Getting decent drum 'punch'

[Majoria]

I'm struggling with getting a my drums to have a good punch on recordings. Yes, I'm the drummer and doing the recording. The original source, the kit, has pretty good punch but I can't get that onto my recordings. I don't necessarily need that feeling like you've been punched in the chest every time the kick goes off (though I do want something like that on one track), just a good thump that'll grab your attention. This applies to the kick and also the toms. I've tried several things on the kick such as making a tunnel to record at a few different distances, tried to trigger the kick and still couldn't get much. On the toms I've tried the SM57, SM98A, EV ND408B, just overhead AT4041, etc and various combinations and still can't get too close. No access to a 421.

 

I'm guessing that the trick is in EQ'ing and possibly compressing as I can replicate most of the original sound but just not the punch that I can get live. Trial and error has only given me error this far. I can play un mic'd and get a good punch. The fact that I can't even get the punch with a triggered or e-kit tells me it may not be in the mics or recording technique but something else. Any ideas?

[Cirrus]

This probably won't be much help, but that kind of kick you in the chest, authentic punch needs one thing that you'll not be getting much of in a recording/playback situation; Volume!

 

It doesn't matter what the dynamic envelope of each hit is, or how much relative bass there is in the sound, it's not going to get that punch you get live unless you crank it up, in my opinion. And since most people won't be listening to your music at such a level, you need to look for something besides "punch" to pin on your drum sounds.

 

On a hopefully more helpful note, i think you need to make sure your close mics are in a position where they'll get lots of fundamental, and use gating. also parrallel compression is kind of good to mimic real "punch" - to make a snare really punchy sounding, for example, it usually forces you to make a horrible snare heavy mix. But if you have it at a sensible level, you can set a compressor to duck, say, the overheads, with a release time set to whatever you think is appropriate. That, I believe, mimics the way your ears percieve sounds when they're at a high level, with the snare drowning out the rest of the kit somewhat even if it's not really louder.... do you follow? It's not natural, it's not transparent, but it might be a ticket to something you like.

[Antman261]

Try focusing less on the kick and more on the other instruments in the mix, maybe there's something else that's taking up the room you need to give the kick to give it some punch.

 

Also, perhaps you're focusing too much on the transient, try and pull out that 'thing' just after it. Usually I find a punchy kick drum sound comes from a good balance of mids (attack) and bass (body), that works together with the bass in a way were both compliment eachother and don't get in eachothers way.

[UstadKhanAli]

Do the drums lack punch by themselves or only after you add music?

 

Can you put up an MP3 so we can hear what you mean exactly?

 

Since the triggers don't sound punchy, do you feel it might be a monitoring problem?

 

Do the drums lack punch when you listen to them with headphones?

[blue2blue]

First... do NOT gate while tracking.

 

If you really need to get the (often) artificial sound of gated drums (not to be confused with the even more artifical sound of gated reverb on drums), do it after the fact (using digital lookahead) so you don't loose the cutting edge of your transient. Nothing sounds as rotten to my ear as realtime gating on drums. (Obviously, on a live stage, you gotta do what you gotta do.)

 

I suspect that learning to use the threshold, ratio, attack and resease settings of a full featured compressor (plug, whatever) will begin giving you more of what you're looking for.

 

What you're going to do is set your compressor to let through a certain amount of uncompressed attack (anywhere from 30-60 ms, off the top of my head) and then let the compression take the decay down... when done right this will give the effect of "tightening up" your kick.

 

As you and others have already noted, proper miking and quite possibly EQ will also help achieve the particular sound you're looking for.

[boosh]

Try to find the thread in which Bruce Swedien describes how he recorded the kick in Billie Jean.

 

Hey Ken,.. you know what I mean,.. with the bassdrum cover etc,... Can you tell him the secret?

[Majoria]

 

Do the drums lack punch when you listen to them with headphones?

Yes, I've tried the cheap ones and my decent studio headphones, same thing.

 

Again, I'm by no means a pro, and since the e-drums don't have much better results than live mic'd drums, I'm leaning towards operation error. I'll try taking the compressor up to 30-60 ms, I know it hasn't been that high yet. I'm still struggling to hear the difference in release times.

[boosh]

Gimme a sample of your drums man,..I'll make it punch and tell you afterwards how I did it.

[I was The Funk]

Actually, it sounds more like a mic placement issue to me. Experiment with the placement of the overheads.

[donuts]

Antman's advice is right on the $ in my opinion. I have found that some of my best drum recordings have come when the right mix and frequencies of other instruments allowed the drums to punch through the mix.

 

However, since UstadKhan intelligently asked whether the problem was "in the mix" or just a solo drum problem, I

[mono boy]

hey majora. have you tried tuning your heads UP a bit? what type of room are you recording in?

 

it seems to me each song is different and requires it's own tweaking. recently I had a really busy track and adding some 2k to the kick really helped it shine. I'm guessing if the track were more sparse the EQ would be radically different though. I think dumping some 200-250Hz always seems to help.

 

are you using a room mic in front of the kit? this seems to really get that 'thwack!' from the kick IMO.

 

drums rule,

/jonny

[Lee Knight]

Try putting an eq before your compressor. On kick, boost 60Hz (or 80 or whatever your fancy) then drive your compressor, set with a low attack. That 60Hz will punch right through that compressor's attack window. PUNCH! Do the same for snare using anywhere from 240 to 3k. From punch to pop to SMACK!

[Mind Riot]

On pretty much all my rock stuff where I want some big, punchy sounding drums I'll clone the drum (not cymbal) tracks and squash one set of them (like a 4:1 ratio) while leaving the original tracks clean, then mix the compressed set in at about half the volume of the originals. Really makes them cut through.

 

But of course, this is assuming that nothing else is getting in the way of the drums as far as specific frequencies.

[Kid Klash]

Try putting an eq before your compressor. On kick, boost 60Hz (or 80 or whatever your fancy) then drive your compressor, set with a low attack. That 60Hz will punch right through that compressor's attack window. PUNCH! Do the same for snare using anywhere from 240 to 3k. From punch to pop to SMACK!

 

 

Yup. It's usually a bump at 80hz and 2khz for me for rock tracks when using a tuned 22" bass drum and an AKG D-112 inside.

[UstadKhanAli]

I frequently seem to be the Voice of Dissension on some of these things. At any rate, these are my thoughts:

 

In my opinion, you should be able to get your drums to be punchy (have plenty of impact and beefiness and ooomph) through mic choice/placement (assuming that your drums sound good in the first place).

 

If you are using EQ or compression to "fix" your lack of "punchiness", you've already lost. Those tools should ideally not be there to "fix" things, but to change, enhance, whatever.

 

If you listen to well-recorded drums without EQ or effects, they should sound "punchy" already.

 

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If I get anything less than "punchy" drums, I do one of the following:

 

- I first listen to the drums out in the room and see if they sound great.

 

- If they sound great, then I've {censored}ed up. There is absolutely no reason why something should sound great, but I can't translate that.

 

- I then will change *something* that I've done since I'm at fault. I change the mic positions, the choice of microphones, I add more acoustic treatment to try and help out my microphones, I do a lot of listening, etc. I will also change the mic preamps, but quite frankly, if it sounds *that* bad, changing a mic preamp from one mic preamp to another is not going to make a bit of difference unless I am changing it from a {censored}ty mic preamp to a nice mic preamp (in which case, if I can do this now, why didn't I do this before? ).

 

- OTOH, If the drums sound like ass in the room, then you need to do something to address that before you start moving microphones around. This means changing the tuning of the drums, the drum set, the drummer, the way the drummer plays, the acoustics of the room, all of the above, some of the above...

 

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Fix all problems at the source.

 

If your drums sound horrible to begin with, adding EQ is likely gonna make them sound like horrible sounding drums with EQ applied. You can only do so much with EQ. Same thing with compression.

 

Only use EQ and compression to "fix" things if you have NO OTHER CHOICE.

 

In that case, dig as much "punchiness" out of your drums as you can by really listening and hearing what the EQ and compression is doing, listening to where the fundamental is, listening to what creates the most impact, sweeping around with your EQ accordingly. Take your time, but realize that you are using a Band Aid approach.

[UstadKhanAli]

 

Try to find the thread in which Bruce Swedien describes how he recorded the kick in Billie Jean. Hey Ken,.. you know what I mean,.. with the bassdrum cover etc,... Can you tell him the secret?

 

 

Yeah, I do, but I just left a post that I really think gets to the root of what is going on here. A lot of people will probably disagree with me, but this is what absolutely works every single time out for me: getting it right at the source.

 

The bass drum cover that Boosh is referring to is essentially a tunnel that Bruce Swedien and others have (or have constructed) that gives you additional isolation. You place a tunnel in front of the kick drum, then place the kick drum mic in the tunnel. This gives you isolation, and also allows you to place the kick drum mic farther away from the kick drum if you wish. I don't use one of these, although I've often thought of constructing one.

[UstadKhanAli]

And finally, the only thing that I am utterly puzzled over is why the sampled drums also lack "punch". This is, quite frankly, a giant mystery to me, as I could get punchy drums even with my sucky A/D converters with the Digi001 before. I mean, quite frankly, I can get slammin' drums if I were to output all my drum mics to cassette, so why you can't get a slammin' sound out of samples is beyond me. That one has me puzzled.

 

Do CDs that you play on the same monitoring system sound good?

 

What you are going to have to do is isolate the problem(s). Record a CD of "punchy" drums on to your DAW (you are using a DAW, right? What are you recording to?). Are those punchy, or did they lose punchiness, ooomph, definition, impact, whatever? Listen carefully.

 

Do CDs sound fine through your monitoring system, or do they also lack punchiness?

 

Go through your entire system and figure out where the problem is, then eliminate that problem.

 

I'm at a loss. Whenever I have some sort of problem, I try and isolate it and get rid of it.

 

And if *I'm* the problem, then I just keep learning and learning and learning until I don't suck at it any more.

[axe2 2001]

Punch is actually added by other instuments as well. Big time thump occurs in alot of songs just by the bass player playing with the kick drum. A mid heavy rythym guitar doing a pecussive riff adds cut to things as well.

 

I get great drum sounds with 4 mic's. 52 on kick, 57 on snare and 2 LDC overheads. I rely on capturing the entire kit with the overs and add definition with the kick and snare mic. At first the overs were alittle too high and not catching the toms too well. So I dropped them some and evrything sounds good now. On first playback the cymbals seem to overpower but after the song fills in they sit very nice. If they are too prominent i'll cut the highs a bit. To me, EQ'ing is really the key to fitting the drums in. It realy depends on the song as well. All in small amounts though. For a high contact heavy kick, bump the highs and mid high's while dropping out the low mids. Thats about all i'll do as far as "radical" EQ. EQ affects pecieved volume. But just listening to drum tracks without the rest of the instuments can be decieving to the good, or bad side. I only plan to comp the kick from the start. Everything else is to taste. I like the kit to "breath" in the mix, not just sound like a wall of sound.

 

It's been said already but well tuned drums and a good room are huge. Before I sound treated my practice room/studio, getting good drum tracks was tough. My drummer also has 3 kits. At first he brought in his semi-low grade pearl kit and kept his good kit at home for gigs. After I sound treated, results were better but not as good as I wanted. He finally brought his Yamaha stage Custom set and we enjoy great drum tracks at will. He also has to adjust his playing. Recording and live are two different animals. Matter of fact, we all had to "amp down" a bit to get desired results. Even with metal, there is still control. We play mostly rock/funk/blues and we're all pretty happy with what we are getting.

[Lee Knight]

In my opinion, you should be able to get your drums to be punchy (have plenty of impact and beefiness and ooomph) through mic choice/placement (assuming that your drums sound good in the first place).

 

 

Yeah... you're right. Usually miced up drum kits sound pretty frickin' punchy before you have to do too much to them if you've re-headed and tuned them up nice and purtty. I just wanted to share the eq bump before compressor trick because it will indeed punch up your tubs and it rocks!

[UstadKhanAli]

It's a headscratcher, Lee. Not that I'm the greatest engineer that's ever walked the earth, but NOT getting a sound that is punchy...I was doing it with 30 dollar Shure mics hung from vacuum cleaners and broomsticks taped to the furniture, so I'm not sure how to address this guy's dilemma. How can a sample NOT be punchy on playback? Does anyone know? I feel like we're dancing around what the problem truly is - maybe someone's either invented the worst A/D converter ever created, or there is some sort of bizarre phase problem, or what...WHAT would cause drum samples to NOT be punchy on playback?

[Lee Knight]

That's why I thought perhaps this "punchy" he talks about is more of an effect like the eqbump > compressor trick I mentioned above...

[alcohol]

I didn't get a great kick sound until I got the Great River pre.

[UstadKhanAli]

But surely someone can get good punchy drum sounds with, say, Mackie mic preamps? I don't remember it being a giant struggle although some Mackie mic preamps aren't the greatest.

[seclusion]

Holy crap man, there's some top notch advise given with pretty much every dimesion covered... You guys should get paid!

[alcohol]

Lots of good suggestions here.

 

I ran into some paper on mixing on an SSL that referred to the mixing of drums. The paper went into detail about making sure all drums were properly in phase and using digital delays to get more punch. This paper was before the use of DAWs. Since reading this paper, I slide all my drums to match up to the overheads in the DAW. I make sure that the tracks are in line and in phase. If the track is out of phase I'll either print the inversion or invert it with a plug-in. If you're not using ProTools HD or TDM then I think printing the inversion is better. Better to get the phase right from the tracking.

 

There are recording where the mixing of the drums dominate the sound. My thoughts on this and I'd love to get more info on it, is that compression on the mix bus can give a slight pumping sound that makes the kick and snare sound punchier. There are plug-ins that do this, but I use an API 2500 compressor that seems to be the perfect tool for just this sort of thing.