Drum Tracks-Master Quality by Pat Bautz

Processing your Drum Tracks

Pat Bautz — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 12:49:55 +0000

After placing each drum channel in the stereo image I usually start by gateing the kick, sub kick, tom tracks, snare top and bottom tracks. Most gates allow you to adjust the frequency of the input to allow for better accuracy of the gate sometimes know as keying. Example: Using the kick as an example sharply reduce the higher frequencies above 1k and below 50hz this will only affect the trigging of the gate and NOT the frequency of the output of the gate. Repeat this action for each drum keeping in mind what fundamental frequencies will produce the best results.

Next Check the phase relationship between the kick and sub kick. Pull up just the kick and sub kick channels both panned to the center. With a phase plugin in the sub kick channel try switching the phase leave it in the position that produces the most low end energy. Repeat with the snare top and snare bottom.

Next I will work on EQ here are some general rules.
In the processing chain gate BEFORE you eq!
Sub-Kick- In general I drastically reduce frequencies bellow 20hz and above 125hz
Kick- Boosting 50-65hz gives you the fundamental, 2 to 5 k is where the beater attack is.
Snare top- 125hz to 250hz will warm/fatten up the snare 2 to 5k for the attack
Hat- high pass filter that reduces frequencies below 300hz
High tom- I usually find the lower resonating frequency by moving the filter in the 100 to 200hz range, attack is in the 2 to 5k range
Low Tom- low resonating frequency is in the 70 to 125hz range, attack in the 2 to 5k range
Overheads- I usually use a high pass filter reducing frequencies below 60hz, with a bell curve filter I reduce some of the frequencies in the 400hz range to reduce the boxy sound.
Room- as I usually don’t use a lot of room sound when I mix i usually use a high pass filter reducing the frequencies below 25hz.

Miking techniques for great drum tracks / ORTF

Pat Bautz — Tue, 25 May 2010 18:15:15 +0000

Overhead miking technique

There are many ways to place microphones for recording the overheads on a drum kit. ORTF mic placement mimics the position of the human ear. I have used this technique many times and it’s ability to capture the overall stereo image is exceptional. I always use a matched pair of cardioid pattern microphones, placed about 6 ft above the center of the kit angeled at 110 degrees side to side of the kit. this placement works well because the cardioid pattern of the microphones capture sound in the front of the mic and reject the sounds at the sides and rear. So make sure you have the microphones placed correctly with the fronts pointing in opposite directions is very important. In testing you may need to adjust the position slightly and the angle to capture the optimum stereo image. There are mic stand attachments you can buy that will help you get the right placement.

Snare drum techniques for playing great drum tracks.

Pat Bautz — Tue, 25 May 2010 17:32:19 +0000

Have you noticed the trend lately? Listen to all the hit songs that have a lot of ghost notes and drags across the snare. Songs like “Realize” by Colbie Caillat are a prime example of the snare drag. You don’t realize (pun intended) it but if you listen carefully the drag of the snare drum sets the mood for the whole track. Victor Indrizzo played the drum tracks on Cailliat’s “Coco” cd and he did a masterful job. For those of you that don’t know, ghost notes are usually notes played on the snare drum in between the hits on 2&4 and are usually played at a lower level than the 2&4 back beat hits. This technique causes suttle rhythmic movement that when done properly really make a drum track groove. Check out This James Brown video href=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clyde_Stubblefield”>Clyde Stubblefield on drums. Listen carefully to Clyde’s use of the ghost note. Notice the volume differences between the backbeat and the ghost note. You should also notice he never plays one fill, he just grooves his arse off. Clyde plays exactly what’s needed for the song. These two song examples bring another technique to light, When Clyde hits the back beat on the snare drum he hits the rim and the drum head at the same time commonly know as a rimshot. It causes a greater attack and more excitement in the track almost like the snare is talking to you. When victor plays the back beat he hits the center of the snare drum without hitting the rim. It produces less attack and a warmer sound. It really fits the mellow tone of the track he is playing on.

My All time Favorite Drum Tracks

Pat Bautz — Mon, 17 May 2010 14:12:00 +0000

I decided to start a list of my all time favorite drum tracks. I think I might have to list them by style since there are so many great ones.

Pop

Victor Indrizzo/Colbie Calliat-Coco

Bernard Purdie/Hall and Oates/Steely Dan

Vinnie Colaiuta/ Just about any track-Zappa

Jeff Pacaro – Rosanna/Africa/Beat It/

Steve Gadd – 50 ways/Late in the evening/

Brian Macleod/Sara Bareilles

Classic Rock

Just about any Bonham

R&B

AL Jackson/Al Green/Booker T

Bernard Purdie/James Brown/Aretha

Drum Tracks-Will any drummer do?

Pat Bautz — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 04:07:39 +0000

You are a songwriter looking for live drums for one of your songs. You jump on your favorite search engine and search for, “drum tracks.” The search produces many different drummers, offering to record custom drum tracks. What should you do, use the least expensive? Probably not! Would you get the least expensive doctor to take out your appendix? When it comes to drum tracks, why would you take the song you have put so much work into and give it to an amateur with limited drumming skills and even less audio engineering skills? You want a professional who records everyday. You want drum tracks that will take your song to the next level. The playing should be great! The sound should be as great! What makes that happen? ME! No seriously. First, start with great drums that are perfectly tuned, then strategically place microphones to capture the optimum sound. Run the mic’s thru great mic preamps that capture every detail. The preamps should be run into great A/D (analogue to digital) converters, which take the drum sound and convert it into digital information. You want a converter that captures every small nuance of the drums and transients of the cymbals. You want the drummer to be highly skilled, so each stroke of the drum or cymbal, is in the right place. You can have the best equipment in the world, but if the drummer has poor drumming technique, the sound will suffer. You’ll spend hours trying to repair the performance and the sound quality of the tracks.The technique of the drummer counts as much towards the sound as does the proper choice of equipment. Why do I care about this? Well here comes the shameless self promotion. I have recorded thousands of drum tracks. In that time I have worked with many producers, songwriters and musicians. Most don’t understand the amount of time involved in getting a great drum track. On average I spend about 4 to 5 hours per song. I talk to the client thru email, on the phone or skype. I want to understand what they are looking for. After they upload their song to my ftp, I listen and consider my approach. If the client has given some direction, such as ( I want a vintage sound), I may put up one of my vintage drum kits and start placing the microphones. After the microphones are properly placed and checked, I’ll start writing a chart for the song. Ocasionally I get charts from my clients, but most of the time I don’t . I start recording the drum track, and by the way, you can now watch your drums being recorded in the studio, live on skype. I may have to go through several different grooves to find just the right one. Depending on the style, I might place some samples in conjunction with the raw tracks and I may process the drum tracks (gating, eq’ing, compressing,etc….). I then decide if any percussion instruments are needed. For example, I might add a shaker in a verse or a tambourine in the chorus. Once I am happy with the track, I send an MP3 of the song to my client. He/she decides if any changes are needed. After the track is approved, I’ll bounce the files (12 to 18 tracks). Then I”ll upload them to my FTP and notify my client that they are ready to download. I love doing this and I hope it shows in my final product!! Check out my site Real Drum Studio

Panning your drum tracks

Pat Bautz — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 03:01:57 +0000

So you’ve download your drum tracks and your not quite sure how to pan your drums so that they represent a real sounding drum kit. There are several schools of thought! You can pan them from the audience perspective or you can pan them from the drummers perspective. To simplify the idea let’s use the drummers perspective. The first thing to do is bring up the overheads with overhead 1 panned hard right and overhead 2 panned hard left. Listen to the stereo image of the drum kit. You should match the panning of each drum track to the corresponding location in the stereo image. For example, if tom 1 is at the 2 o’clock position in the overheads then pan tom 1 to that position. This will give greater separation of the drums in the stereo field and not smear the stereo image of the drum mix. I bring up all of the drum tracks to fit into the overhead image then I slowly bring up the room mic’s to ad depth.

Things to consider when panning your drum tracks. Do I want the drums to have a wide stereo image or should I confine them to a smaller area of the mixing stage. Maybe you might only want to pan the overheads at 9 and 3 o’clock or less. Do want a defined drum sound with added room depth? Try hyper compressing the room mic’s using a fast attack to reduce transients and a timed release to reduce compression pumping. There as many variations as there are songs so have fun and experiment!

Compressing your Drum Tracks

Pat Bautz — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 18:26:07 +0000

Compressing drums for mixing is an essential tool that when done correctly can really add to not only the sound of the drum kit but it’s impact on the entire mix. The first thing is to understand is compression and how compression affects drums. Downward compression is the most commonly used compression technique. Compression can be used to reduce the dynamic rage of any audio track, to smooth out the peaks or bring the loud parts down. Some compression techniques need to be transparent like some used in Mastering. Although, in pop music it is used to affect the sound of recorded material. Most compressors have features that can be adjusted such as threshold, ratio, attack and release times, make up gain are common ones. There are other compressors that have more features such as soft knee, rms or peak detection, look ahead, stereo linking, etc… For this discussion we will be concerned with just threshold, ratio, attack and release, and make up gain. Before we can delve into compression techniques we need to make sure we have a grasp on how a compressor works.

Threshold- is the threshold/level at which compression kicks in. This lets you pick the db level for compression to start.

Ratio-the ratio of input to output. Ratio is usually displayed for example 4:1 or 4 to 1 would be for every 4db of input over the threshold setting the output only produces 1db of gain.

Attack time- Usually displayed in milliseconds. How fast the compressor reacts to input above the threshold.

Release time-Usually displayed in milliseconds, How fast the compressor returns to unity gain after the level goes below the threshold.

Make up gain-increases the level after compression. After the compression effects the material the overall level can be brought up.

With these concepts in mind there are many ways to approach compressing drums. One technique is to insert a compressor on the drum buss and compress the over all drum mix. If I employ this technique I usually am looking reduce some of the higher peaks of the drum kit. Most of the time I will only run the kick, snare, and toms into this type of configuration because I don’t want this to affect the attack or sustain of the cymbals. The ratio, attack and release time will vary some depending on how fast and percussive the material is. Here is a guide. To start you can set the ratio at around 4 to 1 with a fairly fast attack around 8 to 15ms and a fairly fast release time of 30 to 100ms. Be careful not to use too fast of an attack time (unless thats the sound you want) or you will loose transient information. Change the Threshold up and down until you get the sound of compression you are looking for.

Another technique Parallel compression also know as New York compression is very effective. The basic technique involves running an aux buss with heavy compression routed to the mix buss in parallel to the drum tracks unaffected sent to the mix buss or cloning the drum tracks and having one set of tracks running into the mix buss without effects and the other set of drum tracks with a compressor on a separate buss, both are then sent to the mix buss. This technique will give you the ability to mix the compressed drums in with the uncompressed drums, You can use high compression ratios and a low threshold to mix with the unaffected drums bringing up the lower level subtleties in the drum track without loosing the transients inherent when using fast attack times. Her are some other options you can try

Add low level compression on the unaffected mix to add more continuity. Another technique is to EQ the heavily compressed aux buss which will produce some interesting effects. Try the EQ before the compressor and then after the EQ in the effects chain.