As a quick fix, a lot of engineers reach for a sidechain input on the gate and trigger each of the tom hits off of a separately programmed track.

Gates have been one of the most common tools to remove cymbal bleed, but they’re rarely effective at catching softer tom hits. Worst-case scenario – you’re changing the sound of your tom, the pickup pattern of your microphone, and possibly creating unwanted resonant frequencies and early reflections.

In the best-case scenario, you’re attenuating the cymbal bleed a bit, but rarely all of it. You’re creating a pocket of resonance around an already resonant instrument. This practice isn’t too different from a singer “cupping” a microphone. In another effort to overcompensate for a problem at the source, wrapping microphones in foam or other material in an effort to isolate toms happens way too often.īy doing this, you’re changing the way your microphone is picking up sound. There are some weird rituals that artists have, but as engineers this isn’t one we should be involved with. Don’t cheapen your sound at the source because you might end up trying to add some of that sustain back in later. The easiest solution for this one is a properly tuned drum kit and some well-placed processing in the mix. The problem is that while these approaches all dampen the ring, they rob the drums of their natural sound, and suck the tone out of your kit. Other variations of this practice include placing things like wallets, cloth, or even duct tape on the drums. The concept behind the gel is simple: put a tacky substance on your drum head and it will absorb some of the vibration coming from your drum. Moongel is probably the most used tool by drummers to soak up excessive ring from toms, but in actuality, you’re sucking up your tone. Here are some of the worst offenders: STOP Using Moongel

Sure, we think we’re helping with some of the most common band-aids to aid a suffering tom, but most of the time we’re just sucking up the life of the most common instrument in popular music. Produced at Frankin Studios Munich: Guitar ESP LTD EC-1008 Evertune BLK: Amp Hughes & Kettner Tubemeister 18: Chair: Main Camera GoPro Hero 6: Wah Camera iPhone X: Guitar Camera Logitech Brio: MacBook Pro 13,3': DAW Steinberg Cubase 9.We can blame the drummer, engineer, mixer, or whoever else might have a hand in the final drum sound on a recording, but the fact of the matter is: we beat the crap out of our drum tone.

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Joey sturgis superior drummer