PopPunk demo, needs suggestions

[Viral_Tyler]

Hello its me again, with more new tracks to listen to











I'm still having a lot trouble getting the sounds I want out of the kick and toms. I'm using an Audix D6 and a Sennheiser e822s on the kick, and SM57's on the toms. Brand new heads, new sticks, new felt beaters, and I'm still not getting the tone I want.

I'm trying to go for a triggered-ish kick sound, and I don't want to use any sound replacement, I'd like to just use the microphones, but I'm not pulling it off. It doesn't sound how I want it to.

I inverted the second kick mic(I also did on my bottom snare mic). I'm using medium compression on both mics, a little more on the e822s than the D6, about -20db threshold and a 10:1 ratio. With the EQ, I rolled off the highs at 10 kHz and I cut out a few ring-ey frequencies around 200-400 Hz on both mics. On the e822s I rolled the lows at 150 Hz, and boosted 5 kHz by 4 db with a Q of 1. On the D6 I boosted 65 Hz by 4 db with a Q of 1.

I almost want to put a slight distortion on both mics since I don't own a pre-amp or an analog mixer, and that's the only way other than triggering the kick or using sound replacement to get the tone as far as I know; but I'm still a novice, I could be wrong. Also I don't own either drumagog or a trigger rack.

I also want the toms to sound like a lot of attack but still with strong bass and decent resonance. I'm not sure how to achieve this. What I'm doing right now is applying small compression, -6 db threshold and a 4:1 ratio, and on the EQ I'm boosting 100 Hz by 4 db with a Q of 2, removing really ring-ey frequencies, cutting lowmid's and mids around 300-800 Hz by 4db with a Q of 3, and boosting 5 kHz by 4 db with a Q of 2.

Anything you guys hear that you don't like in these mixes?

Guitars will be redone and layered and panned, this is just a guide guitar.

Vocals and bass will also be added within the next two weeks I hope.

Thanks for reading and commenting

 

[xTomx]

Make sure your close drum mics are phase-aligned with the overheads, and if you're dual-micing your kick then make sure they're aligned too.

Try compressing the kick as a whole rather than each mic seperately.

If you want to try distorting it try some saturation plug-ins - lots of good freeware ones going around.


A large part of the triggered drum sound is tight playing - try retracking these as tight and humanly possible and/or doing some editing by hand.

 

[Viral_Tyler]

So when you say compress the kick as a whole, do you mean sending both kicks mics to a bus, then compress the "kick bus"?

I'm rocking 2 LDC mogami room mics also, could this be an issue? One is placed in front of the drum kit about 2-3 feet, near the floor, pointing in-between the snare drum and kick. The other mic is over the drummers head, behind him a little bit, pointing towards the kick beaters; this mic is the same distance away from the snare drum as the overheads.

In the last track Sleep Away Camp, before I rendered it, I added a slight distortion to both kick mics with a Sony plugin I have from Acid. I can tell a slight difference, I'm just afraid the kick is going to be overpowering everything when the track is compressed in the mastering stage. I'll check around for some saturation plugin's, never messed around with saturation before. Thanks!

 

[xTomx]

Yeah, I should have put it that way first.

You'll probably want the aforementioned mics to be aligned with the overheads as it doesn't sound like they're anywhere near far enough from the kit to be considered room mics.
Try it out, may or may not work better.