Passive bass pickups with active EQ--underrated setup?

[Rex_Rocker]

Clicky does not mean I like no bass at all in the kick.

I like a massively midscooped kick with a huge boost in the sub lows and a huge boost in the highs.

I don't like the FBD or the VDOP kick, but on Southern Trendkill, is perfect. Before, it almost sounded like a basketball bouncing. There's no way I belive you think the drum tone on 13 Steps to Nowhere sounds thin.

The thing is the faster the kick is throughout the song, the less low-end you can afford on it. And you also have to make the decay faster so that the low-end doesn't stack up on top of the last hit. You can also get around that actually compressing the kick further on the fast parts or automating the kick's low-end to become less during those parts.

And Thornography was a Krankenstein.

 

[Rex_Rocker]

And as far as drums, I kind of agree for Metal. And Bass.

However, guitars, not really. I mean, not anymore than any other genre. Distorted guitars don't really take processing all that well. To me (and what I know most big-names do) is some EQ, some multiband compression, and that's it. That is if they were recorded well, and the amp was dialed in well, and a good cab is being used with good preamps and good converters.

I mean, if you're close mic'ing with a 57, then yeah, that's not really what guitars sound like in the room. But who cares, LOL. If mixes were like that, everything would sound like it was recorded with an iPhone.

 

[Inflames626]

Clicky does not mean I like no bass at all in the kick.

I like a massively midscooped kick with a huge boost in the sub lows and a huge boost in the highs.

I don't like the FBD or the VDOP kick, but on Southern Trendkill, is perfect. Before, it almost sounded like a basketball bouncing. There's no way I belive you think the drum tone on 13 Steps to Nowhere sounds thin.

The thing is the faster the kick is throughout the song, the less low-end you can afford on it. And you also have to make the decay faster so that the low-end doesn't stack up on top of the last hit. You can also get around that actually compressing the kick further on the fast parts or automating the kick's low-end to become less during those parts.

And Thornography was a Krankenstein.

Absolutely on the kick. The thing is those kicks are a little thin and slappy for me. I appreciate their trying not to be too ringy and boomy, though.

I always thought Krank was a fad for people who liked Randall--right around 2000--in the same way people who liked Dime and Dean also tagged along with Washburn. Since they went out of business years ago I thought they were a flash in the pan, but they seem to be coming back on the used market.

Probably the nicest isolated kick I have heard is from Theater of Tragedy, a Norwegian symphonic metal band. Totally different genre and sound yeah, but it's a very full, even kick. I also like how the album is mixed generally--everything even and has its place. This was from 1998 so it was sort of old school Swedish but not really. Guitars are a little thin but the tone and sound are generally how I mix them so they don't step on any other instruments. What I need to do better is blend the edges so the instruments overlap in a pleasing way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_J4Onll7VNs

A lot of people hate the production on Reinventing the Steel, but man, "Uplift" has a really underrated 2/4 intro beat. Listening to it after 23 years though--damn those drums are thin. But I love banging away on that crash cymbal in the intro.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OYHs4TGRQI

If I had a favorite snare, it might be from Reroute to Remain. "Thunk!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AEJow44_mQ&list=PLs9zwqXsceUiKJGMl7SN8zpxxG8veISFw

FWIW, I reserve the right to change my opinions without notice at any time.

 

[Inflames626]

And as far as drums, I kind of agree for Metal. And Bass.

However, guitars, not really. I mean, not anymore than any other genre. Distorted guitars don't really take processing all that well. To me (and what I know most big-names do) is some EQ, some multiband compression, and that's it. That is if they were recorded well, and the amp was dialed in well, and a good cab is being used with good preamps and good converters.

I mean, if you're close mic'ing with a 57, then yeah, that's not really what guitars sound like in the room. But who cares, LOL. If mixes were like that, everything would sound like it was recorded with an iPhone.

If you consider that the first distortion was a clean sound pushed until power amp distortion and speaker breakup, then I think are modern distortion circuits are completely unnatural. And software, not even being tied to any hardware, is completely unnatural.

I mean, they essentially had to take diodes, transistors, etc., and, in order to fix their flaws, temper them with software that would emulate tube break up. Tone stacks, multiple gain stages...it's just not found in nature how much gain we use.

And I usually have a somewhat wet guitar sound relative to some people, because I usually track with a very small amount of digital delay as a thickening effect (1/64th-1/32nd note).

But I got a lot of my formative influences through my brother, who was 10 years older than me. In 2000, I was still listening to stuff from the 80s. I was as influenced by Billy Idol and New Wave as I was from the Swedish scene, at least in terms of production.

 

[Inflames626]

If I may, I'd also like to recommend you guys try BFD if you're tired of Superior Drummer.

BFD let me build bigger sets (although there is a limit). The drums also sound more natural to me, although some Superior Drummer SDX sets like Hit Maker really surprised me with their usefulness for metal.

Where BFD made a mistake with version 3 is they changed the GUI and made it much less intuitive.

When I used 2.5 I could move the overheads and such over and away from the kit in a way that I could get a visual sense of how it might sound.

The new version has a top down, graph paper, paperdoll inventory style approach that doesn't give you as much visual feedback on how something might sound.

BFD 2.5 was a lot of fun to play with in a way the amp components aspect of Revalver was.

 

[Rex_Rocker]

I always thought Krank was a fad for people who liked Randall--right around 2000--in the same way people who liked Dime and Dean also tagged along with Washburn. Since they went out of business years ago I thought they were a flash in the pan, but they seem to be coming back on the used market.

Probably the nicest isolated kick I have heard is from Theater of Tragedy, a Norwegian symphonic metal band.

A lot of people hate the production on Reinventing the Steel, but man, "Uplift" has a really underrated 2/4 intro beat. Listening to it after 23 years though--damn those drums are thin. But I love banging away on that crash cymbal in the intro.

If I had a favorite snare, it might be from Reroute to Remain. "Thunk!"

Krank amps were indeed a fad. Their AR's were passing endorsements out like crazy. The same AR went to Randall right after, and that's why Michael Amott got his Randall sig (he was playing Krank before). But Kranks sounded good, and they made it to many iconic records of the era. They were kind of a 2203 meets a Rectifier. Very interesting amps. But like I was saying before, kind of an amp that made it to the scene a decade too late. I don't know about their reliability, but my Rev Jr. was good for the few years that I owned it.

I'm no stranger to Theater of Tragedy, haha. And Paradise Lost. Even if I seem like I only really like Gothenburg Melodeath, I know some Metal bands. Especially Scandinavian.

Reinventing wasn't mixed by Terry Date. I think Terry remixed it recently. But whoever mixed that at the time, it was kind of underwhelming to me.

I also think the mix on Reroute is kind of underrated. Everything has a very quasi-Nu Metal aesthetic to the mix, but it kinda works for the Alternative-ish Industrial-ish Nu Metal-ish approach they took to the Gothenburg sound on that record. I overall don't hate "sellout" In Flames. They just don't hit as hard as Whoracle/Jester does to me. But I find them enjoyable for the most part. Much like Pop Metal newer Soilwork.

 

[Inflames626]

Pretty sure Vin and Dime produced Steel themselves.

 

[Inflames626]

Slipping this in here too because it's Swedish from 1997. Has some elements of the "melodeath" (God I hate that scene kid term) but also black metal sound.

Melodies are great.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGCfNmMnr6k&list=OLAK5uy_mRu0P-YjuxUs1OeE0YkSVLRqxiJBwPwOU&index=5

 

[Seashore]

If I may, I'd also like to recommend you guys try BFD if you're tired of Superior Drummer.

BFD let me build bigger sets (although there is a limit). The drums also sound more natural to me, although some Superior Drummer SDX sets like Hit Maker really surprised me with their usefulness for metal.

Where BFD made a mistake with version 3 is they changed the GUI and made it much less intuitive.

When I used 2.5 I could move the overheads and such over and away from the kit in a way that I could get a visual sense of how it might sound.

The new version has a top down, graph paper, paperdoll inventory style approach that doesn't give you as much visual feedback on how something might sound.

BFD 2.5 was a lot of fun to play with in a way the amp components aspect of Revalver was.

I'm still using a 22 year old copy of Fruity Loops, because it lets me use my own stereo samples. I hate it. But I like what it does. If I can find something that lets me build my own kit from my own sounds that isn't pure torture to use, I'm all ears.

 

[Rex_Rocker]

Pretty sure Vin and Dime produced Steel themselves.

I think Vinnie has always been involved with the production aspect of Pantera. I'm reading he helped mixing it, but the main engineer was Sterling Winfeld.

 

[Inflames626]

I'm still using a 22 year old copy of Fruity Loops, because it lets me use my own stereo samples. I hate it. But I like what it does. If I can find something that lets me build my own kit from my own sounds that isn't pure torture to use, I'm all ears.

I'd say BFD is less intuitive to use than Superior Drummer. BFD lets you tweak more than Superior, but Superior has more usable out of the box samples with a better GUI and is thus easier to use.

 

[Seashore]

I'd say BFD is less intuitive to use than Superior Drummer. BFD lets you tweak more than Superior, but Superior has more usable out of the box samples with a better GUI and is thus easier to use.

I've never used either one. FL is like pulling teeth, especially when I do anything in polymeter. It's easy for it to take me an hour per minute. Shoot me.

 

[Inflames626]

I've never used either one. FL is like pulling teeth, especially when I do anything in polymeter. It's easy for it to take me an hour per minute. Shoot me.

I'm working on a "Dyers Eve" cover, mainly as an excuse to build up my right hand picking speed.

I worked from Guitar Hero isolated drum files posted to YouTube and transcribed Lars's parts. I wanted to keep the same feel and parts but alter them a little to make them my own.

I ended up with DW kicks, Mapex toms (there are 10 of them because of the tom fill in the song intro), Noble and Cooley snare. Cymbals I tried to keep period correct with Zildjians, but it was ultimately whatever produced the best sample.

I ended up with so many articulations that I nearly ran out of non sharp/flat notes on a 10 octave grand staff. Lots of cymbal chokes and so on in that song.

I put them on a staff in Cakewalk since that's my DAW of choice. I can read music, so I use that instead of a dot grid because I can see things like 16th note groupings more easily in real notes than on a grid.

Still, it's basically a piano grand staff and not a percussion line. Everything goes to one track since most drum VSTs are now fully featured within the program with their own mixing, effects, etc.

I used to assign each drum to its own track in Cakewalk, use track fx for each, all run it to a single buss, mix within that buss, and automate to taste on the buss send.

But that level of granularity can eat up a lot of RAM (even though I have 128 gb). So these days I kind of run it all within the plugin on a single track.

 

[Rex_Rocker]

I didn't know BFD was still around!

I thought BFD was mostly raw samples and not very Metal-oriented. At least it was back in the day.

 

[Inflames626]

I didn't know BFD was still around!

I thought BFD was mostly raw samples and not very Metal-oriented. At least it was back in the day.

It's not as out of the box metal oriented as Superior. That said, if one is sick of the Superior sound like I am, BFD is a great alternative and is certainly a tweaker's paradise.

BFD does have processed samples. The DW kick I used is processed. 3 is also backward compatible with earlier versions' samples and Eco, which is their version of EZ Drummer.

It is oriented more toward an acoustic, live big drum sound, hence the Big in BFD. If it were more metal oriented, I might call it CFD for clicky drum.

That said, I wouldn't consider BFD to be as open ended and intimidating as something like Reason might be for non-keyboardists.

 

[Rex_Rocker]

I used to like my puny little Slate Drums from the 2010's, LOL.

I always wanted to try Colin Richardson's, Daniel Bergstrand's, and Andy Sneap's Super Drummer sounds, though. I think they also have Jason Suecof in there?

Slate has Terry Date nowadays, tho.

Superior Drummer cymbals always sounded so much better than Slate.

 

[Inflames626]

I always wanted to try Digidesign Strike back when Avid/M-Audio/Digidesign were more important than they are now. Never got around to it. This was in the mid-late 00s--Digi 002 and 003 and Eleven recording interfaces.

BFD 3.5 tutorials if you're interested. They're in a playlist but not in order.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HF8i7n9qwEA&list=PLwvXA3xgA1Wph2ZWdM36ZVWSbjuXzMCoK

 

[El Dunco]

I would definitely recommend something that lets you process samples that are as dry and as close to the raw mic’d sounds as possible if you’re a budding sound producer because it will give you practice for if you ever find yourself either in a pro studio with a drummer or find the adequate space for a project studio.

I’ve been spoiled with my choices of rural properties with massive rioms, high ceilings and best of all, non-parallel walls (even slanted ceilings.)

I was mixing a drum track the other day, I hadn’t done much more than confirm phase coherency, a biit of compression/EQ and my partner thought I was playing the drums in the room for real. It is complicated, I won’t pretend it’s not but there is both an art and a science to capturing great acoustic drums. There’s just no beating that sound of a great drum performance in a good room.

There seems to be an assumption that clicly or shall we say “hyper-present” kick sounds must be triggered. Not so. The mic being right up inside the batter, slam pads etc can get there just as easily. One of my techniques is to use elastic straps to suspension mount one mic inside the kick, right up against the batter.

This next part is important, don’t remove the resonator head but keep it on (the cable comes out the hole easily enough for the close mic) and put either another mic or even a sub-bass (essentially a small reverse-speaker, you can build them yourself with a monitor speaker and suspend-mount that inside an old snare shell) or both up to the sound hole, built a “tent” around it with soond insulating material and you can easily blend them for however much attack and fullness you want with little to no bleed. Make sure they’re in phase after, they are different distances after all.

If your drummer has issues being heard with particularly fast double-bass, you could always drumagog those parts but with the same acoustic kick as the sample. The goal is to have as little “typewriter” effect as possible and what a shame it would be to waste capturing gorgeous drum sounds only to replace them with someone else’s. Even when Meshuggah first began using samples in the 90s (they recently put out studio footage from all their esrly albums, very cool to watch!) they used the recordings of their own drums for the samples.

With my band’s music, I avoid samples where I can. They generally aren’t needed in regards to performance. It depends entirely on the song. Sometimes I’ll have them mixed in gently for augmentation, usually to drive reverbs (but with a little more of the actual drum than Andy Wallace, seeing automating noise-gate thresholds is easier than ever now and many of his albums drum sounds tend to become too similar)

We do have some industrial elements which will also influence my decision. Our first album is 100% acoustic drums. I spent 6 months researching and developing how to capture it and it’s very accurate to how it sounded in the room. The whole thing was done in a “live” style which is in the footage I’m putting together a documentary movie about it with.

Also yes, Sterling Winfield helped produce Reinventing the Steel. They recently reissued it with new Terry Date mixed versions, the original mixes just remastered and the original masters from 2000.

 

[El Dunco]

These are some from an EP I produced for a client. Behold the raw tracks of a well mic’d kit, with the kick-micing technique I mentioned earlier.

[video]https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/1w56mnbycm6vdlydy3g62/Video-29-10-2023-02-35-34.mov?rlkey=py5q33malqepta394nodovdy6&dl=0[/video]

[video]https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/lz4zhio2mpinhkf9bdj32/Video-15-6-2020-21-33-00.mov?rlkey=g0ebra3cvl1quzns69so6fyn9&dl=0[/video]

I really like the sound of the Senheiser e-series on rack toms.

 

[Inflames626]

Do you like parallel compression on drums, El Dunco?