Drum Bleed - Leave it in?

[JamEZmusicParticipant]

Or take it out? What is achieved by taking it all out? This is another one that's been bugging me for a while. I had to ask. I noticed some people leave it in, and some take it out, but this is never explained? Is it mandatory to high pass overheads to take out the kick to minimize potential phase problems? Thoughts?

Cheers!

[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

[JamEZmusicParticipant]

I work the same way.

I start with the overheads and then mix in the other drum mics to augment the sound. If there are too many drum replacement samples then sometimes I’ll add the OH’s in last because at that point I feel like working to the natural sound of the OH’s is moot because the snares/kicks are going to sound too different so Seems like I’ll use the OH’s just for the hat and crash sounds. But still learning from warrens videos on drums as I find that the drums are the single hardest thing to mix.

Interesting note about drum bleed and editing! Never thought about it complicating things on that front (I’ve never recorded a real drum kit or had to edit)

So I’ll bear that in mind
Drum bleed = natural kit
No drum bleed = tight kit

It’s starting to become a bit clearer to me now,

Thanks mate,
James

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