no rules of course.
The thing I noticed is that the first track is in mono; I mean it's a stereo file, but everything is panned center. Try keeping the kick and snare centered, then pan everything else out just a little bit in a manner befitting of a drumset, i.e; spread the toms from left to right and pan the hats and cymbals out, but not a lot.
My advice on the sound would be to focus on the individual tracks, rather than applying all the Ozone stuff over the whole mix. You should probably be able to tighten up the kick a bit with a regular one-band compressor; or, just replace the hits with samples (Andy posted some good ones a while back that you can search for).

 

[Soundlurker]

Hm, I think I had done exactly what you said about the panning..but who knows The Stereo Imaging wasn't on, at least I don't remember it being on but still, here's the track before I messed it up with Ozone

http://www.freewebs.com/sw1tch/Drums3.mp3

Any better?

And a question about the "hats and cymbals"...how should I actually deal with them when I don't have them on separate tracks and use only the two overheads? What I've done is panning them maximum left and right (to be used as what they are - overhead traks) and then duplicating and eqing them so that there's almost nothing under 4-500hz and using them to have more control over the hats.

 

[Genius Gone Insane]

One of your plugins could have a latency issue...I would audiosuite it or bounce it to a new track--then move it back 10 milliseconds or so.