kh Posted September 4, 2002 Share Posted September 4, 2002 primary post in massenburg forum, but being a drummer.... anyone ever heard of this happening? any reasons/ideas why please! i'm going nuts! finished tracking acoustic drums (close mic'ed) and went on to mixing. the engineer built a preliminary mix and the drums practically disappeared behind the other instruments (vox, acou guit, bass, bk vox). the engineer said the output levels on the drums were maxed (dp3's limiting and compression applied, small eq tweaks) so there was little more that could be done to make the drums have more presence and punch. (we also lowered the relative levels of the other tracks but that didn't help the situation much.) my best guess was that the orignal recording levels must have been low, but the engineer says that this is not the case. i'm stupefied; this has NEVER happened in over 20 years of recording. and it continues... i went back and retracked with an electronic kit and the same problem! i'm ready to call it quits with this engineer because, to me, this just shouldn't be happening/makes no logical sense!!! i must be missing something here. his setup:-dp3-motu 898 firewire-g3 powerbook-15'x20'x8' room Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jazzman Posted September 5, 2002 Share Posted September 5, 2002 Did you listen to the mix with the drums alone? I would mute all of the instruments, then I would play back each track starting with the drum parts first, then bass, then guitar, etc. This way he may have dubed over on a track not knowing he had a wrong setup on the board(computer?) when he was recording. You may be hearing a reflection of drums on one track onto another one and not getting the seperation, or the true sound of the drums tracked alone as miked. This should not be happening, unless he has a wrong cable connection somewhere, or if he is using the computer for the mixing, maybe a routing,switch,or program might be having problems. I'm stumped too! But I would look at each track and hear if other instruments are heard in the track that you are reviewing. If that's the case FIRE THE ENGINEER! The only other thing would be that the volumes as you suggested are low, the mikes and/or cables are bad, or the connections in the computer are shot and grounded out(bad jack connection to the computer). Have you used this guy before? Check out some of his other work as a check on his knowledge of the system. He's the one that created the sound, the real sound was in the room when you played! Especially when the drums are closed miked! I'm not familiar with the gear that you mentioned that he is using to track with, all of my sound goes through a Mackie mixing board then to DA88's, then to my Tascam DAT, then to HHb CD burner. I don't know if this helps any, let us know what you find out. My fade-out..... Jazzman Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kh Posted September 5, 2002 Author Share Posted September 5, 2002 thanks for the ideas jazzman! he is recording through a motu 898 firewire interface into digital performer on a mac-- no hardware board to speak of. other stuff i've heard of his sound fine; mine does not. i think he's just in over his head with this project. i am taking all the tracks and going to start from scratch myself. i want to see if i can unravel this situation from the ground->up and from the inside->out. i can't seem to make any progress working WITH the engineer so it's time to move on. any findings of worth will be posted on the massenburg forum. take care.-k Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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