Drumsound "Bleed From Within"

[burn4ever]

Hey fellas,
I enjoy the last "Bleed From Within" record called "Uprising".
Like the sound and songwriting.

The drums are recorded by Romesh Dodangoda.

http://youtu.be/UGAF1a34RJ4

But once again the kick patterns sound so even with every single hit that I'm not sure If its triggered or not. What do you guys think?

Fore me as a drummer too, my left, and yes the weakesd limb, will always sound a little bit different than my right foot.
Whats your experience about that. Normal to any other drumers too?

So is it possible by natural procressing, like compression or limiting to smooth out the difference a bit?

Yes I know......practice practice practice........I will

 

[-Noodles-]

Yes, it's sample replaced.

After watching the video - I reckon they sampled the kit. It's got a hell of a lot of compression on each of the drums, and the analogue EQ on the desk will be doing some of the work too.

 

[Nolly]

I was involved with this record and present for some of the drum tracking. I have the raw drum tracks and can confirm that while the kick has a fair bit of sample augmentation (as is Logan's style), Ali is an incredibly even and consistent drummer - the raw kicks almost sound sampled on their own. Same goes for the rest of the kit too. If you want info on the drum tracking/engineering I can answer questions you have.

 

[burn4ever]

Hey Nolly,
thanks for all the info and the offer to answer some questions.

Ali is an incredibly even and consistent drummer - the raw kicks almost sound sampled on their own.

Thats the first thing I noticed in the video and I thinks it´s the best startingpoint an engineer can have. Once again....I´ll practice ;-)

Maybe you can tell me what kind of roommics are used on the record?
And what kind of mics used inside and outside the kick.
Is there a lot of postprocessing, like comps and eqs on kick and snare?

Regards!!!!

 

[JeffTD]

I'd love to know details of his OH/Room micings if you'd be willing to share, Nolly!

 

[-Noodles-]

Ali is an incredibly even and consistent drummer - the raw kicks almost sound sampled on their own.

Ali is a super nice dude and ridiculous drummer.. there are a few nice guys/great drummers in their friends group strangely!
I used to do sound for a band Dave played with infrequently, then he left for BFW. When I met the guys, Ali could always be counted on to have good chat.

 

[Nolly]

Here's what I can remember from the drum sessions:

Tracked at Monnow Valley Studios - http://www.monnowvalleystudio.com/studio.htm. Huge live room with large ambience chamber (glass walls, marble floor, wood roof).
Drumkit was a bastardisation of Ali's Yamaha kit with Romesh's Pearl Brass Reference 14x6.5" snare, and his "golden" Gretsch kick he uses on almost all of his records (not sure but I believe it's 24x14 or 16). Sabian cymbals w

Mics (I've forgotten what most of the pencils were):

Kick in - ? (maybe a D112?)
" out - Neumann U47 FET
Snare top - SM57 with guard
" bottom - pencil condenser of some kind
Toms - MD421s on top, U87s on bottom, multed through single inputs on the desk
OH - Neumann pencil condensers + various spot mics
Mono OH - U87
Mono room (front of kit) - U67
Stereo room (front) - C414s behind gobos
Stereo room (rear, in chamber) - Royer R121s
Mono room (rear, in chamber, pointed at floor) - EV RE20

Tracked through an SSL G-series desk, no console EQ was used.
Close mics through Vintec and API pre's. Room mics smashed pretty hard by 1176s and Fatsos on the way in.

Here are some crappy pics of the kit setup, none of the chamber room (behind the kit) unfortunately. There are acoustic baffles behind the kit to reduce the amount of bleed into the chamber. For some tracks Romesh opened these up for more ambience.

 

[AEL89]

Here's what I can remember from the drum sessions:

Tracked at Monnow Valley Studios - http://www.monnowvalleystudio.com/studio.htm. Huge live room with large ambience chamber (glass walls, marble floor, wood roof).
Drumkit was a bastardisation of Ali's Yamaha kit with Romesh's Pearl Brass Reference 14x6.5" snare, and his "golden" Ludwig kick he uses on almost all of his records (not sure but I believe it's 24x14 or 16). Sabian cymbals w

Mics (I've forgotten what most of the pencils were):

Kick in - ? (maybe a D112?)
" out - Neumann U47 FET
Snare top - SM57 with guard
" bottom - pencil condenser of some kind
Toms - MD421s on top, U87s on bottom, multed through single inputs on the desk
OH - Neumann pencil condensers + various spot mics
Mono OH - U87
Mono room (front of kit) - U67
Stereo room (front) - C414s behind gobos
Stereo room (rear, in chamber) - Royer R121s
Mono room (rear, in chamber, pointed at floor) - EV RE20

Tracked through an SSL G-series desk, no console EQ was used.
Close mics through Vintec and API pre's. Room mics smashed pretty hard by 1176s and Fatsos on the way in.

Here are some crappy pics of the kit setup, none of the chamber room (behind the kit) unfortunately. There are acoustic baffles behind the kit to reduce the amount of bleed into the chamber. For some tracks Romesh opened these up for more ambience.

Ah brings back sweet memories! I was here with my band for overdubs on our album! Monnow needs a bit of love! Did you feel the faders and pots on the desk?! And all the broken DBX 160s! That live room though... unreal! I don't know how all that glass works - it just does!

I really, reeeaaaally don't think room mics need smashing in there though! Maybe a mono but not stereo! Sounds good anyway!

 

[burn4ever]

Hey Nolly,
thanks for all the infos.

By the way,
love the guitaresound too ;-)
You did all with the AXE FX II, right?
Did you mix the whole session?

 

[Nolly]

Ah brings back sweet memories! I was here with my band for overdubs on our album! Monnow needs a bit of love! Did you feel the faders and pots on the desk?! And all the broken DBX 160s! That live room though... unreal! I don't know how all that glass works - it just does!

I really, reeeaaaally don't think room mics need smashing in there though! Maybe a mono but not stereo! Sounds good anyway!

Ah unfortunately I was really just a fly-on-the-wall for those sessions, they were already most of the way through the songs so Romesh had set everything up days earlier and it was just a case of watching them track.
Some of the rooms are hit harder than others, the stereo pair in front of the kit are a lot more smashed than the ones in the chamber for sure. The mono's are filthy though hahaha

Hey Nolly,
thanks for all the infos.

By the way,
love the guitaresound too ;-)
You did all with the AXE FX II, right?
Did you mix the whole session?

No worries. Yes we used the Axe II, but Logan Mader mixed and mastered the album. Here's a short clip of the drums with some basic processing I used when we were tracking guitars, no samples at all though so you can hear Ali's consistency:

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/790683/ILIM Drums.mp3

 

[Pedro Teixeira]

^ That's without any added augmentation right? I'd have kept it completely real. Ali is insane.

 

[burn4ever]

Thanks again for the track Nolly!
Ali does an awsome job.

 

[Trevoire520]

^ That's without any added augmentation right? I'd have kept it completely real. Ali is insane.

+1 those drums sound amazing! I always fucking LOVE the snare sound that Romesh gets! Wish I could pick his brains about drum tuning!

 

[Nolly]

^ That's without any added augmentation right? I'd have kept it completely real. Ali is insane.

Yeah no samples at all, and Romesh's assistant was losing his mind over how little editing needed to be done to his performances either. The band were tracking scratch tracks together along to Ali's drums and they could pretty much have put out that as the album with no editing if they had wanted. If you get a chance to see them live, do so, it's nuts

+1 those drums sound amazing! I always fucking LOVE the snare sound that Romesh gets! Wish I could pick his brains about drum tuning!

That was something that definitely made a lasting impression on me, Romesh was so finely sensitive to the drum tunings - he made the band stop at least once or twice per song to say that one drum or other had started to lose its tuning - to me it was barely audible when solo'd but Romesh was picking it out with the whole band playing, through CRANKED NS10s and sub (seriously, it was uncomfortable being near them, let alone in between them where Romesh was sitting. He brings spare NS10 woofers to every session since he normally blows them).

The snare is indeed pretty amazing sounding, just wish it wasn't quite so loud and had a brighter ambience on the record hahah. Edit: I should clarify I'm not attacking Logan in any way, I'm pretty sure it's what the band wanted

 

[mva801]

Wow those raw drums sound insane. If only every drummer were that consistent and powerful....

No console eq was used? Did he use any outboard eq? Or much in Pro Tools?

 

[AboutBlank]

Once again, Romesh is the king of drumsound for me...

You can really hear the difference between drummers on the records.

Cheers for the infos Nolly, hopefully you work again with romesh(from the start)

€dit: the snare is indeed LOUD as fuck!

 

[Nolly]

Wow those raw drums sound insane. If only every drummer were that consistent and powerful....

No console eq was used? Did he use any outboard eq? Or much in Pro Tools?

No EQ that I know of. That clip I put up has some basic compression and EQ settings I applied for the guitarists to track to so it had a bit of impact. No samples though.

Once again, Romesh is the king of drumsound for me...

You can really hear the difference between drummers on the records.

Cheers for the infos Nolly, hopefully you work again with romesh(from the start)

€dit: the snare is indeed LOUD as fuck!

Yeah I love Romesh's drums, his whole approach is really different to most commercial mixers these days, he leaves a load of midrange in there and yes you can really hear the the individuality of the drummer in there since there is very little sample replacement. I LOVE the drums on this:

 

[Eduardo Apolonia]

Those drum sounds sound GREAT!!!!!

 

[mva801]

I'm listening to this record on Rhapsody right now. I've been pretty put-off by most newer down-tuned, metalcore/ deathcore bands, but damn. I like these guys. Songwriting is awesome. A step above most bands I've heard lately...

 

[Viral_Tyler]

Bleed From Within is amazing. Their other two albums are good too.