comp, gating, eq on drum recording!

[Ethan01]

Hi Guys,

I recorded 11 songs for my band on my drums this past weekend. They sounded quite raw and acoustic, and I like it. I need help for the next step, as I don't have much experience with adding compression, gating, equalizer, and general mixing. Is there any good free web service that explains exactly what each does? I don't want to leave this to our guitar player (who happens to know how this stuff works) cause I'm afraid he's going to make me sound like a big booming drummer, where I want to retain the acoustic feel and keep it snazzy/sparkly with the snare having pop.

Thanks for the help!

[Ian Ballard]

I don't really think this is a "technique" thread. You should re-post in the General Discussion Forum.

[larryace]

Recording is complex, mastering tracks even more so. There is just so much to learn, you're opening a giant can of worms here. Start reading everything you can, but most of all start experimenting with your equipment, listen to the playback, adjust, etc. It's very time consuming

[caddywumpus]

A couple of books that explain a lot in layman's terms are...

Musician's Guide to Home Recording

-and-

Guerilla guide to home recording (I think that's close to what it was called)

...and, above all else, experiment! The best way to use these effects is to make it appear as if you didn't use them at all!

[larryace]

What you're asking is akin to asking, hey, how do I do a quadruple bypass, I have this guy who needs one quick. It's a lifetime study to understand, you'd better get busy. Plus your particular equipment will behave differently than another manufacturers. You need to learn what you own first. Sorry for the lack of real advice, listen to what Caddy says. He's NEVER wrong.

[Ethan01]

I mean i completely understand how much is involved. I was more interested in the sort of "definitions" of what compression does to the sound waveform. I come from a scientific background, and I was looking for information about what these things actually do to the waveform... not how do I get my drums to sound like this (maybe I didn't make it very clear in the 1st post). For example, I know that equalizer can let you pick a range of frequency and increase/decrease their levels.

I'll try to repost this in the general forums. I'm not looking to become a master at this sort of thing for effects, but use it to get what I need from my recordings.

[dairyairman]

i can tell you a little about compression. compression compresses the dynamic range of the recording so there isn't such a spread between soft sounds and loud sounds. it tends to make everything more equally loud. if you used maximum compression, then everything really would be equally loud. in terms of the waveform, the original waveform would have many peaks with a wide range of amplitudes. after compression there'd still be all those peaks but the range of amplitudes wouldn't be as great.