[bobbyharlow]

Ah nice! Thank you. Yeah, it’s the opposite of a live kit. I’m usually chasing the body of the toms, but in this circumstance, I’m chasing the attack. Thanks for the great tip! Speaking of the live kits, years ago, I did a record for an artist who had a very rhythmic pattern going on the floor tom — the problem was the song was mellow and beautiful, but the floor tom sounded like a basketball. I ended up sampling the kick drum and replacing the floor tom with it. It sounded incredible and worked flawlessly. This may be a fairly common solution, but for those who haven’t tried it yet and need a prominent, punchy, and warm floor tom rhythm, it could be a lifesaver. 😉

1

Thanked by: Mac McCormick

[bobbyharlow]

UPDATE:

This may help somebody who was struggling like me — after exploring some of the options suggested by the cool people above, I’ve arrived at a sound that’s much closer to a real drummer.

First of all, Jason is 100% correct. ALL of the atmospheric channels need to be turned on. What I didn’t realize is that these channels are muted in the side menu. I just assumed that there wasn’t any info to send (depending on the kit selected) because I never saw levels on them. Nope, all have to be manually engaged. I highlighted each one of these: Center, Surround, Front Height, Rear Height, & Reverb. I turned on every piece of the kit. Then I went through every regular channel (kick, snare, high-hat, etc) and turned on the bleed for every instrument — no exceptions.

I then went to my isolated tom channels and applied the EQ — I chose two in succession: EQ “mud remover” preset and the EQ84 “OH crisp” preset. What this did was lob off all that overwhelming low end and exaggerated the attack. I did this because there’s a lot of weight coming from the overhead (and the rest of the room mics), and I want the toms to feel like they’re part of the kit, not sitting on top and bottoming out every time they hit (especially after hard classic rock compression).

I left all of the channels balanced the way SD3 has them. I didn’t touch them — reason being is that SD3 probably took a lot of time to balance their kits so we don’t have to. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. However, I opted to send all of the kit channels out to individual channels in my DAW (Logic), so I can apply quality plugins and fine-tune the mix.

In my DAW, I’ve routed the kick, high-hat, and overhead to Bus 1. The snare is a straight stereo out to preserve dynamics, rather than including it in the main drum bus where I’ll compress. The toms have been routed to their own bus (bus 2) so I can have easy control over the group level, and that bus is routed to bus 1 with the rest of the kit. All of the room mics are routed to bus 3, which gives me a single fader to control the amount of atmosphere.

Because I’m going for the classic ’70s rock sound (big and tight sound), I’ve opted to mono out all of the room mics, with the exception of the “surround” channel (still stereo). What this did was focus the sound so it was punchier and less smeary. I’ve smashed these through the Waves Abbey Road Studios TG12345. The reason I left the surround channel in stereo is so I could sneak it in conservatively, to create a seemingly wider field without cymbals moving from left to right.

Lastly, on the main drum bus, I’ve added the UAD V76 preamp + the UAD 660 Fairchild. On my independent snare channel, I’ve added the UAD V76 pre to give it some crisp, vintage tube sizzle.

I can imagine routing the whole kit to a parallel bus and compressing the heck out of it to sneak it in the mix slightly for more power if need be.

For anyone interested, I’m using a blend of “Custom & Vintage” and “Decades” packs to zero in on a proper thuddy, vintage drum sound.

To my ears, the above is a great starting point and has relieved a tremendous headache. Thank you all for your help. Hopefully, this update will help out somebody trying to get their head around this. Superior Drummer is by no means a “plug-and-play” tool. It is, but don’t expect the drums to sound like a drummer giving it their all. That said, the key points made by the above users made all the difference in the world. Thanks, again.

• The post has been modified 2 times, last modified 4 years, 12 months ago by bobbyharlow.

2

Thanked by: Jason Moore LAc and glowtone

[bobbyharlow]

You guys rule. Thanks a million for these super thoughtful comments. I’m going to try all of this. I’m sitting here under headphones now stressing over these darn toms. I’ve never over-thought drums this much in my life! ha. Thanks for the encouragement and great tips. I’ve got much of the UAD stuff and 64Gb of ram — so, I don’t have any limitations. My whole kit sounds great — except these toms are killing me. I’m working on a “stadium rock” project. Listening a lot to classic bands for inspiration. If anybody has the secret to the Boston sound, let me know — and the secret to the songs — and the money. All of it would work for me. 😉 Thanks, again!

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