How to Create an Artificial Room Track for Drums?
Many a times when you’re recording drums at home studio, garage or in a rehearsal space, there’s a good chance you’re using a limited mic setup. On top of that, the space might not be big enough for even to consider room mics. Because of this your drums can sound a bit dry, and they lack that something. In this video you’ll learn how to create an artificial room track for drums:
All you need to do is to send your individual drum tracks into a stereo bus and add a reverb plugin into it. Why send the individual tracks instead of the whole drum bus? Because this way you can make a fitting mix to the drum room track. For instance, you might not want as much overheads to the room track. Route the drum room bus to your drum bus.
After this select a fitting reverb. Usually a some kind of a room or studio will do. Adjust the size and the time of the reverb to fit the song and the mix.
It’s a good idea to use some strategic EQ. Cut some of the lows and highs with low and high cut filters to make the room track seem further away. You can also cut some of the mud, boxiness, honkiness or whatever and boost for example presence from around 1 – 2,5 kHz.
Use compression to make the ambient more audible and noticeable in the room track. You can slam it pretty hard in case you want to create that kind of an effect or compress only mildly. There’s no right or wrong way.
Finally, blend in the drum room bus with the drums and you’re done!
Hopefully you found this video helpful. If there’s anything you want me to cover in the future videos let me know. Send me an email or leave a comment below. Ask if there’s anything unclear or if I left something out. Cheers!
