I recently came across an interesting drum lesson from Simon Phillips talking about drum playing with artistry and making a conscious decision to stop playing the bass drum during a fill because of the sonic effect it would have on the track if it was played : There are so many ways to record an instrument; there are so many ways to record a drum kit and I can probably sit here and talk for an hour about miking techniques and concepts but at the end of the day, in terms of giving advice, I think the most important thing is the playing and it’s knowing what to play in order to get the best sound.
One thing I figured out very early when I would do a take and then I would go back and listen, I realised that in some of my tom fills I was playing the bass drum. The problem is, that may be fine from a time keeping point of view, but sonically it doesn’t work because you’ve got a low frequency from the kick drum and you’ve got the low frequencies from the tom toms, it ends up in a way almost cancelling out and making the whole kit sound smaller…
Making the track sound smaller.
So what I started to do was actually, stop playing, except for the fill, but, the fill has to carry the groove, the groove must never stop. Once I figured that out I use that a lot.
I notice a lot of drummers will play and they will play the bass drum underneath, which is ok, but from a sonic point of view, the bass drum and the tom hitting at the same time will actually make it sound smaller. I stop playing the bass drum during the fill. That way it leaves a lot of air and a lot of space to reproduce the sound of these drums but without breaking the groove. It’s a little tip, but something I found very very useful.
And this goes with a lot of things.
In order to get the right sound, it’s not just the tuning, it’s the way you approach it, the level that you play out, playing a little bit quieter will pull more tone out of the drum. Groove wise, if you’re having trouble with the groove, if you lighten up a little bit the groove will start to happen. There’s all these little studio tricks to do, they’re not really tricks, it’s just a concept, that’s all it is really.
So that’s a little concept to start with.
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