Reply To: Drum Bleed - Leave it in?

[Guido tum SudenKeymaster]

Hi James,

My opinion: If you want natural or live sounding drums, leave the bleed. If you have to edit the drums a lot you sometimes have to remove the bleed, otherwise editing gets too complicated. If you want tight drums, remove the bleed. Wavesfactory have a plugin called Snare Buzz to add, well, snare buzz. And as always it‘s a matter of taste. For me, if you put a SM75 on a snare, the snare can never sound natural, but it can sound like it will be good for rock music.
As for high pass overheads: Same thing. Sometimes you can get the right bass frequencies only from the overheads. Sometimes the low frequencies from the overheads are the ones you would cut out anyway. If I want natural sounding drums, I start with the overheads and try to make them sound as natural as possible. From there I blend in the rest.

Guido