Toms cutting, gating or leave em

[Force666]

I usually cut all the bleed in the tom mics out. On a recording I recently did I used gates on the toms. Not totally stoked on it though. There's odd hits here and there that the gate closes too fast and chops off the transient tail. So Just wondering, what do you guys usually do?

 

[TheWinterSnow]

I cut and fade on the tails long enough to ring before you notice the rest of the kit coming in. As much as I like ambiance, my experience with drum track are that letting the tom mics on for ambiance results in really harsh cymbals as they tend to pickup cymbals the most, and most of the time, not in a good way.

 

[MetalSound]

manually cutting

 

[Teddyboy]

In the beginning i tried to just gate them. But now, I cut all the bleed manually

 

[if6was9]

I used to cut em all up, now I gate but check the tracks and manually edit out bleed where I think it will interfere with the gate. I usually end up manually editing about half the tracks and being happy enough with the gates on the others.
Depends on the project and level of bleed though, had a drummer that wouldn't let me raise his cymbals a few inches so had to compromise with a less ideal mic placement with more bleed so had to do alot more manual work on that one.

 

[Forceps]

Cut em up!! Allways, I like the result much better than gating.

 

[KeithReyn]

Cutter here.

 

[ze kink]

Automation.

 

[professorlamp]

Cutting

 

[C_F_H_13]

Automation.

Keep the bleed at about -28 and then do rides for all the hits.

 

[Force666]

Automation.

What kind of automation? Just mute on/off?

The reason I ask, for myself it seems like taking the time to write those automations could just be spent cutting the tracks. Which I would say at most takes about 3 full passes through the song playing for me.

 

[Melodeath]

I hate the time it takes to cut, but I also hate setting a gate and making sure no odd cymbal hits are let through. I basically just hate toms

I usually use a gate and hand check any parts that have large transients that are not toms. If it gets let through, I cut that one part out.

 

[Trevoire520]

Gates sidechained from the triggers (no bleed)

Gotta watch for the cymbal spill in the mic's whenever toms are being hit though.

 

[Sinister Mephisto]

I cut, then use automation for each individual fill or section.

 

[jangoux]

cut all the time.

 

[HandsOfDespair]

Cutting

 

[gabriel g.]

comp of cutting and gating. The waves SSL channel gates (on e-series and g-series) are awsome and work 75% of the time.

 

[amarshism]

Cut and fade. Unless the drummer is mike portnoy chances are there's not rly that many hits. Only ever takes me like one pass.

 

[tempe]

I usually cut, but just be careful, sometimes cutting can take away from the overall drum sound. Sidechaining to triggers works really really well aswell.

 

[colonel kurtz]

both for me...cut out all the crap between tom hits/fills manually, then i gate what's left from there