So, the drummer in a band I do occasionally says to me at the last gig ; gee, I sure would like that big drum sound. Could you do that?
So, how do you get that ?
So, how do you get that ?
Bigger than life drums?
- Thread starter Rob Spence
- Start date
Tim Weaver
Senior
Re: Bigger than life drums?
With a bigger than life PA system, well tuned drums and a drummer that knows how to play.
With a bigger than life PA system, well tuned drums and a drummer that knows how to play.
Re: Bigger than life drums?
Mushrooms...?
Perhaps use a stereo pa and pan his kit across the width of the stage, but mostly just tell him you did it and turn up his monitor.
JR
Mushrooms...?
Perhaps use a stereo pa and pan his kit across the width of the stage, but mostly just tell him you did it and turn up his monitor.
JR
Re: Bigger than life drums?
His part:
Use big, minimally damped drums, hit with big sticks.
Your part:
Use a mic for every drum, close-in, under the cymbals. (The minimally miced Bonham-in-the-hallway approach probably won't produce the desired drum vs cymbal volume ratio for live gigs.) And use big, loud monitors.
His part:
Use big, minimally damped drums, hit with big sticks.
Your part:
Use a mic for every drum, close-in, under the cymbals. (The minimally miced Bonham-in-the-hallway approach probably won't produce the desired drum vs cymbal volume ratio for live gigs.) And use big, loud monitors.
Re: Bigger than life drums?
Rob,
There are two basic "big" drum sounds. The first is the Led Zepplin "when the levee breaks" style, the other is the modern rock "Breaking Benjamin" style. I'll cover the one I'm guessing your drummer wants (Zeppelin).
This only works for medium tempo, or slower, songs. Realistically you can't create it the way they did on the records. The trick for this style is to have pumping from the kick drum modulate the overall drum tone. Pumping works on medium tempo songs because the release can recover before the next beat. This will be a mess on fast tempo songs.
There are several approaches you could take, but this is a straightforward one on your Yamaha consoles:
1. close mic all drums, use a mono overhead
2. Bus all the drum mics, to the same reverb, and pick something like a "medium dark plate." This will give the drums an "all in the same room" feel.
3. Bus the kick, snare, overhead, and reverb return to a single stereo compressor.
4. The goal is to get the compressor to sound as much like an 1176/8 as possible. Your attack is going to be short, start with 0ms on the Yamahas with no knee. The longest nominal attack time on an 1176 was <3ms. Release is going to be longer, probably between 200ms and 400ms, depending on the song. The compressor release should pump rhythmically with the song tempo. If you have the 01V96VCM, it has a decent 1176/8 emulator.
5. CRUSH the drums with the compressor, 10dB of gain reduction at least! I'd recommend 8:1 or 10:1 ratio.
6. Lowpass the tom mics as low as you can get away with. I'd start at 5kHz. Gate the toms a little if needed.
7. Send the compressed drum bus to the mix bus. Add some of the uncompressed drum channels to the mix bus if you need a little more snap.
8. Hard pan the drum compressor bus L/R, center pan kick, snare, overhead. Hard pan toms for maximum drama.
9. To really complete the effect, bus the all drum mics to a second reverb, a medium hall with a 50ms or so pre-delay. Return this reverb to another compressor bus. Roll off the high end, and stomp on it with the compressor (<5ms attack, 150ms release). Hard pan these returns, and mix underneath the overall sound. Instant simulated room microphones.
This will get you close to the Zeppelin sound for live work, assuming the kit/drummer is reasonable. Build it as a scene, tweak it at sound check, and use it during the show as an effect.
Rob,
There are two basic "big" drum sounds. The first is the Led Zepplin "when the levee breaks" style, the other is the modern rock "Breaking Benjamin" style. I'll cover the one I'm guessing your drummer wants (Zeppelin).
This only works for medium tempo, or slower, songs. Realistically you can't create it the way they did on the records. The trick for this style is to have pumping from the kick drum modulate the overall drum tone. Pumping works on medium tempo songs because the release can recover before the next beat. This will be a mess on fast tempo songs.
There are several approaches you could take, but this is a straightforward one on your Yamaha consoles:
1. close mic all drums, use a mono overhead
2. Bus all the drum mics, to the same reverb, and pick something like a "medium dark plate." This will give the drums an "all in the same room" feel.
3. Bus the kick, snare, overhead, and reverb return to a single stereo compressor.
4. The goal is to get the compressor to sound as much like an 1176/8 as possible. Your attack is going to be short, start with 0ms on the Yamahas with no knee. The longest nominal attack time on an 1176 was <3ms. Release is going to be longer, probably between 200ms and 400ms, depending on the song. The compressor release should pump rhythmically with the song tempo. If you have the 01V96VCM, it has a decent 1176/8 emulator.
5. CRUSH the drums with the compressor, 10dB of gain reduction at least! I'd recommend 8:1 or 10:1 ratio.
6. Lowpass the tom mics as low as you can get away with. I'd start at 5kHz. Gate the toms a little if needed.
7. Send the compressed drum bus to the mix bus. Add some of the uncompressed drum channels to the mix bus if you need a little more snap.
8. Hard pan the drum compressor bus L/R, center pan kick, snare, overhead. Hard pan toms for maximum drama.
9. To really complete the effect, bus the all drum mics to a second reverb, a medium hall with a 50ms or so pre-delay. Return this reverb to another compressor bus. Roll off the high end, and stomp on it with the compressor (<5ms attack, 150ms release). Hard pan these returns, and mix underneath the overall sound. Instant simulated room microphones.
This will get you close to the Zeppelin sound for live work, assuming the kit/drummer is reasonable. Build it as a scene, tweak it at sound check, and use it during the show as an effect.
Re: Bigger than life drums?
Things that can make for the big rock god drum sound:
1) decent levels of drums in the drum fill, drum fill sub a must. Polarity counts
2) very mild compression on kick/snare/toms
3) a decent verb on the snare & toms, I usually use a drum plate type preset on a TC processor
Of course, well tuned drums and a drummer that knows how to smack the drums solidly is a big help. Dave Rat has written at least of couple of articles how important it is and what a difference in the mains that having good drum fills makes for that 'big' drum sound. The extra resonance it generates really makes things sound huge, even when you gate things. In fact if you do gate, it can really help fill things in.
Greg
Things that can make for the big rock god drum sound:
1) decent levels of drums in the drum fill, drum fill sub a must. Polarity counts
2) very mild compression on kick/snare/toms
3) a decent verb on the snare & toms, I usually use a drum plate type preset on a TC processor
Of course, well tuned drums and a drummer that knows how to smack the drums solidly is a big help. Dave Rat has written at least of couple of articles how important it is and what a difference in the mains that having good drum fills makes for that 'big' drum sound. The extra resonance it generates really makes things sound huge, even when you gate things. In fact if you do gate, it can really help fill things in.
Greg
Re: Bigger than life drums?
Have you tried the trigger as gate key input trick yet? Big Mick talks about it in interviews a lot. It allows you to get more control of the close mics than traditional gating. I haven't tried it yet but I would like to. Also, if you have access to a Yamaha Subkick, sending just that to the subs and a more traditional kick mic for the mains is nice, too.
Of course, if you were talking about the Zeppelin big drum sound, that seems pretty tough to do live. I have a pair of Beyer M160 ribbon mics that help, but that sound is all about the room and finding just the right mic placement. Oh, and the drummer, drums, tuning etc. All that stuff we usually can't control.
Have you tried the trigger as gate key input trick yet? Big Mick talks about it in interviews a lot. It allows you to get more control of the close mics than traditional gating. I haven't tried it yet but I would like to. Also, if you have access to a Yamaha Subkick, sending just that to the subs and a more traditional kick mic for the mains is nice, too.
Of course, if you were talking about the Zeppelin big drum sound, that seems pretty tough to do live. I have a pair of Beyer M160 ribbon mics that help, but that sound is all about the room and finding just the right mic placement. Oh, and the drummer, drums, tuning etc. All that stuff we usually can't control.
Re: Bigger than life drums?
Lot's of compression, and lots of PA. I do a lot of what Phil said already, with a few other tricks that I've developed over the years.
Evan
Lot's of compression, and lots of PA. I do a lot of what Phil said already, with a few other tricks that I've developed over the years.
Evan
Re: Bigger than life drums?
I suggest starting with a drumset like this:
I suggest starting with a drumset like this:
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Re: Bigger than life drums?
Yes, but I think intricacies of The Black Page would get lost with a 'bigger than life' drum sound.
Yes, but I think intricacies of The Black Page would get lost with a 'bigger than life' drum sound.
Re: Bigger than life drums?
Can you do that on a 5D and not run into latency issues? I thought that if you wanted to run parallel compression on a 5D, or most digital consoles for that matter, you have to duplicate the processing path for the un compressed material so that compressed and uncompressed material arrive at the stereo master at the same time.
Chur,
Andy
Can you do that on a 5D and not run into latency issues? I thought that if you wanted to run parallel compression on a 5D, or most digital consoles for that matter, you have to duplicate the processing path for the un compressed material so that compressed and uncompressed material arrive at the stereo master at the same time.
Chur,
Andy
Re: Bigger than life drums?
On an LS9, this will get you some pretty bothersome comb filtering - at least when you do it inadvertently on vocals ;-(
On an LS9, this will get you some pretty bothersome comb filtering - at least when you do it inadvertently on vocals ;-(
Re: Bigger than life drums?
Oh, oops! That's what I get for assuming the board has respectable delay compensation built in. I'm on an M7 later this week, I'll measure the bus latency if I get the chance.
Oh, oops! That's what I get for assuming the board has respectable delay compensation built in. I'm on an M7 later this week, I'll measure the bus latency if I get the chance.
Re: Bigger than life drums?
In general, my technique for summing processed and unprosessed singals in Yamaha mixers has been to assign the same type of processors to all paths, but setting the unneeded processors at values where they don't perform any processing.
In general, my technique for summing processed and unprosessed singals in Yamaha mixers has been to assign the same type of processors to all paths, but setting the unneeded processors at values where they don't perform any processing.