Manual gating?

[andreacaccese]

Hi! I've been working on some sessions with one of my bands, and this time I am handling the entire production process. I get to "play" with some fun toys and record in some unusual locations with cars loaded with mobile racks :-D A bit of work, but totally interesting. I decided to blog about the process, and as I was cleaning up the drum tracks, I thought it'd be cool to write something about "manual gating" and the entire issue of "bleed" in the tracks.This article focuses on drums, but the same theory can be applied to guitars and other sources (I can see a use in heavy distortions and certain staccato rhythms) I thought about sharing a link the article, right here: http://paperwingsmedia.com/post/9348307 ... -kick-toms

Wonder if anybody has experimented with a similar process on such a large scale?, or how do you usually deal with bleed? (fading each kick and snare hits is craaaazy!)

[øøøøøøø]

I'll tell you how I deal with bleed most of the time.

I make sure the bleed sounds good, and then I embrace it. Most good engineers I know and have worked with have a similar strategy.

The notion that bleed is something to be avoided is an oversimplification and a fallacy, IMO. Of course there are times when a bit of expansion or gating can help. It's situation-dependent.

Bleed only needs to be minimized if it sounds bad. Things that can cause bleed to sound bad are: microphones whose off-axis response sounds shitty (cheap condensers are a common offender!), lack of care during microphone placement (you actually have to listen!) and poor playing (whaling away on the cymbals while tapping lightly on the drums).

If you have something that sounds good in the room and take a modicum of care with placement, you shouldn't always need to minimize bleed. It can be an asset to the sound, not necessarily a hindrance. It also depends on the music, of course.

The more I fuck with music recording the more I come to realize that (for me anyway) I don't usually need to do all that much. If I'm finding myself doing things like heavy-handed gating, I'm looking at what I did wrong so I can avoid it next time.

[fuzzjunkie]

Let it Bleed.

If it's a problem, you're doing it wrong.

[NBarnes21]

I used to try and mic toms with the idea that I wanted as minimal bleed as possible, but nowadays I just stick the mic where it sounds good and clear out all the dead space between tom hits in pro tools. Sometimes a close-mic'd resonant tom reverberates in an unpleasant way when you hit the kick or snare and I find it helpful to cut out the dead space. So these days I'll even use a large diaphragm condenser that's picking up more bleed if the sound of striking the individual tom is better, and clear out the dead space. Kick and snare I don't clear out though- so long as you're (the drummer) hitting the snare hard enough and going easy on the hi- hat (and the mic is placed well), you shouldn't have much bleed. And I usually just deal with bleed on a kick out mic so long as it's getting the sound I want off of the kick.

[andreacaccese]

I used to try and mic toms with the idea that I wanted as minimal bleed as possible, but nowadays I just stick the mic where it sounds good and clear out all the dead space between tom hits. Sometimes a close-mic'd resonant tom reverberates in an unpleasant way when you hit the kick or snare and I find it helpful to cut out the dead space in pro tools. So these days I'll even use a large diaphragm condenser that's picking up more bleed if the sound of striking the individual tom is better, and clear out the dead space. Kick and snare I don't clear out though- so long as you're (the drummer) hitting the snare hard enough and going easy on the hi- hat, you shouldn't have much bleed. And I usually just deal with a bleed on a kick out mic so long as it's getting the sound I want off of the kick.

That's probably the main thing I do, sometimes the toms just resonate when I don't want them :-D I like the idea of using a condenser on the toms! does it pick up more of the "note" sound ?
I have nothing against bleed per se, and I don't systematically try to clean up to kick and snare tracks on each projects, but I do think that in some cases, the cleaner a track: the more control you get over the bleeding. This is practically useless on some genres (I couldn't see myself gating much of the bleed out in a small jazz kit, for example), but it might come particuarly handy for some big modern rock drum sounds, where you know you are going to process the tracks a lot :-D
With this particular session I am doing now, I am kinda striving a compromise between the 2 philosophies :-D

[øøøøøøø]

I tend to find if i'm getting unpleasant sustain or a too-defined pitch on a close mic'd tom, one of three things hasn't been given enough attention:

1) tuning of the drum
2) muffling of the drum (if applicable)
3) placement of the microphone.

Very often for stuff I work on and what I like to hear, I end up muting the close tom mics at mix. Every spot mic added introduces other things, and sometimes the tradeoffs are not worth the perceived benefit that an unnaturally in-your-face tom attack might be worth.

[andreacaccese]

I tend to find if i'm getting unpleasant sustain or a too-defined pitch on a close mic'd tom, one of three things hasn't been given enough attention:

1) tuning of the drum
2) muffling of the drum (if applicable)
3) placement of the microphone.

Very often for stuff I work on and what I like to hear, I end up muting the close tom mics at mix. Every spot mic added introduces other things, and sometimes the tradeoffs are not worth the perceived benefit that an unnaturally in-your-face tom attack might be worth.

I've been very successful with a little trick: recording toms from the bottom only with sm57s - very unorthodox, but I really dig the sound I get because

- easier to isolate tom hits if needed,
- better attack and tight lows - not a lot of subbiness to it, but i find it is easier to add lows than to to add highs in post with good results, and I dig the attack i get from the toms in this setting, expecially on the floor tom, really great!