making a kick, kick

[elliot]

hey all!

ive finally got round to finishing a project , well finished "tinkering" anyhow and now ready for the mix down. ive done a remix of solarstones 7 cities which is quite a trancey number but im having issues with a few things, firstly making the kick really stand out, heavy, bassy and pumping. it always seems to turn out really thin and hardly noticicable.

ive recorded the drums as one track and as a split stereo file, have i made a mistake here by not using mono?
i imagine compression could be an answer aswell but im never too sure what kind of settings i should be trying.

any help made be magic

ellliot

[har-bal]

hey all!

ive finally got round to finishing a project , well finished "tinkering" anyhow and now ready for the mix down. ive done a remix of solarstones 7 cities which is quite a trancey number but im having issues with a few things, firstly making the kick really stand out, heavy, bassy and pumping. it always seems to turn out really thin and hardly noticicable.

ive recorded the drums as one track and as a split stereo file, have i made a mistake here by not using mono?
i imagine compression could be an answer aswell but im never too sure what kind of settings i should be trying.

any help made be magic

ellliot

Elliot

Drums should always be mono. If the drums are in stereo they will lose their puch, no matter how loud you make them.

I try and keep the drums mono up to 80Hz.
You can download a tool to make the drum area mono in a two track mix from the link below.
http://www.hdqtrz.com/Files/otiumFX_bassLANE_VST1.2.zip

The website is here
http://www.otiumfx.com/basslane.php

Cheers

Earle

[AntonyR]

It is normal practice to close mic certain drums - such as the kick, snare, hatz and toms on mono tracks to enable better flexibility. ie. you can blend the close mics with the overheads, and apply EQ to the kick (such as boosting a few dBs around 60-80Hz, and maybe a little around 4KHz to make the kick really kick).

If you are working with one stereo track of the whole drumkit then your options are more limited in what you can do to make the kick really kick. You may still get away with a boost at 60-80Hz without impacting the rest of the kit, but a boost at circa 4KHz to increase the kick of the kick may result in an unwanted increase in the the other drums sounds.

Antony

[uncajesse]

i know it's just opinion in some ways, but technically there's no reason that drums can't be stereo, it's just a matter of the balance of L+R and L-R... the phase between the two, the impulse & frequency response of the recording gear & medium.. a lot of things can effect that.

if you want to hear an AWESOME example of drums with probably more accuracy & punch that you've ever heard... order the free drum mic demo cd from Earthworks, here:
http://www.earthworksaudio.com/52.php
and you might change your mind about stereo drums forever, as well as micing multiple drums vs just using overheads + kick mic... for studio AND live reproduction. especially if you have monitoring equipment even remotely worthy of the quality of that demo cd. not to mention the mics they are using have frequency response up into to 50kHz range, so just imagine how much better it would sound on a world-class recording platform (1-bit) and worthy playback system & rooms.

anyways, i have to go... heading out to the lake and BBQing and enjoying the day... happy no work day, if you can enjoy it.

[Hitmaker]

Hi ,

One technique for getting a multi-miced drum kit 'tight' as a stereo group , is to create an imaginary spot , somewhere centrally above the kit , calculate the distance between said 'spot' , and each drum , and apply the necessary delay to each , to have them aligned at that spot ... Works really well ...

Compression/limiting , or 'parallel' techniques are often used individually on a kik , to pump it ...

Cheers ,

Evan .