I Miss Real Drums

[RevDrucifer]

I actually prefer playing drums over any other instrument and more than any other wish I had for my living situation, I wish I could have a fucking kit to play. I can’t even fit an electronic kit in my apartment. In my early teen years, after getting into Dream Theater, I found myself listening to the drums just as much as the guitars. That turned into the next decade of me devouring drum instructional videos and getting my buddy to teach me as much as he could (he later went on to Berklee where he spends 2 years attached to Mangini’s hip).

I miss everything about them, playing, the sounds, the feeling in the room, the joy you get when you finally get rid of all the fucking phasing from numerous mics, all of it.

I love SD3 for what it offers and I go crazy on programming, setting up drum busses for room verbs and parallel compression, etc, but there’s only so much you can do to try to recreate the real thing. On average i spend a week alone just adjusting velocities to get them sounding more human, after I’ve spent a week programming fills and shit. I’d MUCH rather just fucking play it and record it, especially knowing I actually CAN play the shit I write, but if I dwell on it, I don’t get anything done, so I just keep writing/recording until I finally have the option to get my own kit and track it.

 

[DanTravis62]

The worst drums I've ever heard are any modern metal core type band that Liquid Metal likes to repeat om20 times a day.

The band Spiritbox comes to mind......just the biggest "bro" drum sound I've ever heard. The snare sounds like a plastic bucket in the grand canyon

Satellite radio bro metal

Every band has the same guitar tone

Same Steven slate drum samples

And same metalcore plus Gothenburg influences

Its like Kirkland Signature™ Metal®

 

[JMP2203]

Death's Steve Di Giorgio is one of my favorite drummers.

A friend of mine did a few releases with Derek Roddy on drums years ago.

Di Giorgio??

 

[SBlue]

Now this is what I’m talking about. Real drums, recorded acoustically, played by a master. Just hearing a real snare helps my soul breath.

It's incredible how different is a real drum kit sound, played by a great drummer, versus replacement sample + editing + quantizing.
I have a hard time liking a song past the point I notice everything is edited, quantized and replaced.
To me, it stops sounding like a real band and starts sounding like the "producers beat".
There are a lot of the old school music being "remastered"(read remixed), for copyrights purposes on air play, that I absolute hate. They've edited quite a bit, replaced a lot of sounds(specially on drums) and the new mix, with every single small detailed now super loud in the mix, sounds horrible.
I just hope the masters owners don't loose their original versions. Can you imagine, a few generations from now, and the original masters for Metallica's KEA, RTL, MOP, Slayer's SNM, HA and RIB are all gone, and all that's left it's the "producers beat" versions? That would be really sad!
Plenty of people out there that like their music as polished, edited and quantized as possible. More power to them. And I'm glad that there are plenty of metal music done that way nowadays.
Me? I like old school music, when what you hear is what they played.

 

[anomaly]

That's what's wrong with Lamb Of God recently, the drums don't sound real to me. Remember that huge fucking drum sound on Ashes Of the Wake, now that was the best drum sound I've quite possibly ever heard. They need Chris back in the band.

 

[anomaly]

tlm102 overheads, audix D's on the toms and kick, 57 and i5 on the snare, mxl condenser for the room. a little gating, compression and reverb. bell brass snare. lots of tuning

I think I see the corner of a Randall rg100es peaking out in that picture?? Can I buy it off you on friday? c'mon.... give me a price.

 

[Kapo_Polenton]

I actually prefer playing drums over any other instrument and more than any other wish I had for my living situation, I wish I could have a fucking kit to play. I can’t even fit an electronic kit in my apartment. In my early teen years, after getting into Dream Theater, I found myself listening to the drums just as much as the guitars. That turned into the next decade of me devouring drum instructional videos and getting my buddy to teach me as much as he could (he later went on to Berklee where he spends 2 years attached to Mangini’s hip).

I miss everything about them, playing, the sounds, the feeling in the room, the joy you get when you finally get rid of all the fucking phasing from numerous mics, all of it.

I love SD3 for what it offers and I go crazy on programming, setting up drum busses for room verbs and parallel compression, etc, but there’s only so much you can do to try to recreate the real thing. On average i spend a week alone just adjusting velocities to get them sounding more human, after I’ve spent a week programming fills and shit. I’d MUCH rather just fucking play it and record it, especially knowing I actually CAN play the shit I write, but if I dwell on it, I don’t get anything done, so I just keep writing/recording until I finally have the option to get my own kit and track it.

That's exactly my problem with SD3.. the hats don't respond like I play them, the ride sounds weird with the wash, snare is hard to make realistic (Slate trigger layered works better than SD3 for realism I feel) and the manually humanizing passages. It's soul sucking. I hate it. I spend more time dicking around then getting something down. I'm going back to acoustic. I am likely just going to get skins back on and use the Tama soft sound rubber foam rings with the centers cut out. I am in a large basement of a detached home and when my kids are at school and I work a few days from the home office, I am going to record that way. Might layer some samples in 50% on just the toms and kick but real cymbals and snare for the win. My one neighbour has a daycare but hey, too bad so sad, your business ain't my business sucka!

 

[Kapo_Polenton]

Satellite radio bro metal

Every band has the same guitar tone

Same Steven slate drum samples

And same metalcore plus Gothenburg influences

Its like Kirkland Signature™ Metal®

This is where we see the dark side of the internet and everything being at our fingertips comes in. Before, many bands were produced and mixed in recording studios that seemed like a toy environment compared to today's studios. Even people's home studios are designed by acoustic engineers and studio builders. What made a lot of those older records " special" is that it was some guy working with whatever he had the budget for and learning the ropes as he went. Mackie mixer? Use it. Outboard? Whatever we have in here or can rent. Timeline? Is what it is, knock it out. They didn't recall all their session plugins and samples. They might have used samples here or there ( Girls Girls Girls snare or Feelgood snare for example) but not the whole damn thing across every instrument. I would love to have heard more recent offerings from bands but without all the sampling and plugin producer packs. I bet those recordings would sound more alive even if the song writing is weaker.

 

[Kapo_Polenton]

We just put out a self recorded, self filmed, self produced video with all real drums. Gotta say, that DW Aluminum Collectors series snare sounds fantastic under a mic! I'm with you guys, love real drums, slightly off time hits, actual real nuances in music

Dug it! Sounds as pro as anything else out there. You guys mix that too? Really liked the sound of the bass. YES, I said bass guitar lol.

 

[Bram576]

Natural drum tones are coming back hard lately on alot of heavy records ( check out 200 stabwounds, the new krisiun, and the new dying fetus not sure if that’s out yet though). If you haven’t heard it yet, you will, it’s making a big comeback.

I tried doing as natural as I could on my death metal bands new EP. Definitely real challenging as a mixer with that much going on! I triggered the kick (don’t think I’ll ever be able to get away from that with double kick that fast), and did a snare blend off of sampling his own snare myself on certain hits instead of fully triggering the thing like was done for so long… toms all natural with no crazy automations. Of course no fake cymbals. Tough stuff!

 

[RevDrucifer]

That's exactly my problem with SD3.. the hats don't respond like I play them, the ride sounds weird with the wash, snare is hard to make realistic (Slate trigger layered works better than SD3 for realism I feel) and the manually humanizing passages. It's soul sucking. I hate it. I spend more time dicking around then getting something down. I'm going back to acoustic. I am likely just going to get skins back on and use the Tama soft sound rubber foam rings with the centers cut out. I am in a large basement of a detached home and when my kids are at school and I work a few days from the home office, I am going to record that way. Might layer some samples in 50% on just the toms and kick but real cymbals and snare for the win. My one neighbour has a daycare but hey, too bad so sad, your business ain't my business sucka!

The only way I’ve found to get cymbals sounding closer to legit cymbals is by really going nuts on the velocities. Logic has a Randomize Velocities function that lets you highlight a group of MIDI notes, give it a low/hi and it’ll randomize them automatically. I generally program a difference of about 20 velocities from low to hi and then go through each of them after to make sure the ‘important’ hits are at the appropriate volume. That and relying more on the room/ambient mics than the close-mics, which is how I find myself dealing with entire kits these lately and just using the close mics for definition.

 

[Kapo_Polenton]

The only way I’ve found to get cymbals sounding closer to legit cymbals is by really going nuts on the velocities. Logic has a Randomize Velocities function that lets you highlight a group of MIDI notes, give it a low/hi and it’ll randomize them automatically. I generally program a difference of about 20 velocities from low to hi and then go through each of them after to make sure the ‘important’ hits are at the appropriate volume. That and relying more on the room/ambient mics than the close-mics, which is how I find myself dealing with entire kits these lately and just using the close mics for definition.

Holy shit, is programming drums a math equation now?! I just wanna play the damn things. But you are right, that's the only way to do it. I think studios now dedicate someone specifically to velovity tasks when programming drums. You'd almost need to do that.

 

[RevDrucifer]

Holy shit, is programming drums a math equation now?! I just wanna play the damn things. But you are right, that's the only way to do it. I think studios now dedicate someone specifically to velovity tasks when programming drums. You'd almost need to do that.

Hahahaha right? I wasn’t joking when I said I spend about a week programming velocities. Not that every hour of the entire week is dedicated to it, but the most work I put into tracking an entire song is spent tweaking the damn drums. And even that isn’t enough to get them “there”, just “there for a VST”

 

[skoora]

Dug it! Sounds as pro as anything else out there. You guys mix that too? Really liked the sound of the bass. YES, I said bass guitar lol.

Still didn’t care for the snare. Maybe it’s modern sensibilities that like to make the snare sound like a slightly sharper tom. I want some crack, wanna hear the rim getting smacked. That was just another thud.

 

[Bad.Seed]

Still didn’t care for the snare. Maybe it’s modern sensibilities that like to make the snare sound like a slightly sharper tom. I want some crack, wanna hear the rim getting smacked. That was just another thud.

sounds like you like the 90's thin snare tuned high fad. Nothing wrong with that at all, I like it as well. But that's definitely not the average snare sound from most other eras of pretty much all music.

I promise I'm not being defensive as it is my band and all, but calling that sound a "thud" that sounds like a Tom ain't anywhere near what my ears are hearing

 

[Dr. Tweedbucket]

I have a TD10 set of Rolands and this thread makes me think of setting them out with the trash.

In fact, tomorrow is trash pickup..... ya know .... I'll be back in 1/2 hour

 

[Bardagh]

For the past few years or so I have listened to a lot more country/americana kind of stuff. I always have off and on but in the last decade a lot more great albums came out. Some of the stuff Dave Cobb has produced sounds so good and has so much depth and energy to it, it gets hard to go from listening to that to any modern metal shit that has the life squashed out of it.

Granted you can’t really compare some acoustic track to a metal track but the rock stuff he’s done sounds great too, like some of the Rival Sons albums or even some of the more rock oriented tracks on the Jason Isbell records. You can listen to that loud in the car or even on headphones and it just sounds better and you can hear more. The actual sound of everything actually moves you.

I think part of that is just knowing when to STOP. Stop filtering the lows out of everything, stop eq’ing out notches everywhere, stop automating the levels until you might as well have slapped a brickwall limiter on it. You generally have to do all those things but it’s easy to get tunnel vision and go too far. I say that and that’s probably my biggest hurdle when I work on a mix - tunnel vision.

You don’t have to hear the attack of every kick hit the same, you don’t have to totally suck the low end out of it, you don’t have to hear every snare hit crack and cut through the exact same way every time, etc. A little room to breathe and a little natural blending of some frequencies between the instruments is more exciting and easier on the ears.

I’m not a purist either. Lots of great sounding albums augmented the drum sounds with triggers and had to correct timing and stuff. I also don’t think everything should sound like a lofi garage record or something. But you can listen to something like Heartwork, that does have triggered drum parts layered in and did have to have timing corrected (severely according to Colin Richardson) and it sounds amazing to this day. Richardson and the band just had the right result in mind and the ear to know when they got there.

 

[VESmedic]

I tried doing as natural as I could on my death metal bands new EP. Definitely real challenging as a mixer with that much going on! I triggered the kick (don’t think I’ll ever be able to get away from that with double kick that fast), and did a snare blend off of sampling his own snare myself on certain hits instead of fully triggering the thing like was done for so long… toms all natural with no crazy automations. Of course no fake cymbals. Tough stuff!

I get what people are saying here about drums nowadays, but as you found out there is just no getting around certain aspects that are necessary for modern drums ( trigger on the kick, samples etc). It’s insanely/borderline impossible to get “natural” drums to cut through the guitars, bass tones, And arrangements that are used today. Why do people use samples and compression? For consistency on an extremely inconsistent instrument ( drums). There is no getting around this to some extent. Something’s gotta give/be changed to make everything play well together in a mix, and the consistency of samples and triggers etc is often the way, albeit used appropriately.

Also, many people use samples from
The actual session they are engineering/mixing when using real drums; I don’t see anything wrong with that at all. After all, the guy DID play those hits, and played those parts on the record. Using someone’s own hits/samples for reinforcement doesn’t seem to be the end of the world to me.

 

[Bram576]

Also, many people use samples from
The actual session they are engineering/mixing when using real drums; I don’t see anything wrong with that at all. After all, the guy DID play those hits, and played those parts on the record. Using someone’s own hits/samples for reinforcement doesn’t seem to be the end of the world to me.

I feel like this is the key. I try to get a solid rim shot sample from the drummers performance, a good hit when they’re blasterbating, and a medium hit then blend those in with the certain parts they match. Sometimes with more extreme eq settings than the main instrument.

 

[Kapo_Polenton]

I feel like this is the key. I try to get a solid rim shot sample from the drummers performance, a good hit when they’re blasterbating, and a medium hit then blend those in with the certain parts they match. Sometimes with more extreme eq settings than the main instrument.

I don't have an issue with some sample blending but I think it is the snapping to grid and as mentioned, compressing everything to the point where it is just a very loud track with even hits across the board, zero dynamics. Maybe part of the problem is that there should be LESS processing on everything else so the drums would have a chance of getting through.