How do liquid cymbals?

[kezspez]

I should preface this by saying I'm using samples (DFH2/AD for the most part).

I've been trying to bend my head round this for a while now. I used to think it was just a fact of using good real mic's in a nice room with some decent reverb and a clever level of compression...none of which I have

However, I have seen some occasions of people getting that "liquid" sound on cymbals with drum software. I'm not sure how best I can put it, but it sounds washy and you can't really hear each individual click of the stick on the crash cymbal when it's being ridden. What throws me is they don't often sound very wet with reverb so I'm now wondering if it's an eq issue..? or?

Now I can't see why someone intentionally would low pass/hi shelf cymbals/oh's but that seems to be down the right path sonically

So that I don't get flamed to fuck, I don't really WANT to reference Speaker of the Dead (which may or may not be synthesised, something about the crashes makes me think so though) but that's one of the only examples I can bring to mind at the moment

I'd love to hear any thoughts on this and/or sampled/programmed OH processing in general.


I put myself at your mercy



PS....Really wish I could think of another example, I really don't want to be chucked in under the sturgis worship banner.

 

[EOC]

If you think about it, good cymbal samples are REAL cymbals hahahaha. Any good library IS recorded in a good studio, with good gear and most important good cymbals. Of course a real player makes a difference, but you have to consider that if a drummer goes to your studio and has the worst cymbals ever it is not going to sound better that, for example S.D2.

So the question is not about real vs samples. But is its more a matter of how you handle them.

I also struggle with cymbals and OH in general. By the time you dial your super uber massive million tracked guitars, a dirty as fuck bass, and tons of almost unbearable dissonant screams there is no much more space for cymbals.

The liquidity that you are referring to it is more of a consecuence IMHO since the cymbals are pushed to the back and dominate the upper most frequencies.

So.... i dont know how you can get what you are looking for ahahaha just thinking about it.

Cheers

Martin

 

[A Midnight Requiem]

What I do when using a drum sampler like that is lightly compress the cymbals, which makes the decay a little louder. There's also a freeware plugin called Dominion that is really great for this. It has a Sustain control, which sounds great on cymbals when you crank it up.

Another thing you might want to do is make sure that the velocity of your cymbal hits aren't too hard. Having a velocity of 127 on every cymbal hit is going to make them sound detached, so it's best to leave velocities that high for accents only (this is especially necessary with crashes I have found. Lowering the velocity between 100-110 or so really helps blend the hits together for me.)

I hope that helps. You also might want to post a clip of something you've done to give us a better idea of what you mean.

 

[kezspez]

Cheers for the tips guys, I figured it might be just down to my laziness of editing velocities, though it usually sits around 100. By that I mean it's nearly always 100. Always.

I will definately have to check out that Dominon plug and will try post a sample shortly!


Sorry for the weak short reply - I'm at "working"

 

[006]

To get the realistic sound you can't use full force velocity when programming cymbals. You have to understand how a drummer actually plays to program drums to sound realistic.

 

[Audiosprite]

i've wondered about this beautiful sound ever since russian circles' first album, but assumed that it was exclusively within the capabilities of real drum recordings. but now i'll try dominion out, thanks amr.

 

[timislegend]

To get the realistic sound you can't use full force velocity when programming cymbals. You have to understand how a drummer actually plays to program drums to sound realistic.

thhhhhhhis

 

[A Midnight Requiem]

i've wondered about this beautiful sound ever since russian circles' first album, but assumed that it was exclusively within the capabilities of real drum recordings. but now i'll try dominion out, thanks amr.

A lot of it is programming the velocities realistically, like 006 said. It's still a lot of work, after all, you are emulating something via MIDI that is supposed to sound like a real performance. Dominion will help smooth the cymbals out some (I use it on real drums too sometimes), but programming the MIDI realistically in the first place is the most important part.