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Leakage?
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| mzvirbulis |
hi guys,
well im just curious about the fact of when recording percussion, there is a certain thing called leakage. now i have some idea but i would love it if someone could confirm it for me. thanks.:)
does it have to do with the unwanted decay from that instrument? so it sort of makes a cleaner sound. techniques used is either gating or just cutting out the sound. maybe even compression?
its nothing too out there, but its relevent sometimes you just got to silence the space between hits.
regards
mattz:) |
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| thoughtlessjex |
I don't know what leakage means, but the best way to diminish unwanted decay with drums is to use various damping methods at the recording stage. Stick a pillow in your kick drum, put damping rings on your snare and toms, or at least put something weighty but unobtrusive on them that won't bounce around when you hit the drum. Mind where you put these dampers, though, because their position on the drum head will alter the character of the resulting sound.
Hitting your drums in the center kills off a lot of harmonics and generally gets a much shorter sound, too. You can use this method, but again be mindful, because you get a lot more character in the low end than in the high end..
As far as cymbals go, I don't know how much you can do but get cymbals that have the kind of decay you want.
A noise gate can help in the post-recording phase, as long as you get your attacks and decays right on you gater. Drum decay is somwhat unstable, so it can accidentally set off a gate before starting it again, so you want to make sure you get that right.
One thing I do with a lot of my samples is a fool around with the amp envelope to shorten sounds, this can be very helpful.
Don't use compression. Compression actually tends to deemphasize the differences between max volume and decay, because it reduces peaks but leaves the rest of the sound as it is. One you bring the gain back up, your peaks go right back where they were, but your decays are louder. As I understand, this is the opposite of your intended effect.
Hope this helps. |
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| aquila |
You could be referring to Spill......which is where unwanted noise is entering a microphone. In the case of percussion, a drum mic is picking up more than the intended target. Ie, you can hear the hihats coming in through the snare mic.
Spill is a part of life when doing live recordings. There are no cures, but there are some good strategic workarounds. Such as where on a drum you place the mic, some eq to only allow the operative frequencies through, and a gate to mute the channel when the drum is not being played. |
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| mzvirbulis |
Hey, thanks alot for explaining guys!:)
both are very related and informative. both of these are answers i was looking for.
in thoughtlessjex's case i read in a computer mag how to gate a snare which is obviously what you are talking about.
and aquila i read this in relation about unwanted sounds entering another mic, although funny that they called it leakage.
i will have to have another read!
cheers:) |
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