The White Stripes - Seven Nation Army (orchestra cover) - Tips for Mixing Rock Drums

The White Stripes - Seven Nation Army (orchestra cover)





MALE SPEAKER: All right.
We're here again at the
Jingle Punks bus.
We're doing live performances
inside all day today.
This is one of my favorite
songs by one
of my favorite bands.
This is Jingle Punks Hipster
Orchestra with "Seven Nation
Army."
<br><br>
MALE SPEAKER: One,
two, three, four.
[MUSIC PLAYING-JINGLE PUNKS
HIPSTER ORCHESTRA, &quot;SEVEN
NATION ARMY&quot;]

[THEME MUSIC]
FEMALE SPEAKER: If it fits in my
mouth, then it's too small.

FEMALE SPEAKER: --hear your
feedback, opinions, and
backlash, or whatever
you may have to say.
Video responses, comments.




Tips for Mixing Rock Drums




Hey folks, Matthew Weiss here â€" www.weiss-sound.com,
www.theproaudiofiles.com.
We’re gonna be looking at some rock drums
and taking a look at some auxiliary mics and
how to treat them. Alright so we have this
basic drum set up here: overheads, snares,
kicks, hi-hats and it sounds like this.
[drums without auxiliary microphones]
So it sounds good, but it sounds a little
flat. It’s not the most interesting drum
sound in the world. If we put it out there
it would serve the function but it, you know,
we want something to bring a little extra
to the sound.
So the producer used a couple of auxiliary
mics and as you can see here, he put in the
comment “optional” on them. One is a front
of kit capture and the other one is some kind
of distorted mic that was put over the bass
drum. And they sound like this.
[front of drums auxiliary microphone]
That’s my front of kit mic. And here is
my bass drum distorted mic.
[distorted bass drum microphone]
So let’s hear how those sound with the rest
of the kit.
[full drum set auxiliary microphones]
Alright. So as soon as those come in, the
sound gains a lot of dimension and texture,
but unfortunately it also becomes really blurry.
There’s some really crazy tones that are
showing up. Like in the bass drum distorted
mic, you hear this sort of “whoooooo,”
kind of constantly going, and with the front
of kit capture, you kind of hear the same
thing but you hear it intermittently. That
tells me that the room is producing its own
resonance. And it’s a strong resonance at
that. So what we’re gonna try to do is kill
that tone.
So I’m gonna grab my FabFilter Pro-Q, and
I’m going to set up a notch. And what we’re
gonna do is we’re gonna try and find that
tone, actually I’m gonna start with a bell.
I’m just gonna see if I can isolate the
tone itself, and then I’m gonna switch over
to notch, so that I can really get rid of
it.
[FabFilter Pro-Q notch eq for bass drum auxiliary
microphone]
So there’s that wind noise, it’s this
whooshy windy kind of tone. I’m gonna switch
over to notch. Boom, there we go. Now, what
I need to do is I need to set the Q so that
I get just that tone and nothing else. There
we go. So now let’s listen to that with
the rest of the kit before and after. Here’s
before.
[full drum kit before and after notch eq]
After. So, now let me take that in and out.
So now there’s a lot of room in the sound,
there’s a lot of tone and texture in the
sound, but I haven’t masked all of the other
sounds in the kit because of that resonance.
Now obviously this is up too loud. But, having
it up too loud allows me to really hear what’s
causing problems in the track. So I’m gonna
put it back down to zero, back down to unity,
and here’s how it sounds.
[drum mix with and without bass drum overhead
microphone]
Nice. Alright let’s do the same thing with
the front mic. I’m just going to copy these
<br><br>
settings over. I think that it’s probably
the same resonance. Let’s find out. So now
I’ve got two really good texture mics, and
all I have to do now is just set the level
to where I feel that they’re the most appropriate.
These are things that I feel â€" generally
speaking â€" work better subtly, they add
subtle dimension and texture to a drum sound
rather than something that’s going to overwhelm
the sound and become a part of it. But then
again, if you’re going for something stylized,
there’s nothing wrong with that either.
So you know, I might start with it very low
and sort of inch it back in.
[drum mix blended effect mics]
So it’s one of those things where it’s
not making a huge difference in terms of the
sound, but you really do miss when it’s
gone. One more time, before and after.
[drum mix before and after auxiliary microphones]
And now let’s do the same for this bass
drum mic. So now I just have to make a judgement
call in the context of the record what I want.
If I want that really bombastic sound then,
you know, I’ll probably use this bass drum
capture, but I probably don’t. I think that
I like the front of mic better, and I think
that it adds a really nice sense of dimension.
To sum it up, when you’re recording a drum
kit, it can be really helpful to take some
mics, some weird mics, some cruddy mics, or
taking a mic and running it through some kind
of a distortion and placing them in spots
where you wouldn’t normally predict to put
a microphone, just to capture an interesting
tone. I think some of these there’s good
techniques for doing it deliberately, and
sometimes it’s fun just to stick a mic randomly
somewhere and see what happens. Either way,
once you get that, a good way to work it into
the mix is to simply kill the frequency zones
that are interfering with your ability to
create a cohesive drum sound and then blend
it in to taste. Alright guys, take care.