What about reggae kick and snare.

Thanks! :)

Thanks!

Thanks! :)

Thanks!

Appreciate it!

Thanks!!

Thanks! This is a topic I have on the "to do" list. I haven't really sat down and thought of a good way to present the information since there are really at least 3 major ways to approach it depending on whether it's a live or studio setting, and whether it's more of a 'natural' method or more of a 'modern' method (think: Jazz vs Rock/Modern Country... or somewhere in between).

Thanks! Added that to the notes for future video ideas/plans. :)

Current pricing has the MR18 at 599.00... Like only 40-50.00 more than the XR18. So, you get the upgraded pre's and a 10 year warranty for 50.00 more. At least that's what it was the last time I looked at Sweetwater. While there might be some argument how much you'd notice the preamps in a lot of live settings, there's not much dispute the MR18's are usually more preferred, and add in that 10 year warranty, and it's an easy decision right now. Thanks for watching! :)

I usually start with a tom preset and the gate is already enabled... so unless there's something really wrong in the starting EQ, I loosen the gate so it's not doing much. Then I fine tune the EQ on the tom, ...and then fine tune and tighten the gate. So, technically, I'm doing the gate second I guess, but it's sort of being done at the same time in a way too. Especially since one thing can affect the other. I'm usually not using the gates to shorten the toms (unless the drums are tuned really poorly). I'm using them to keep the other stuff out of the tom mics.

Vocals, I've touched on EQ in the 5 Tips For Better Live Vocal Mixes video: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/pbZkpseh0NGymI0.html I keep planning a bass guitar EQ tips video, but just have never gotten around to it. Things like electric guitars, I tend to not do much EQ work except for the use of the HPF and opt to tweak the mic position first. Of course, sometimes something just needs cut, or something (usually low mids) just needs a bump to fatten a thin guitar sound.

I almost always use a gate on kick and toms. Rarely on snare, and moreso on a bottom snare mic if I do. Ghost strokes that a lot of drummers use makes it a bit challenging to gate a snare in a live situation and not lose some of those. ...Unless it's something like big band/jazz. Then no gates are more the norm. But I'm more (usually) using the gates to keep other things out of the drum mics rather than trying to reshape/shorten the drums. But, that depends on the drum tuning. If there's a droning tom, then I will be gating that to do something about the length of that tom. That said, without an engineer listening to what it happening during performance levels then it gets tougher. Hopefully the drummer tunes the drums well enough that the only thing gating is mainly doing (or wanted for) is just keeping other sounds out of the drum mics. Just so there aren't a bunch of open mics onstage. So they are gated 'most' of the time, except when that particular drum is being struck. At that point, and with no engineer, you can be a bit conservative since you're not trying to kill a droning tom with a gate vs drum tuning. Maybe the gates open more than they should, but overall are closed. Maybe every drum gate opens with a snare hit and you can live with that if you have to. What you don't want is the drummer having to change their playing style and really HIT the drums hard just to open a gate when they play. On a mixer/gate with frequency selective gating, you can set the gate to open on a more of a selected frequency range. This lets you dial in the threshold a little more conservatively, yet the gate be closed when it needs to be closed. The full signal still passes through the open gate, but the frequency setting tells the gate what sound/frequency to open on. So you can set it so 80Hz of the kick opens the gate but 1K of the nearby snare won't open the kick gate. Or 100Hz opens the toms gate (which the tom likely produces) but not the ting of the ride cymbal that is not likely doing much of anything at 100Hz.

Thanks for taking the time to reply. Much appreciated!

It's been a while but likely was Steven Slate drums. One of the less processed kits to allow for a bit more aggressive settings. If you want to hear the process played out with a full band, check out this video: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/oZinmtGBtq_Dmac.html The room mic on the camera is not exactly representative overall, but I switch away from that in certain points to the console recording which is a much cleaner listen. So there's a bit of context and reference as the video goes along.

A few things... One, gating would really need to be an entirely different video, or a second part. There are many things to consider, including subjective things and technical things. Genre, drummer, style, how well the drums are tuned overall, etc... So, that leads to the second part: A well tuned drum, played well, doesn't even necessarily need gating. If the natural sound of the drum is nice and round, not overly "Boingy" and uneven, and it fits the music, there's no reason to kill the decay of that necessarily. Of course, on the spectrum of jazz to speedmetal eventually that could change because subjective and genre enters that equation more and more. Also, here in 2021, automatically gating drums to shorten the decay has gave way to gating more to remove other things from the tom mics. So the gate's job is more to keep stage wash, cymbals, other drums, out of the drum channels and only open the gate when the drum is hit. So, IOW, keep the drum itself natural, round, with natural decay, but gate out things the mic would be randomly picking up when open but that drum not being played. Many drummers simply don't want their drum sound impacted, or overly impacted, by gates. And if they are tuning the drums for the genre of music they are playing, in a way that fits the band, and playing consistently within the dynamics of the music and what it calls for, then the gate needs to work with that, not fight it. Of course, there are some drummers, especially less experienced ones, where the drum will ring incessantly, with nasty overtones, and unevenness... and that generally requires a different approach over the natural approach. In that case, it IS time to shorten the decay of the drum(s) and rely more on the attack and initial few milliseconds of the drum's sound and not the following second or seconds of a nasty, pitchy, warbly ring. Long story short... This video would've lost its focus on EQ if it went into gating too. Especially, without spending a lot of time on gating and the subjective issues, and different approaches over time. And probably would've been best served with a drummer added showing us examples of good and bad tuning, and even examples of how they might tune/play/approach things differently depending on the genre and style of the band/music. Which is a good idea for a future video.

@@AlanHamiltonAudio Hello Alan, and thank you very much for what you do in your excellent videos, and for this detailed response. I was just suggesting using EQ to remove some of the ring, and not using gating. I use gating in exactly the way you discuss it in your reply, not for removing unwanted ringing. I worked a live event this weekend, and had to sound-check the drums very quickly, so was under a lot of pressure, but did have some ringing on the rack tom, which I quickly killed by notching the appropriate frequency using the parametric on it's channel. I had the kick and snare gated properly to avoid cymbal noise, and the rack tom, but not the floor tom. Sounded better without it. I do agree with you 100% that good sound starts with good talent, and a well-tuned kit, so fortunately I get to work with a lot of older cats that know their stuff. This last weekend though, I had a bit of a challenge with a very small kit for a live outdoor event, which was a surprise. Actually had to boost lower frequencies on just about every drum to get the right sound. Normally don't have to do that. Also, I was wondering if you had a video on how a person goes about hooking up the "virtual" or "robot" drum channels that you use to do a virtual drum check. I know it involves having a multi-track .WAV file, but beyond that, I don't know how this is done. I would love to be able to do this. Thank you for all of your help and guidance!

Most of time enginners have to use" drastiquely " gate and eq to eliminate ringings on tom but the result is that you have no more sound and you have to put a lot of reverb to enhance your toms'sound, witch is ridiculous! THE BEST THING IS TO HAVE WELL TUNED TOMS, WITH LOW END, ATTACK BUT NO RINGING.........A CHALLENGE !

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