Live Sound Story

[flemingmras]

I went out Saturday night to watch my drummer play with a buddy of mine's band called Hard Times. My buddy's got a killer PA system but with a limited front end(mixing/processing).

I walked in and I could feel the subs kickin', but the drum mix didn't have quite the amount of top end "snap" on it that my drummer and I like. I let my buddy know to add more top to the kit all the way across, in which he boosted the highs up on the drum channels. Didn't seem to make much of a difference. So I told him I'd handle it.

Now my drummer has DW drums(THE drums to have), and I have all the drum mic's mounted INSIDE of the drum shells. I'm running an Audix Fusion F12 in his 16" floor tom, while his 14" floor tom and the 12" rack tom have an Audix Fusion F10, and the kick has an Audix D6 Sub Impulse mic. The snare was miked with an SM57(love those for snare mics). They weren't running an overhead, which I didn't like too well, but oh well.

First thing I did was flatten the high and low EQs while using between 3-6dB of cut at 200Hz on each drum. I then punched the gain up on the kick channel. I was about to take the gain up to the point where the clip indicator came on but I started to hear more of the beater "click" come through long before it came on, so the kick was dialed in.

Next was the snare. Took some bottom off of it, set a 6dB cut at about 800Hz(to bring more of the "snap" out), maxed out the gain, then brought up the fader. Snare had lots of snap, however with no gates I couldn't gate out the ring so I was stuck with that.

Next...the toms. Maxed out the gain, Lows/Highs flat, with 4-5dB cut at 200Hz, low cut filters engaged(to kill the ring without gates and take some boominess out).

Stand back...listen...NOW the drums are KICKIN' and have LOTS of snap, ala Vinnie Paul. FUCK YEAH!

Then my buddy gets me up to play and lets me play the rest of the set. By the third song, he comes up to me and goes "I don't know what the fuck you did but those drums are fuckin' SLAMMIN'!" I told him I'd show him when I was done playing.

At the break I showed him how to never use the EQ for boost, but that by using cut he can get more gain from the trim and the EQ becomes MUCH more effective.

Then I went out to smoke a cigarette, and another friend of mine who happens to be a drummer was there. I said to him "What do you think of the drum mix?" And he goes "Oh, you mean the triggers?" I was like "Oh HELL NO you did NOT just say TRIGGERS!" I said to him "Uh, no, they're mic'ed" and he's like "No they're not" and I was like "Uh, dude, yeah they are" and he goes "Where are the mics?" And I was like "I mounted them INSIDE his drums" and he's like "Oh no shit!?"

That's just fuckin' funny that I was able to get a drum mix so clean, tight and punchy that even a drummer thought they were triggered. That's just fuckin' great!

George, I know you got some live sound stories so post some!

Jon