Studio annoyance; venting! proceed with caution!

I like the phrase "remind him of who is paying him". If that doesn't work, remind him in no uncertain terms the band is paying HIM, not the other way around and if he has a problem with suggestions from band members, maybe the band needs to find another sound guy.

Life is too short to deal with dicks like him.
 
Kev, the popping sound is a clear indicator of a very very elementary mistake, which suggests that your engineer doesn't actually know how to use gates properly...and therefore isn't a very good mix engineer, if he can't handle basic dynamic processing.
You get a click when a waveform ends without reaching the 'zero crossing point', i.e. the point between positive and negative signals, caused here by the gate cutting in and out. This could be easily remedied by simply increasing the release time on the gate by one millisecond!

It seems like he's not very confidant about his mixing abilities, as if he were then he could take your suggestions on board comfortably and get the job done. Instead he's evidently saying 'well, I can't do that because of this problem and that problem, so we'll have to do it this one impractical and time-consuming way', the preserve of every cowboy builder and bodge-job handyman around.

Bingo. I was thinking the same thing. The engineer has the gate settings too aggressive and doesn't know how to fix it and he's going on the offensive to shut down any questions about it.
 
yeah, this guy sounds inexperienced, and is being stubborn and ignorant, so he'll probably never be a good engineer. Either that, or he's a guitarist, and only wants to hear the guitars blazing over everything else, and the drums are just in the way, and need to be controlled- a common situation.

This situation sounds like mine, but the engineer was the guitarist in my band, and he simply was learning on the job, and didn't know what he was doing at the time. The guitars sounded great, though.
 
This same technique has been used by engineers to isolate every percussion note so that they can move it to a better place in drum performances that are a bit sloppy. Without hearing the original recording, it's hard to conclusively figure out who's being the most stubborn here.
 
Does the sound guy even hear what you are hearing or is he just stubborn with his gating?
It's sad when said professional does not hear obvious mixing errors but it happens. If you are at odds because he thinks the drums sound good all gated like that? You may have a problem because he is hearing things different and/or
is a "my way or the highway type"....

It is even more sad when the guy who has selective hearing also has an ego problem.
This guy should be willing to change up his routine if you are not happy
with the drum sound. That is part of being an engineer and if he says anything like: "mastering will fix it" he is not at the proper skill set yet to be called an engineer.

you have to start with good sounds to get good sounds in the end.

if I were you I would try to reach a compromise with the gating and only gate the toms. You should get a good mix in the overheads first and augment that sound with the close mic's - pretty standard stuff - sounds like he is doing it backwards....

Are you a metal band? I have heard of massive gating in metal music for that really dry
separated sound - not my cup of tea.

try to get your band mates to support you how ever you can.
The drums are really important for a good mix.

I too would love to hear a sample so I know what were talking bout here but that's probably not in the cards with your engineer fellow at the helm.
 
Sprectron has a good idea about only gating the toms. That's all I ever gate. Even at that, not very much. If you gate each mic to the point where all you can hear is that one drum, to me it just sounds lifeless. You'd be better off with drum replacement software, which I'm very against. I just gate my toms down to where only things like the snare and nearby cymbals can open it up outside of the drum it's aimed at. It shouldn't be clicking at all. The others gave some good pointers about the release time and all that.

This is just my opinion. Some engineers disagree with me. But, I use as little comp/EQ/gate as humanly possible. Before I go reaching for all that (which some people do even before listening), I look at tuning, heads, mic selection, mic placement, exactly how I'm playing (like maybe back off the snare, but play the hi-hats a bit louder)...things like that. While it's true close-micing is so you can work with individual drums during mixing, at the end of the day, just like the mix with all the instruments has to work together, so too do all your drum tracks. Part of what I like about my snare sound comes from the overhead mics.

So anyway, it seems like you were happy with the raw drum tracks. What did your bandmates think before the engineer chimed in (I.E. Before he had a chance to influence opinion)? You have the high road here because you were willing to compromise, which is a great thing. As the drummer, and one of the guys footing the bill for this, they have to work with you, just like you're attempting to work with them. They wouldn't like it if this guy choked their guitars and vocals. Maybe that will happen and they'll see.

Don't back down on getting them to meet you halfway. When I record folks, even if they don't know the first thing about recording, I let them try whatever they want. I just give advice when asked. That way everyone feels like their ideas are as important as anyone else's and they're happy.

Seriously....don't back down.
 
Whatever the engineer says to you about this or that, I would just keep saying to him..."But I don't like it, it's unacceptable".

I really don't get the overtone hate. I think they add so much realness to the sound. On my little home recordings the only muffling is my kick because I prefer that sound. Toms and snare close miced wide open, with all their glorious overtones. When they are blended with the other instruments, they sound like drums should. Not only that, but a pop recording that lets the drums sing out...kinda rare. It really grabs your ear. Come to think of it the last time a real set of drums was used on a pop recording was like 1992 I think.

Just for laughs, I would get an unloaded gun and put it to his head, then do your best badass impression and tell him just how serious you are about the sound you want.
 
if I were you I would try to reach a compromise with the gating and only gate the toms. You should get a good mix in the overheads first and augment that sound with the close mic's - pretty standard stuff - sounds like he is doing it backwards....

To be fair you can do it both ways round, it depends on the sound you're going for, and also how good the room sound is. If you want a hyperreal metal or heavy rock sound, the overheads are just doing the high harmonics and cymbals, almost all the tone is coming from the close mics. Also, if you leave the tom mics open all the time it sounds great with just the drums, but in a whole mix can be very muddy. Makes the toms much easier to EQ as well, which can be very important.
 
But in all this discussing we're leaving out an important factor, which is the band leader. K.Howden said that the band leader was basically happy with the results. So why, if he is the band leader, shouldn't it be the band leader's call, and if it isn't his call then what makes him the band leader?
 
I really don't get the overtone hate. I think they add so much realness to the sound. On my little home recordings the only muffling is my kick because I prefer that sound. Toms and snare close miced wide open, with all their glorious overtones. When they are blended with the other instruments, they sound like drums should. Not only that, but a pop recording that lets the drums sing out...kinda rare. It really grabs your ear. Come to think of it the last time a real set of drums was used on a pop recording was like 1992 I think.
Big Plus one to that my friend!
I love it when I mic my drums and I set the EQ myself.
They sound like drums!
They sing a little, They ring a little, They buzz a little, They rattle a little, They boom a little. The cymbals ring, hiss, and sizzle a little.
Just the right amount of, "a little" is just perfect for me!
 
Yea Bob, it's kinda like the drums are where an engineer really gets to work..What I mean is, the guitar tone is pretty much determined by the guitarist, the bass sound isn't rocket science, piano or keyboard, not much you can do there compared to drums.
It's like they don't think they do a good job engineering unless they muck around with the drum sound. If the drums don't have a good sound, when's the last time you saw an engineer tune them? No, they'll castrate the sound and make it all artificial in the mix.

It's really runcommon on any music I'm exposed to to hear wide open drums.
I think the time has come to abandon that muffled/gated/artificial tone on recordings and return recorded drum sounds to a natural tone. It's the "imperfections" in the drum tone that are so aurally compelling, why don't most engineers understand that? Open the gates and let em sing. Dare to be different.
 
It's really uncommon on any music I'm exposed to to hear wide open drums.
I think the time has come to abandon that muffled/gated/artificial tone on recordings and return recorded drum sounds to a natural tone. It's the "imperfections" in the drum tone that are so aurally compelling, why don't most engineers understand that? Open the gates and let em sing. Dare to be different.

Agree 100%, Larry and Bob.

The guy who did our demo earlier this year was great with the drum sound - no fancy crap, just the kit EQ'd with some reverb. A couple of weeks before the session we sent him recordings of the songs from band practices and told him we wanted a clear, organic sound. As it turns out, he plays blues in bands and prefers that approach too.

I think it's important to chat about the overall vibe you want beforehand and to email recordings of the songs so the engineer can be prepared, both with the gear and to be mentally prepared. I found that out through past mistakes / debacles in which I've been involved.
 
Before choosing a studio or engineer, maybe the first question (at least from the drummers perspective) should be..."So how do you prefer to approach the drum sound on a (pop/rock/metal/jazz/whatever you are recording) tune. If he is polar opposite from what you want, I'd say keep looking. But it's the leaders show it seems and you have no choice but to fight with the engineer. And fight I would. He is a nobody as far as you're concerned, a good person to practice fighting with.
 
I don't usually vent on the forum but this has really got my goat!

I've been recording for the past couple of weeks with my band, and it's mostly been a great experience...up until now...

The dry signals that we've recorded in for the drums sound great and I was happy with the purley un-mixed results and felt confident we had something great to work with but oh no! The engineer and our band leader have other ideas.

We come to mixing time and I noticed this popping sound, I asked the engineer what it was and he said "oh that's the close mics for the drums". Concerned I asked him to solo the tracks only to discover he's gated the absolute hell out of them! I voiced my concern and said that yes, it is important to gate out some bleed from the other mics but that the level of gating he put on the tracks was way overkill and that could we not find a compromise between keeping the body of the drums whilst getting rid of some of the bleed. Our recording engineers response was to tell me that unless he gated it to that level he could not mix the tracks properly, I rebuttled (politley I might add) saying I was only after a compormise and that of course SOME gating was needed but not so extreme. Well this didn't go down at all well, cue and absolute tyraid from the engineer! He acted as if I'd just taken a leak on his precious vintage desk...getting in a complete childish huff saying...in the most patronising of tones "okayyy then Kev we'll do it your way! and we'll have a p**s poor mix!" amongst many other unpleasantries which paraphrased boiled down to "I'm the engineer, you're not, you don't know anything so butt out!".

At the end of it all the engineer told me that "that's how you mix close mics" and that mix in the overheads to bring in tone...sorry Mr Big-Wig but if you're mixing something that sounds like somone taking out a jack lead from their guitar when the P.A. is still on it's gonna sound horrendous...but I apprarently I know nothing!

This has really annoyed me, I and the band are paying him to a GOOD job and to LISTEN to our input and do what we ask of him and I feel utterly cheated out of my money. The icing on the cake is that our band leader/songwriter & guitarist is acting like his pet monkey and agreeing with everything he says and putting pretty much everyone else in the band down when they try and raise any kind of concern.

It's not only annoying but genuinley hurtful and upsetting to be treated like this and as much as I know I'm right in what I'm saying it's taken a huge chunk out of my self-esteem.

Has anyone else out there experienced this? I'm not liking it one bit!

Hope you're all well,

Kev

Engineers, Soundmen, ALL people behind the boards have NO CLUE what YOU want to sound like, they ONLY know what THEY want you to sound like.

Of course, if THAT'S why you HIRED them/him/her, then it's all good, but if you're there to "get your sound" and you're footin' the bill, I'd be DAMNED if he'd tell ME (who PAID for it) how it'll be.

Of course I'm assuming you hired him with the pretense he was working FOR YOU right?? He was hired to as closely as possible try to get the sound YOU are striving for, RIGHT???

Or did you hand the guy a bunch of cash and say "go for it"??

Or did you make the FATAL mistake of ASSUMING he was to do one thing and he ASSUMED the opposite??? (of course you are STILL the one PAYING him)

Now figure out where this deal went wrong and CORRECT IT!!
 
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