Aux fed sub - one or two lines in?

[WK154]

The kick drum didn't have a lot of presence in the subwoofer.
Did you have it in phase? Dave Rat has a good explanation on YouTube on drum setup. Google and you shall find.

[Greg C.]

I agree that the kick mic needs to go inside the drum. The further in the better. I'm a fan of large port holes in the front head. Small holes suck and no hole is the worst. Depending on the genre of music, you may want some kick beater "click" to help define the kick. For anything modern, at least a small amount. For metal or punk, more to ridiculous amounts can be the order of the day. Putting the kick mic in closer to the beater helps get that attack along with isolating the kick mic from drum bleed. More old school jazz or blue grass type genres usually require a more woofy kick with no click. But modern versions of those genres may call for it. Keep in mind with micing anything that the closer it is to the source the, the less bleed you get. The main reasons is that less gain is required to get the level you need which means less gain for picking up other sources.


As for overheads, unless you're doing large venues, I'd recommend using them just to get the "sparkle" and ping of the metal. I generally run mine high passed all the way up with an additional shelf added so they're mostly reinforcing above 5kHz. In the rooms I'm working in, the cymbals have more than enough of their own "body" going out into the room and putting too much mids in the overheads only makes the mix worse. You don't really want them reinforcing the rest of the kit like a studio. Drums give off a lot of their own sound into the room plus the close micing through the PA. No need to add more overall "wash" to the kit sound in the PA.

[Greg C.]

Also of note for the Audix D6 if you use one - don't place it half way in the port hole. The diaphragm of the capsule can be damaged by port air turbulence apparently. So all the way in (or out if need be).

[Wynnd]

One other thing on kicks, you can't just feed them to the subs.  Subs are important to their sound, but they also include higher overtones that need to get to the audience too.  So if you happened to only feed the kick to the subs, that was your mistake.  They also need some EQing unique to kick drums.  Try the kick drum settings as a starting point.  As to mic position?  I don't have a clue, but once you set the mic up, don't change it until you're sure the channel adjustments don't meet your needs.  (The drummer has always setup his own kick mic, so I only needed to deal with the EQ, trim and fader.)

[websterama]

I did another show at the same venue last night so got a 2nd run at this.
Made a whole bunch of adjustments based on the feedback here and got better results.
Changed the position of the mic, gave it a bit more gain than last time, and fed it to both sub and mains (with HPF set on the mains to keep from overlapping too much).
Outcome was better sounds and more presence, both for kick and floor tom.

The toms actually had a bit too much sustain (in general) for my liking. I had modified the threshold on the gates in order to minimize spillover, but I guess perhaps I need to look at release as well.
The line-out from the bass amp really sounded great through the sub, along with the low end from the keys.


There was also a conga used in part of this show (some Santana of course), so I moved one of my overheads for that, and repositioned the remaining overhead in the center of the main kit.
Only modification I needed to make on the fly was reducing the frequency of the HPF on that mic because I had set it for just capturing cymbals on the main kit.
When I switched it to the congas of course it was missing a lot of low/mid stuff, which I quickly realized and easily adjusted to bring back.

The main discovery I made this show is that the internal recording off the main signal is useful for mixing into a live room recording, but not much good on its own.
If I'd thought about it much I would have anticipated why pretty easily. Keyboards and vocals were too heavy, while guitar and bass were too low.
Guitar, because I'd set the levels in the mains lower than other instruments because they had big tube amps on stage creating additional volume vs. keys that didn't.
And bass because I had high passed the mains to keep a bunch of the bass in the sub (which obviously doesn't get recorded by the app).

Next time I'll use aux 5&6 to feed a custom, more balanced mix to the XLR inputs on my Zoom H4N and see how that goes.
Frankly I was too busy making adjustments on the fly during the show to have really paid much attention to it last night but expect with practice I could do both.

Overall, the DL1608 has been perfect for me as a novice. I didn't have any analog stuff to unlearn, and it's easy enough to experiment without feeling like I'm going to break anything.
And wandering to the middle of the house to mix from the audience is the only way I can imagine ever doing this.

Thanks again for all your help!

[WK154]

The kick drum didn't have a lot of presence in the subwoofer.
Did you have it in phase? Dave Rat has a good explanation on YouTube on drum setup. Google and you shall find.

Here is the YouTube presentation. Miking and mix setup isn't all that straight forward. With or without the drum fill it's still valid. Worth understanding and easy to test.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPxxzswyoVg

[Greg C.]

I'd be leery of presets in any case. Especially when it comes to gate and compressor settings. By all means, mess with the threshold/range (attenuation)/attack/hold/release on gates. Every drum is different. No one gate setting will worth with all drums. Only use as much range as needed to kill the excessive ring when the gate is closed. Too much with a fast attack will cause audible clicks when the gate opens. The needed range can be as little as 6dB or as much as 20dB. Minimal range also allows more of the attack during the hits to get through. Use as fast as attack as possible without audible clicks once again to ensure you get as much attack as possible. Work the hold and release controls to create as natural of an envelope as possible so the ring cutoff doesn't sound artificial (unless that's what you want). Hold is how long the gate stays full open after the threshold is surpassed and Release is how long the gate takes to ramp down to close once the hold period has ended. It's too bad the DL's gates don't have frequency based side chain triggering. This would allow you to set the frequency range that triggers the gate to open which can be very helpful for preventing other drums from trigging the gate by allowing you to zero in on the frequency for a particular drum that's prominent.

[WK154]

Off course you could bypass most of this and go electronic with a Roland V series, Yamaha DTX or Alesis DM series usually over your drummers dead body  . It's a lot lighter and quicker to setup and tear down and it gives the drummer CONTROL an important tradeoff for going electronic. It still looks big and impressive. 

[websterama]

Funny, the drummer in this case is actually my daughter.
And we do own a Yamaha DTX500 which she sometimes uses for practice when other folks in the house are sleeping or if we are traveling.
You are right, much easier to transport and set up. And now that you mention it, must be a piece of cake to get sounding great through the PA.
But for a 13 year old, you'd be amazed at how much of an acoustic kit bigot she already is.
One of her teachers must have poisoned her mind a couple years back
But as I'm the one who hauls her gear around, it's certainly something I'll re-suggest she looks at for certain gigs.
thanks for the reminder.

[Greg C.]

As a former touring/recording drummer, I can say factually that there's no substitute for real drums when it comes to feel, power, and nuanced dynamics. If your daughter wants real drums, you'll never talk her out of it

Greg

[RoadRanger]

The main advantage to eDrums is that an OK drummer can play the smaller quieter places. A great drummer can do the same with a smaller kit and a light touch - but that is less "fun" than bashing the heck out of a full acoustic kit too LOL.

[WK154]

Ah.. yes the open minded highly opinionated musicians are at it again. Sorry I couldn't resist that  . Were have I heard this before ah my wife would rather use a out of tune "real piano" instead of a Yamaha P90 with studio monitors. never mind that you couldn't get a C note out of it on a good day. Tuning would last about a week after that you had to extract paperclips, pencils and other objects out of the hammers (middle school). Oh there was an advantage it held piles of sheet music. So now we need the endorsement of Ringo Starr or Mat Flynn and that will happen as soon as Sir Elton stops pounding on million dollar toys. But for the rest of you playing in small gigs and tight places it should be a boon and make room for bigger speakers in the van. Careful though these rigs can be pretty pricey $7K+ for a Roland V.

[walterw]

...fed it to both sub and mains (with HPF set on the mains to keep from overlapping too much).
Outcome was better sounds and more presence, both for kick and floor tom.

that's how you're supposed to do it!

keep the tops high-passed at wherever the sub starts at (so it doesn't overlap at all), and anything that goes into the sub still goes into the tops, too.

[Wynnd]

Glad things went so well.  New equipment is always a bit of a learning curve. 

[Topsøe]

Also of note for the Audix D6 if you use one - don't place it half way in the port hole. The diaphragm of the capsule can be damaged by port air turbulence apparently. So all the way in (or out if need be).

Yes and your car may crash so better leave it at home , i have done 1000 + gigs with a D6 half way in the port on an ez-clip