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anyone agree? every song I hear by them makes me think this,

Didn't want to post this in the how to make this sound thread, but does anyone have a clue what they are doing?

Obviously there's going to be a large amount of compression involved here but seriously

What the hell?

ive been finding out recently that compressing the crap out of your drums is not neccessary. layering your drums to fill out frequency ranges is what makes them more predominate. this and a proper gain structure is important because you dont want to drown out the drums when all your other sounds hit.

I think he must side chain a bit as well especially in some of his newer tracks. but yea layering and careful reverb etcc.... with make drums sound huuuuge.

no magic techniques, noisia are just fucking good at what they do. standard practice i guess: good samples, clever layering (good use of eq, filters, etc.), good use of compression.

theres a noisia q&a over at doa which might give you some clues, but if i remember correctly it doesnt say much that you probably havent already heard.

LordBid wrote:I think he must side chain a bit as well especially in some of his newer tracks. but yea layering and careful reverb etcc.... with make drums sound huuuuge.

*They*

Yeah side chaining must get them part there, I may have to look back into layering drums, I've kinda gone off it recently

jsills wrote:ive been finding out recently that compressing the crap out of your drums is not neccessary. layering your drums to fill out frequency ranges is what makes them more predominate. this and a proper gain structure is important because you dont want to drown out the drums when all your other sounds hit.

IMO having your levels right is #1. If you don't think a decibel or 2 makes much of a difference then you aren't getting it.

lowpass wrote:

LordBid wrote:I think he must side chain a bit as well especially in some of his newer tracks. but yea layering and careful reverb etcc.... with make drums sound huuuuge.

*They*

Yeah side chaining must get them part there, I may have to look back into layering drums, I've kinda gone off it recently

I don't really go crazy with the layering either, it can make them sound really messy. I don't ever layer kicks personally and with snare I might layer like a rim shot with a snare and maybe add a symbol or something rather than cranking up the top end on an eq. Sidechaining is pretty important too, some people don't believe in it but I am hooked on sidechaining myself.

abZ wrote:

lowpass wrote:

LordBid wrote:I think he must side chain a bit as well especially in some of his newer tracks. but yea layering and careful reverb etcc.... with make drums sound huuuuge.

*They*

Yeah side chaining must get them part there, I may have to look back into layering drums, I've kinda gone off it recently

I don't really go crazy with the layering either, it can make them sound really messy. I don't ever layer kicks personally and with snare I might layer like a rim shot with a snare and maybe add a symbol or something rather than cranking up the top end on an eq. Sidechaining is pretty important too, some people don't believe in it but I am hooked on sidechaining myself.

Pretty much everything is sidechained with stuff I do now, even if it's just a 1/2 - 1 db, makes things a helluva lot cleaner

Like Abz said layering drums for me sounds messy. I rarely layer a kick drum usually just put effects on it. As of recent discussions on the forum I found Parralel compression to give some real beef to drums

gnome wrote:Like Abz said layering drums for me sounds messy. I rarely layer a kick drum usually just put effects on it. As of recent discussions on the forum I found Parralel compression to give some real beef to drums

it really depends how you are layering. dont forget to filter your layers for the frequency range you want, use envelopes, etc. you really have to shape your sounds. cant just slap a couple of samples on top of each other unless you get really lucky.

I've sat down in the lab with one of the guys and watched how they do drums, it basically comes down to picking really good hits, knowing the sound you want to get out and picking the hits to complement each other, a touch of reverb on the snare, hats and percussion, some distortion (cubase's stock standard, which is a sick little distortion unit) and some (admittedly pretty aggressive) compression on the drum buss. Mind you this was about 2 years ago so they would have refined their technique further by now.

i've always prefered spor's drums over noisia's

deadly habit wrote:i've always prefered spor's drums over noisia's

same

spor has got it goin on percus.-wise

from what i remember of a video in the studio with them (the one where they jokingly use a glass to get a resonant filter on the bass), they just use audio, pick good hits, etc.

sounds like they sidechain the breaks off of the kick & snare hits-- pretty standard material. they just, you know, do it really really well.

boot wrote:I've sat down in the lab with one of the guys and watched how they do drums, it basically comes down to picking really good hits, knowing the sound you want to get out and picking the hits to complement each other, a touch of reverb on the snare, hats and percussion, some distortion (cubase's stock standard, which is a sick little distortion unit) and some (admittedly pretty aggressive) compression on the drum buss. Mind you this was about 2 years ago so they would have refined their technique further by now.

Yeah im an avid follower. To me it sounds like simple techniques and the most part is funking amazing drum hit selection and out of this world drum programming. Its all about the little bits that make a whole.
Boot im fucking jealous btw!

boot wrote:and some (admittedly pretty aggressive) compression on the drum buss.

I stand corrected, although i was thinking individual hits rather than the bus, which i do compress

Abz ive actually sent you a few tracks in the past with embarrassingly bad gain structure so im not surprised i didnt get a response back thats why i keep stepping my game up. as for layering, it can be messy and its not always necessary if you have the prefect hit but it definitely works when you dont.

deadly habit wrote:i've always prefered spor's drums over noisia's

me 2

boot wrote:I've sat down in the lab with one of the guys and watched how they do drums...

was truly great to watch martyn in the studio...

sook wrote:

boot wrote:I've sat down in the lab with one of the guys and watched how they do drums...

was truly great to watch martyn in the studio...

And you!??? geeerrrttt oouuuuttt of heeerreeee

Sharmaji wrote:pretty standard material. they just, you know, do it really really well.

This statement is so true it almost deserves to be a banner on the DSF...

...and not just in this scenario, but overall / in general. Often times when top-notch producers' tracks sound amazing, it isn't because they are doing some super-secret way of re-writing the alphabet.. but rather that they understand & have mastered standard techniques so well that the results speak for themselves.