Which gate for drums?

[isoneedacoffee]

Hi... new forum member here!

This seems like a wonderful forum, and well attended by Ben and other members of Harrison. I recently installed Mixbus after looking into it for some time. I'm quite new to recording and audio production, but have done a good amount of research so far. I'm excited about the journey, and using Mixbus in particular.

I have a question regarding the Harrison gates, and how they may be advantageous (or not) for my application.

I'll be recording drums in a simple manner with three mics: 1) Front of the kit, 2) snare, 3) kick. I'll be using the Drum Character plugin for the snare and kick.

I was hoping to isolate the snare and kick a bit more from the rest of the kick by means of a gate. Harrison has two plugins that are very attractive: The Tom Gate (XT-TG) and the Expander-Gate XT-EG.

I know the Tom gate is obviously tailored for toms, but can it be used to isolate the snare and/or kick in my application?

Lastly, in a setup like this with three mics, do you find that it would be even recommended to gate? Or would I be potentially creating more headaches than it's worth?

Thanks for reading!

[loderunner]

If you only want to buy one of them, get the XT-EG. IMHO it's more versatile and you usually get enough separation by using the sidechain filter.

That said, the XT-TG does work quite nicely for some tasks. It's obviously a great tool for toms, but you can even seperate high and low on Cajons. It even did a decent job on a suitcase with two pedals mounted to it. One pedal did a snare-ish sound, the other more of a kick, but both were recorded on the same channel with a single microphone inside the suitcase.

[Matt]

First off, with just 3 mics, I wouldn’t gate. Maybe some creative eq to help “isolate” sounds. But imo it will probably sound funny gated.

That said Tom Gate is killer for all drums. Find one of the lower volume drum hits and use it to “learn” the drum sound. Then find where the loudest unwanted sound opens it, and use that to “learn” the unwanted sounds. Then just tweak the other settings a bit and you’re golden.

Fwiw I’ve used Tom gate on live back ground vocals. Because it’s normally a drum hit that opens the gate. So “learning” that can really help.

But for regular gate work, the XT-EG is fantastic also.

[sunrat]

First off, with just 3 mics, I wouldn’t gate. Maybe some creative eq to help “isolate” sounds. But imo it will probably sound funny gated.

That's a good point. A gate can also be used very subtly with only a small amount of gain reduction. It doesn't have to be a drastic on/off effect.

That said Tom Gate is killer for all drums.

Agreed. Its ability to learn drum sounds and then spill sounds to exclude puts it in a class of its own. Indispensable!

[Matt]

That's a good point. A gate can also be used very subtly with only a small amount of gain reduction. It doesn't have to be a drastic on/off effect.

Agreed. Its ability to learn drum sounds and then spill sounds to exclude puts it in a class of its own. Indispensable!

True a gate can be used subtly. I just tend to eq when I want a more subtle effect. But it does vary on the situation.

And yes it is the best I’ve found. Lots of people were excited for the new “slate gate”. It’s better than most, but can’t touch xt-tg imo. It could probably be dialed in to get there, but isn’t anywhere near as intuitive. I actually like debleed better than slate gate. There are a few instances where it has edged out xt-tg, but mostly on snare where you can have more variety of sound.

[isoneedacoffee]

First off, with just 3 mics, I wouldn’t gate. Maybe some creative eq to help “isolate” sounds. But imo it will probably sound funny gated.

That said Tom Gate is killer for all drums. Find one of the lower volume drum hits and use it to “learn” the drum sound. Then find where the loudest unwanted sound opens it, and use that to “learn” the unwanted sounds. Then just tweak the other settings a bit and you’re golden.

Agreed. Its ability to learn drum sounds and then spill sounds to exclude puts it in a class of its own. Indispensable!

LOL. Thanks for the replies...but I'm still at square one. For my application (three mics) would you recommend the Tom Gate or not? Another question, it seems like the drum character plugin is a no-brainer (along with the other character plugins). Agreed?

[Matt]

LOL. Thanks for the replies...but I'm still at square one. For my application (three mics) would you recommend the Tom Gate or not? Another question, it seems like the drum character plugin is a no-brainer (along with the other character plugins). Agreed?

That’s the problem. I haven’t heard your tracks to know which one I would use, if any. I probably wouldn’t use any with only 3 mics. I would time/phase align the snare in each track and go from there.

Also I would use the recorderman technique for mic placement. It’s similar to Glyn Johns method. It gives a very solid picture of the kit. No gates needed.

And while I do have and use the character plug ins. They’re not my most used. They’re fantastic when you need them. I just don’t need them very often.

But here’s the hard truth. You’ve got to get in there and start doing it. At times you’ll think you’ve got it nailed. At times you’ll wonder why you ever started down this path and want to sell all your gear. But unless you’re a natural, or have someone to mentor you, it will be some time before you get to a place where you start to feel happy with your results. But the only way to get to the place is to experiment over and over again until things click and make sense. And that just takes time.

Another thing. And this comes from personal experience.

When you get to the frustrated phases. DON’T BUY MORE GEAR!!!! You can make a solid mix with mixbus and nothing else. Some mic, preamp, converter, plug in, monitor, etc. isn’t going to fix why your mixes are mediocre. They’re mediocre because you’re a mediocre engineer. Sorry but it’s true. I spent way too much money figuring that out. So just trying to help.

The one place you should spend money is treating your room. But don’t go at that without learning about what you’re doing either. Or you’ll be wasting money. I like the guys over at John sayers studio design forum. But there are other places you can find. Treating your room will help you better hear what you’re really doing. And any decent monitor in a well treated room will be more truthful than the most expensive monitor in a room full of acoustic issues. I neglected this for too long and still don’t have it treated as well as I would like. But what I have done has been worth every penny.