Nope! The concepts and techniques that we teach will apply to any major DAW like Pro Tools, Logic, Ableton, Cubase, Reaper, Fruity Loops, Studio One and other similar platforms. All of these DAWs have great stock plugins!
Of course there is more than one reason to use dampening on drums, but good tuning should be the starting point for any drum sound. Use dampening for the right reasons (to achieve a specific drum sound), rather than the wrong ones (covering up bad tuning technique).
The Techniques Behind a Great Drum Sound TUTORiAL
There are dozens of drumheads with extra built-in dampening, but there are also a few key things to remember about all drumheads: Thicker heads will usually give a slightly more dampened drum sound compared to thinner heads. Similarly, two-ply drumheads and three-ply drumheads will give you a slightly more dampened drum sound compared to single-ply drumheads. Higher frequencies are slightly reduced as drumheads get thicker and have more plies, leaving more emphasis on midrange and lower frequency tones.
The most versatile Snareweight option is the Snareweight M80, which is a leather strip that sits on the edge of your drumhead. This strip reduces ringing, and gives a slightly deeper and fatter tone. Importantly, the Snareweight M80 is easily adjustable, with magnetic clips allowing it to be either partially or fully folded away. This allows you to find the perfect amount of drum dampening. The Snareweight M80 gives you a tight dampened snare sound when fully unfolded, and less muffling as you fold it back off the snare drum head. This is a versatile drum dampening tool, extremely useful across a huge range of drumming situations.
Apparently, it has been 'scientifically proven' that drum heads are responsible for 80 percent of the sound of a drum. So, while the materials used in a drum, the thickness of the shell and its size are all relevant, tuning and controlling the sound from the heads is of vital importance, and is worth special attention. Most drummers and engineers have experienced difficulties in getting the right sound from a kit: with all the different heads, snare wires, cymbals and mics around, every action in a drum kit will inevitably create a reaction somewhere else. All drummers will have battled at some time or another with excessive ring, overtones, snare buzz and sympathetic resonance, but when recording, these problems can prove especially frustrating, because you're going to hear every little mistake again and again and again. So it pays to get things right in the studio, even more than when playing live.
What I would say is that you should take time to think about the style of music, what sticks you use and how you play, before you consider the head types and other materials used in the drums. It doesn't hurt to try to find out what other drummers are using in their setups, either. Obviously, some players already do this, in an attempt to emulate the sound of a particular drummer, but even if you don't want to mimic the sound exactly, it's a good way to learn.
Manufacturers go to great lengths to develop mounting hardware that allows the drum to ring and resonate naturally, so it seems a shame to kill that sound with damping devices, such as the one pictured above right.
Adjust the snare wires to suit your style of playing, and test if they're too tight by turning the snare off, and then back on. If the wires snap on before the lever is at its resting position, the wires are most likely too tight. Another indicator of wires being too tight is when tapping the drum produces a choked snare sound.
Think about the albums you love to listen to, and the classic, timeless albums everyone is always referring to when creating music. Most of the well known record producers behind these albums use a simple approach to recording drums.
If you like these super simple tips on recording drums, make sure you sign up to my email list. I share more easy drum miking techniques, as well as tons of other simple recording techniques that will help you make great sounding music. All while maximizing your creative flow.
But even with all of these possibilities, we can further customize our drum sounds by layering multiple samples. In this article, we'll discuss the benefits for layering drums, common pitfalls, mixing techniques to blend samples into one sound, and creative techniques to add some character to your drums.
If a transient with a positive polarity and a transient with negative polarity are layered, we run the risk of introducing destructive interference, which can take away from the clarity and body of the final drum sound.
Compression is the most natural direction that we can go to do this. Bus compression, compression performed on a group of elements in the mix, is a standard method to glue sounds together. Specifically, drum bus compression is a common technique to make a drum kit more cohesive, and we can use the same mentality to make layers sound more cohesive.
Some distortion or saturation can also help to blend layers. This can be done either as an insert effect or in parallel. Distortion and saturation create new upper harmonics in a sound, which in this case will be created by the frequency content of all drum layers. The same distortion or saturation being applied to all layers will create a consistent timbre for the drum hit as a whole, blending the layers together.
First, we can assign different layers to different areas of the stereo field. Creating differences in stereo placement can cause layers to sound disjointed, but transient alignment and the above blending techniques can be used to ensure your drum samples sound like an individual hit.
Striking the head of the drum changes its shape and compresses the air inside the shell. The compressed air presses on the bottom head and changes its shape. Then, these changes are transmitted to the drum shell and reflected back, and this action is repeated, creating a vibration. These vibrations of the top and bottom heads create vibrations in the air, which become sound, and eventually, as the head vibrations are dampened, the sound diminishes.
"Drum tuning" does not mean tuning the drum to a pitch like "C" or "D" but rather to the drum's resonant frequency or a certain tone preferred by the drummer. If the tightness of the head is not uniform, the tone of the drum will change depending on where the drum is struck, and it will be a muddy tone at that. Thus, the drum head must be tightened so as to produce the same tone when struck in different places.The top head and bottom heads are also tuned to different tensions. If both the top and bottom heads are given the same tension, the sustain of the tone is long, but the volume is low. If this condition is changed, however, the drum becomes louder. In addition, if the bottom head is tighter than the top head, it becomes louder, and the tone rings longer. However, if the bottom head is looser, the tone does not ring so long, and the tone is flatter. The greater the difference in tension between the two heads, the greater the change in tone.
It is also important to tune the drums to one another. For example, if the tom-toms are close in tone, the sound will be unclear, and so these drums are generally tuned to different tones. Percussion instruments do not have the clarity of pitch found in the wind and stringed instruments, but the more drums there are, the more important tuning is to creating a smooth, pleasing sound. Several tom-toms are sometimes tuned to a musical scale and used to play a melody.
Another way to use gating as an effect is by adding punch. For example, imagine the sound of a kick drum being struck. It takes fractions of a second for the volume to build. By altering the speed in which the gate opens and the signal strength required to open it, you can give it a punchier sound by only opening the gate once the initial sound level is much higher.
Attack & ReleaseAudio gating, which seems like an on-or-off control, creates a better sound when the speed of the opening and closing varies based on the need. The sound of a drum being struck and the sound of a singer are both sounds that have a natural decay. To close those channels the moment their signal level drops below too high of a point would be like suddenly muting their channel.
Start by listening to the drum kit and making sure you can hear each element clearly. The snare is typically the loudest element in the kit, followed by the kick and toms. Use the overhead and room mics to her create a space for the drums and make all of the close mics sound cohesive.
After dialing in your drum mix, add BASSROOM to the drum bus and use the target presets to make sure your low-end is in check. This can be a great way to quickly improve your drum mix without having to make EQ tweaks on each track.
However, this approach can sometimes make drum recordings sound sterile or choppy. For a more natural-sounding solution, try using PUNCH. PUNCH is a dynamic transient enhancement plug-in that can be used to accentuate the attack of a drum without muting the room tone for a more organic sound.
Compressors are powerful tools that allow you to control the dynamic response of a drum kit. They can be used to enhance the attack of each drum, create a more controlled sound, or help glue the whole mix together.
Slow attack times allow the full impact of the drum to pass through and then clamp down on the sustain portion of the sound, helping the transients cut through the mix. But if the attack time is too slow, the compressor may not be fast enough to catch each transient.
Fast attack times shave off the initial transient of the hit, which can be great for adding control. But if the attack time is too fast, it sucks all of the impact out of the drum and pushes it further back in the mix.
A well-crafted kick drum can invoke aural, physical, and even emotional sensations. A great kick drum allows us for a brief moment to experience the transmundane, but conversely, a bad kick drum can make your track completely fall apart. The stakes are pretty high, so it makes sense to learn about what makes a kick tick. 2ff7e9595c
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