How To "Even Out" Wave Transients

[firsty33]

Hey guys,

I'm in the mixing stage of my current project, and the kick drum transients are somewhat distorting when I bring the master fader up.

Here's the issue: When I simply bring the kick drum fader down, the song loses all of it's punch (in my opinion of course). When I bring it up, the "over the top" transients will occasionally distort.

Is there a plug-in available you would recommend that fixes this? (I know I know, just record at a lower level!)

Any suggestions would be great!

Thanks,

-Justin

[Ben Jenssen]

Depends where the distortion is coming from. If it was caused by f.ex bad levels somwhere in the recording chain, it's there and will stay there. There are no 'undistort'-plugins, really.

If it's your monitoring that distorts, you must check on f.ex headphones.

There's little chance that some setting or plugin in your session is causing distortion, unless you have a distortion plugin inserted. That's how PT LE works, because of floating-point processing, we have many, many DB's of headroom before anything distorts. Even when track meters are banging into the red.

My guess would be that the bad sound is there in the recording and that you only notice it when you turn things up. If so, You could try to EQ a bit of it out, perhaps a low-pass filter. You might also consider replacing it with a sample.

As for 'evening things out' you want a limiter (or a fast compressor).

PS: Come to think of it, a badly set up limiter or compressor CAN actually sound like it distorts. If you have a limiter or compressor inserted, bypass it and see if that helps.

[firsty33]

I think it's bad levels in the recording chain. When I zoom in on the transient in the kick drum track, some peaks are as high as the Rockies, however it doesn't clip.
Would you suggest to record at lower gain levels? It just seems when I do that, the drums become buried in the mix.
I'll have to look up "floating-point processing". I'm assuming that means I CAN record at higher levels, but I'll try and learn more about it.
Thank you Ben Jenssen!!

[Ben Jenssen]

Basically, floating point means that PT, when processing audio, doesn't have a fixed 'ceiling' level that you can't cross. So that you could f.ex push a tracks fader so that the master meter goes into the red, and pull back the master fader, it's OK. On a HD system that would mean trouble. (That's how I understand it, anyway. I don't pretend to be an expert.)

But it DOESN'T mean that you don't have to watch your levels going in (and out). Preamps, interface converters will distort with bad levels.

Recording again with the interface input trim at a lower level does NOT mean any significant change to the sound, but the problem could be before in the chain. A pre amp set too high, and the line in to the interface lowering it so it looks right in PT.

[GregV]

If the peaks are high, but it's NOT clipping then you should be fine.
It sounds like the sum of all your parts...
Try putting an EQ shelf on the Kick. Roll off anything below around 70Hz. It's possible that those big sub frequencies are pushing your mix to clipping.
You shouldn't hear a substantial loss in power from the Kick, but you might be able to achieve the level you're looking for.
Hope it helps

[albee1952]

I agree that as long as the kick drum track is not hitting the red, then, you should be able to work with what you have. There are a few methods to try here. One would be to insert a limiter plugin on the track. Another might be to use a drum replacement plugin(like Drumagog or Slate Trigger) and set it for s reduced dynamic range(handy if the original kick track is all over the place in level from an inconsistent drummer). Then there's the old, 50Hz sine wave triggered and gated from the kick drum track Then again, consider your monitoring environment. You may have plenty of "oomph", but your system might not be reproducing it accurately(double-check the mix on some good headphones).