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Post by tonycamphd on Jan 31, 2014 14:54:27 GMT -6
Drums never sound good in a bad space, that is usually an assumption no? As far as telling a drummer to move cymbals,... If you find urself doing that, chances are more than 99% you're dealing with a garage band(I know u said before u deal with all kinds, u r saintly lol), I would never ask a real pro to change the locations of his gear, same as I would laugh in the face of an engineer who asked me to change my 30 year in the making set up. I mix myself in general, and the job of the engineer is to capture what I do, not change what I do. Producers can ask for different sounding snares/ cymbals, and even intensity, but logistics of set up? No way, it's tantamount to changing the action on a players personal guitar IMO I can tell you that a lot of bands don't have that assumption. Their assumption is that ANY room sound is a GOOD room sound, simply because they read "room sound" on SOS or GS and their bias is always that they'll be the one to make it work, where others have failed. Also, they tend to believe that a mix engineer will fix any and everything. I'm going to say it once again, most bands cannot or will not hear the bad in what they do. To them, everything they do is sacred. This goes a long way to making them sound good nigh impossible. Yeah it's a cynical way of looking at it, but I can't help that it's true. I don't see asking a professional to adjust their rig a bit for better sound, to be a bad thing. Mics don't hear things like humans do, so getting a good sound can mean having to change things. We do it for guitarists by changing amp heads, guitars, cabs, strings and adjusting each of them to get the best sound. We also change the tuning and heads of drums to get good sound while we add moongel and pads, etc, so why would asking a professional to adjust things be bad? If they are professional, they will understand. If they are professional, they are ABLE to adapt with ease. it's the unprofessional or inexperienced ones, in my experience, that cannot or will not adjust themselves to get a better sound. Chris, I hear you on everything except, asking a player to move his cymbals up or down, in or out is NOT the Same as changing an amp, strings or snare, I close my eyes a lot when I play, if u move one of my pieces an inch, I'm screwed lol Hey check the 1176 thread, HFE question, ur expertise is needed |
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Post by cenafria on Feb 1, 2014 2:03:17 GMT -6
I can tell you that a lot of bands don't have that assumption. Their assumption is that ANY room sound is a GOOD room sound, simply because they read "room sound" on SOS or GS and their bias is always that they'll be the one to make it work, where others have failed. Also, they tend to believe that a mix engineer will fix any and everything. I'm going to say it once again, most bands cannot or will not hear the bad in what they do. To them, everything they do is sacred. This goes a long way to making them sound good nigh impossible. Yeah it's a cynical way of looking at it, but I can't help that it's true. I don't see asking a professional to adjust their rig a bit for better sound, to be a bad thing. Mics don't hear things like humans do, so getting a good sound can mean having to change things. We do it for guitarists by changing amp heads, guitars, cabs, strings and adjusting each of them to get the best sound. We also change the tuning and heads of drums to get good sound while we add moongel and pads, etc, so why would asking a professional to adjust things be bad? If they are professional, they will understand. If they are professional, they are ABLE to adapt with ease. it's the unprofessional or inexperienced ones, in my experience, that cannot or will not adjust themselves to get a better sound. Chris, I hear you on everything except, asking a player to move his cymbals up or down, in or out is NOT the Same as changing an amp, strings or snare, I close my eyes a lot when I play, if u move one of my pieces an inch, I'm screwed lol Hey check the 1176 thread, HFE question, ur expertise is needed I try to leave asking the drummer to move anything as a last, last resort. I don't usually keep it as an option in my head. Even when they offer to move the cymbals themselves, I check that their playing doesn't suffer because of it. I record many drummers that have very little experience. These guys and gals sound from fine to amazing in the context of their band, but need to be comfortable and need mic choices and techniques that compliment their sound. Something I say to bands a lot lately goes along the lines of: "if you guys aren't comfortable while you're playing, I can put the superduper mics in front of your instrument, and we will get a shit sound". In my experience, the good sound comes with the good performance, or more accurately, bad performance always sounds bad. This seems a completely obvious conclusion, but it took me a while to understand all of it's consequences. Regarding changing the tuning of the kit. I have found that some tunings act as a kind of "compression" in the sense that the drum has less dynamic range. The problem with these set ups is that when the player plays a ten in the "player intensity scale", the toms will sound a seven in loudness and the cymbals will be reaching eleven : ) Svart, I know what you mean about some bands making assumptions. Usually, I ask the band what are the reasons behind those assumptions and try to understand what they are looking for and why. To me, this can be the hardest part of the job, specially if criteria and references change through the recording process. |
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