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[Greg_Cameron]

...and D6 on the 16" floor tom.

I tried a D6 on floor toms for a while per the suggestion of a couple of folks. I wound up going back to a D4 because I found on many floor toms that the big mid scoop was taking too much 'body' out of the drum. The floor tom is not a kick drum, so it's not necessarily going to work well.

[Tim Padrick]

Try tuning your drums listening to them on good phones (not the usual 7506s), so you can hear what the mics are hearing.

[Don Sullivan]

I find the compression settings to be the most difficult to dial in on drums. I use the ADA8000 on drums all the  time with no problem. Yes it is cheap, but it doesn't color the sound as much as other things. Gate the toms, trying to keep them from triggering each other or reacting to the snare. Set compression attacks between 5 and 20 ms to taste. Release times between 50 and 250 ms or more. try patching your overheads into  additional inputs as full-range (flat eq) with no gates and a fairly hi limiter.  Mix lightly to add a little excitement, or boldly when using brushes.

[John Penkala]

Good day All,

I'm posting this on the "big boy" forum since I believe you guys can provide the best answer. I just got done watching the Rush Time Machine video and am once again amazed at the sound of his toms. Not just him, I've seen videos of other live drummers with a great tom sound. We did a promo video a few years ago and the sound/video guy used my mics but his system and had a similar sound. I've attached a youtube of that below for anyone interested in an example of what I'm trying to decribe. It's youtube so the quality is horrible in general but the tom sound is what I'm asking about.

That said, what I can't figure out is how they achieve such a great attack and yet still retain the warmth and low end of the drum. I can get the low end but even with spending time with the eq and trying compression I can't seem to duplicate the sound.

Here's a little info on my system. Drum kit is DW Custom and yes I'm a fanatic about tuning/heads etc. The mics are Audix D2's on the 10" and 12", D4 on the 14", and D6 on the 16" floor tom. The kick (which I'm happy with the sound of) has a Beta 91 for click and a Heil Pr 48 for lows. I'm running the toms into an ADA8000 via adat to a 01v96. I use the board processing exclusively just so I don't have to carry anymore than I have to for weekend gigs. From the Yamaha the mains (Danley 2-SM96's) are powered from a Crown DSI4000 (THX certified 1200w/ch @4ohms) and the Subs (Danley 2-TH118's) are coming from an Aux to an ITech 8000, 1 per side.

I've tried simple parametric eq on the toms as well as a version of parallel compression I found on the web to duplicate the sound to no avail. Any advice/technique you guys can suggest to achieve this would be greatly appreciated. I only have a couple of rack spaces left so if you are going to suggest more say analog equipment etc. as a solution, this is my only restriction. As you can see by my willingness to spend more than what I make doing weekend gigs on equipment, that I'm not overly concerned about cost. Just getting the absolute best sound for what we're doing.

Here's the link to our Promo video that has the sample of the tom sound this guy acheived using my mics and his board/processing. I tried calling him a few times after I saw the video to ask him how he achieved the sound but my calls were never answered or returned. Sorry for the long description and thanks in advance for the help.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vc7BfKou60


Mario

Mario,
        I just want to echo the comments of others about drum tuning and the proper utilization of gates. I watched the video and at 3:30 the toms sounded good. Anyway, your toms are tuned and sound good. After listening to the recording, I suspect that the toms are either not gated or are gated with a good quality frequency selective gate. Judging by how you hit the snare, my guess is that you may be setting the threshold of the gates to high as to keep the snare from opening the tom gates.

     Try listening to the toms without gates. If they sound good, try setting the gates loosely.  I think that a digital console is great for the kind of work you do. However, I have one techniques that I use just can't be done on inexpensive digitial consoles but CAN be done on cheap analog gear.

    Here is a very creative and usable technique for those still using analog gear.  I take an inexpensive drum trigger and connect it to the side chain input of the gate. That way the snare drum or any other acoustic signal will not open the tom gate. The trigger "click" on the tom will open the gate on the tom mic. This will allow you to play dynamically and have the gate open at extremely low volume levels. You can slam on the snare all you want and the tom gate won't open. Conversely, you can play ghost notes on tom and the gate will open.

JP

[Serge Struts]

Hello Mario, 

I am a new member on this forum.  I am looking at Danley SM-96 for home audio setup and this is the only forum I found where people have experience with them.   I am thinking of stuffing 2 of them into 3.5x4.5 meter room w/out a sub.  Would appreciate any feedback. 

Thank you,
Serge

[Mac Kerr]

Hello Mario, 

I am a new member

Please go to your profile and change the "Name" field to your real first and last name as required by the posting rules clearly displayed in the header at the top of the section, and in the Site Rules and Suggestions in the Forum Announcements section, and on the registration page when you registered.

Mac

[Serge Struts]

Please go to your profile and change the "Name" field to your real first and last name as required by the posting rules clearly displayed in the header at the top of the section, and in the Site Rules and Suggestions in the Forum Announcements section, and on the registration page when you registered.

Mac

My bad.  Profile changed. 

Thanks,
Serge

[James A. Griffin]

Keep in mind that when you're listening to recordings, even "live" recordings, they have been heavily improved in the mix.  The mix engineer has the luxury to spend as many hours as required to fine-tune  the EQ, gates, and effects.    And that could be hours for one song.  The settings may or may not be optimum for the next tune, so more tweaking.   Not to mention that quite often, the original drum sound never makes it to the final mix.  Each drum on a separate track means he might just use the originals as triggers for sampled sounds.

We can of course apply these techniques live, but perhaps not to the extra fine degree available to studio counterparts.

[John Penkala]

Apart from the attack it can let you adjust the "body" of the drum as well using the release control. Can turn a normal kick into an 808 with one quick knob twist. You can change the decay of the drum to fit the song tempo..etc.

John,
       This is probably one of the best creative application for a TD. If you start with a good rock kick drum, you can tighten it up for Metallica and loosen it for Funk and not worry about not being able to get back to your basic sound.
JP

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