Huge, open, sounding drums?

[GarethSE]

Everyone here posts mixes with drums that sounds really huge and open.
The actual sound of the kit is fine aside from the fact it all seems smushed together.
I feel I'm fairly careful with how much compression I use, so idk, a problem with the way I'm EQ'ing things?

http://www.esnips.com/doc/837bde89-5a88-4193-86f7-9a63d21d3a44/EoH4

Here's an example.

 

[Unavailable]

Tried reverb?

 

[GarethSE]

Tried reverb?

Just seems to make it worse.

 

[Unavailable]

Just seems to make it worse.

Are you running it in a bus?

 

[Soundlurker]

Too much pumping compression.
Doesn't sound like it's panned out well (try hard left/right OH and no loud mono room track). Also sounds a bit dull and muddy, what are the eq settings?

 

[Unavailable]

Too much pumping compression.
Doesn't sound like it's panned out well (try hard left/right OH and no loud mono room track). Also sounds a bit dull and muddy, what are the eq settings?

I thought that was a clip he was referencing. I might be wrong.

 

[GarethSE]

I thought that was a clip he was referencing. I might be wrong.

Nah, that's my own clip.
I'll try panning out those OH's in the morning..
Cheers.

 

[colonel kurtz]

if you want a huge/open sound, then you're going to need a good(and large) room to work with, with multiple mics at various points within the room

 

[Soundlurker]

^ Ideally yes, but I'd argue that it's possible to achieve this by other means...at the expense of naturalness of the sound

 

[GarethSE]

Well, I'm working with Addictive Drums, and all I have in terms of mic choice is what it offers me. The room mic on it is terrible haha.

 

[Torniojaws]

Try blasting the AD track through your monitors at a loud level and place a room mic(s) in the same room

 

[abyssofdreams]

Try blasting the AD track through your monitors at a loud level and place a room mic(s) in the same room

actually, that is so blatant that it could really work

 

[Soundlurker]

Nah, just find a decent impulse of a large room. Actually depends on what you mean by huge. IMO huge drums is very different from drums in a huge room

 

[Sloan]

There's a cool article in the latest Tape Op about reamping drums. Not really in depth, but it's ok.

 

[mick thompson]

2 condenser mics in your room and place a sound blocker in front of your kit, the blocker will cut out any shit that comes through and the condensers will pick up a large room sound and make it nice and bassy

 

[GarethSE]

actually, that is so blatant that it could really work

Genius, I'm actually going to try that

 

[beyond dead]

try starting only with the room mic. compress the fuck out of it. then eq it so it sounds good by itself. now you want to bring in the overheads, pan them 100% l and r, roll of lows, cut some annoying freq.s. in the upper region. now start bringin in you close mics for that "snap" or transient attack. the idea here is to use the close mics to complement the sound of the "compressed as fuck" room mic that is already sounding pretty bitchin by itself. this applies to the overheads as well. but a little less because they will also provide stereo image. pan the toms where you hear them in the overheads (you may want to solo the oh`s with the toms for panning purposes) now your snare should be treated with a little plate reverb maybe, maybe not as we get reverby sound from the room mic.
then compress, eq and all that other bullshit we do to make the close mics sound flattering and "snappy"

p.s you may need to cut some mids from the oh`s and possibly the room mic to get the close mics sounding bitchin.
try rolling off lows to allow the kick to sound more snappy (if thats your bag)
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i prefer this method rather than parallel compression/reverb, but it only works in a decent room, because you are using ad, you can get away with it.