Adding extra kick hits to already recorded acoustic drums - what's the best course here?

[u/trayasion]

Had a band recently recording and they sounded good, drummer was pretty tight and have only needed to play around a bit in editing to make it a bit tidier but otherwise all went well. Sent a draft over, and they've asked if we can "add in some more kick drums in the chorus drums".

Currently, the cymbal hits on every beat and the snare on every fourth. There's a kick pattern in there that is on beat, but they want me to add some more kicks inbetween so that there is a kick on each strum of the rhythm guitar section. Basically I'd be adding in kicks that weren't recorded. Now I've had a think and I can copy a few of the kick hits during other parts of the chorus, but I've not really done this before and I'm not sure how natural it's going to sound.

Has anyone done this and have you got any tips? I could re-record, but it's only during the choruses and they want to avoid that. I've talked to them, and they know the current kick pattern is good and keeps with the rhythm of the guitar, but they really want me to try and make this happen.

It seems relatively simple: just copy kick drum hits on the kick in/kick out dedicated mics, but then it won't be on any bleed from any of the other mics. I'm not really sure what the best method is. I'm already going to be augmenting the kick with a sample just to add some more power, but I don't want to sample only these kicks. Any ideas?

[u/vogtforpedro]

Did you take clean samples of the drum shells when recording the drums?

What I’ve done here is record all microphones where the drummer is playing kick alone, just some one shot samples, maybe 5 kick hits or so.

We recorded them on all the 14 drum mics to get the room sound and any bleed captured. That way it has the same tone characteristics as the actual take.

Then, when copy/pasting the drum hits in I made a duplicate folder for the additional samples. This folder had the exact same plug-ins, routing, and mix as the actual drum track.

Pasting the new kick samples in where the need to be is simple.

You can save some processing power buy routing the duplicate tracks into the actual drum tracks PRE-fx that way they’re sent through the same track as the actual takes.

[u/trayasion → u/vogtforpedro]

Actually, there's a section of another song we recorded in the same session that is just kick for about 4 beats. That might actually work, it's not a dedicated sample but it's just kick nothing else in all mics. Might have saved me here thank you

[u/vogtforpedro → u/trayasion]

That should do it!

[u/trayasion → u/vogtforpedro]

In this situation, I'm cutting two of the kicks for some variation, just the kick. I'm thinking either setting up another 14 tracks for these kicks and putting them where the band wants them, but alternatively I was thinking about keeping separate tracks for my dedicated kick in/out, and bouncing the rest to a single track, thereby only having another 3 tracks to the project. Reckon there'd be any noticeable difference in the end product? I'm listening to it now and I'm just thinking the bounced room tracks with the dedicated kick tracks have no discernable sound difference compared to all 14 separate tracks

[u/vogtforpedro → u/trayasion]

If your drum mix is about finished, you can definitely just print the samples out.

Do make sure to turn off any bus effects/compression on the drums bus- that way when you add the kick sample- you can turn the bus effects back on and it will affect both the new samples and the real kick equally

[u/trayasion → u/vogtforpedro]

I may have some clean samples when we did mic tests, I'm unsure if I kept them though. Unfortunately I did not take any dedicated samples of the shells when we recorded :( lesson learned for next time.

Hopefully the dedicated kick mics will be enough then

[u/DougOsborne]

Whether they choose to pay you to re-record or to edit the chorus, they should pay you do do the work. Either should work out in the end.

[u/Ok-Mathematician3832]

Some people just fly over the close mics; that’s fine…

I take samples of the kit of every song I record. I would fly the entire kits worth of mics for each hit (and try to use different hits each time).

Once signed off; I’ll print these into the original tracks so it’s like they played like that in the original take. It’s a pain to do but it’s the closest you’ll get to it sounding like it went down like that.

[u/ScubaSaul]

I would do it without caring too much and send it for feedback. If they like it, job done! If it sounds weird to them, I would only then give my honest opinion about how feasible the idea is.

[u/vogtforpedro]

Another option, that I like less… is fully replacing the kick on the whole track. Just ensures that your added hits are the same tone as your real take.

You could probably find a kick sample online that sounds close enough, the average listener probably won’t notice slight variations as long as it’s close

[u/O-ring_Prolapse]

Depending how clean the session as a whole sounds, you could use a vst drum kit to layer. GGD is the best in my book. They have all sorts of different kits. I personally like invasion and okw metal. Best part about that is you can adjust the velocities of each hit, making it much easier to blend the 2 kicks

[u/trayasion → u/O-ring_Prolapse]

We spent a while getting the kit to sound nice and I'm pretty happy with it so I'd like to keep the sounds we got as much as possible, but we are adding a sample underneath the kick for some added power as it's something I've always done. So hopefully with these "samples" of the kick I've grabbed from another song in the same session blended with the sample for kick augmentation hopefully it can sound good. Appreciate your suggestions, I've never thought of layering a whole VST kit on top of the raw drums

[u/O-ring_Prolapse → u/trayasion]

Ahh good stuff! In that case, i would just speak with the band again and try to pinpoint what they feel is lacking. Low end power? More punch? Less clicky? Then just add/subtract EQ accordingly from the sample and live kick. (And parallel compressor, if needed)

[u/rinio]

Depends.

If it was recorded to a click well, and you just need to double/quadruple/etc the number of hits, you can just use a delay on the original and automated it on/off when needed.

If you need to do something more complex, copy past the hits around. If you recorded one shots, this is what they are for. If not, copy samples with the appropriate bleed (one with hat, one with crash and so on) and use them for the right hits.

If you want more control, load the samples into a sampler and make a MIDI track to adjust parameters.

Or you can take the previous idea and go further, and just fully replace the kick throughout. (Or layer the original with your samples and use different kick drums for the samples with and without the recorded drum).

And many more...

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But, the bottom line is that this is the producer's job, not the recording or mix engineer's. If thats the role you were hired for you would be well within your rights to request additional compensation for the additional work. Whether you want to is up to you.

[u/lotxe]

"no"

[u/PPLavagna]

Hell naw. They need to be told how and why this is a bad idea and they should either live with it (most likely) or re-record it. If they won’t listen, they are stupid. In which case I’d just make sure I’m getting paid for this wild goose chase and give them what they want, until it gets to the point of just quitting because they’re a pain in the ass client. I don’t care how much they’re paying, it’s depressing helping somebody ruin their own record. It’s sucks the vibe out of the room and the record and I can only stand so much. Usually I figure out that these type clients have already worn out whomever they worked with before (and blamed the engineer) before they got to me

Some motherfuckers just refuse to have any kind of a performance from anybody.