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Posted by PTR on Aug-24-2007 19:31:

Toms issues

I got heavy problems with toms. I cant get them sound good enough.
I use Doru Malaia Superdrums 8000 kit and Battery 3 to organize them in Fruity Loops Studio.
What you guys do with toms that they sounds clear and soft?
What I do is EQ it and compress but they always sound horrible.
I would like to get a nice R'n'B tom but I cant figure out how to do it at my own. Any advices?

Posted by 3F05Q on Aug-24-2007 23:22:

Whoa there Captain Boldtype!

Try a bit of these guys' ideas. 3rd post looks neat: http://duc.digidesign.com/showflat....357&Main=948221

Try some light reverb with some filtering? Think about stereo field too. Perhaps panned slightly? I've learned that percussion elements all in the middle don't sound nice.

Posted by derail on Aug-25-2007 01:24:

I don't usually use toms myself, but as with all instruments, pick samples that work well together - if you have a kick drum which takes up a lot of the same frequencies, it's not going to sound good, no matter how you pan or compress your toms. High pass filter the toms to a degree, until you have a good balance - enough low end to maintain the impression of weight, but not enough to seriously interfere with the kick down there. To what degree, is a matter of your personal taste.

If I was using toms, I'd space them left and right, maybe start with halfway between centre and the side and adjust from there depending how that sounds. I wouldn't want them totally separate, but I also wouldn't want them on top of each other. Once again, personal taste.

I'd generally want them fairly close to the front of the stage - so I'd use a "room" reverb on it. Maybe I'd send a little bit to the main "hall" reverb, with some pre-delay. But they'd be one of the drier elements in the track.

I can't really help with compression, it's such a personal choice, people use compression in many ways to achieve many things. I don't use compression in most of my songs, I find if I've chosen good sounds that fit well and arranged things well, everything generally comes through nice and clearly. Every now and then a situation comes up where I think a compressor will give me the result I'm after, then I go nuts with it.

As with everything, be absolutely clear about what you want to do with the sound, before you apply compression. Get clear, THEN do.