Taming tom resonance

PolarityMan

Just been doing a littel mixing, electronic drums but i guess the prinicple is the same mixing a real kit.

At the moment I normally stick all my toms on a stereo buss and treat them all with a single fx chain, what Im finding though is that Im having a hard time controlling the resonance of the floor tom.

I'm using a compressor with a slowish attack and fast release to try to highlight the transients but I cant seem to get it right for the low toms, also tried gating but sounds way too unnatural.

Any tips? Maybe I need to EQ and compress the floor tom seperately?

guitarfishbay

Yeah EQ each Tom separately IMO. I compress separately too. The first step is to try reducing the resonant frequency. Find it by sweeping the eq. If you aren't in a rush - Instead of using a gate, you may be able to get a better result through automating the volume by hand. Are you using Tom samples that sound like they have been hit hard to start with?

PolarityMan

its BFD but ive had similar issues with real drums too

guitarfishbay

Is it a BFD 3 stock kit?

Cirrus

Well, if it was a real drum kit I'd deal with a particular problem tom first by tuning, then damping, then by mic placement. If the recording was done I'd process the individual track to fix any problem areas.

If you're using electronic toms, I guess the easiest solution would be to find a different floor tom sample.

Failing that, yes, process it individually. I take from your post that the attack and pitch are ok, it's just that there's some overbearing frequencies in the sustain. A couple of notch EQs would probably deal with that, just sweep them around until you find the problem harmonics.

If that doesn't help, you could try an expander that doesn't affect the attack but ducks the sustain lower - even a multiband expander if you can narrow the issue down to particular frequencies (quite often I find annoying tom sustain, certainly with my drummer, happens at 1.5 to 2 times the fundamental - so if the weight of the floor tom it at say 80hz there will be resonances around 120-160hz that bother me). Dynamic EQ might also help, on similar principles to multiband expansion.

If none of that works, you could always ride the fader!

Also it goes without saying I'm sure but sometimes it's good to take all the processing off, just get a level and pan mix going on, and see if it's still a problem then. And if it is, what feels like the quickest and most effective solution at that point, when you're not having to listen through layers of channel, subgroup and bus processing?

octatonic

I bus toms so they each have their own compression and EQ treatments, then they get summed together for a global tom fader, which gets automated.

It is rare that I need to automate individual tom levels but I can tweak a few things if need be.

Sometimes the Tom bus gets a compressor or an Eq, sometimes not. 

They almost always get the Slate Tape emulator though.

Something else worth considering is what filters you have in place.

I love a big weighty floor tom but you don't need to have the bottom end open all the way to 40z to get that- some judicious filtering below the significant frequencies of the individual drums.

Also look at sidechaining- if I need a particular tom line to pop out I'll key the track to whatever else might be obscuring it, usually bass or guitars so that they duck to let the toms through.

This takes a bit of time to get right- it is easy to overuse- a 1-2db drop is sometimes all you need.

Finally, compressor choice can be important.

A lot of the time I'll print the the toms with a hardware compressor- I have a Distressor here that sounds great with some toms.

Printing the effect reduces options when you come to mix time (which in itself can be good) but if you have access to a fantastic sounding compressor it can take all the hard work out of it.

Sometimes, with plugins, no amount of tweaking fixes the problem.

I assume you are using plugins here- what compressors and EQ's are you using?

Some good tom plugins: Slate VBC, Waves C4, Apex Aural Exciter, The Glue, Waves 1176, SPL Transient Designer.

My EQ plugin of choice is Equilibrium.

PolarityMan

As gas as compression and eq goes Right now I don't have anything installed except the reaper built in plugins. Have used a cracked copy of waves in the past but want to stay totally legit these days and am still mulling my options for dropping some money on some plugs. Don't want to spend more than a few hundred for the basics really.