Topic: How to deal with percussion spikes?

[gratefulphish]

I am trying to work on an MMW show that I recorded recently.  During the first set, I was clamped to the stage lip, DFC, which ended up being almost directly in front of Billy's drum kit, and closest to the cow bells.  I moved the setup to the right for the second set, which made things much more balanced, also due to the fact that Medeski was playing in a virtual horseshoe of keyboards, each apparantly with its own amp, pointing in at him.

In any case, in order to fix the first set, I need to bring down some of the percussion hits that cause a lot of spikes in the waveform.  They are so fast, that the compressor in SF8 does not seem able to capture and lower them.  Any ideas?  I have done a lot of hand editing with the pencil function, but I would like to figure out whether there is some easier way to deal with these.  TIA

[Roving Sign]

I am trying to work on an MMW show that I recorded recently.  During the first set, I was clamped to the stage lip, DFC, which ended up being almost directly in front of Billy's drum kit, and closest to the cow bells.  I moved the setup to the right for the second set, which made things much more balanced, also due to the fact that Medeski was playing in a virtual horseshoe of keyboards, each apparantly with its own amp, pointing in at him.

In any case, in order to fix the first set, I need to bring down some of the percussion hits that cause a lot of spikes in the waveform.  They are so fast, that the compressor in SF8 does not seem able to capture and lower them.  Any ideas?  I have done a lot of hand editing with the pencil function, but I would like to figure out whether there is some easier way to deal with these.  TIA

Try a limiter...?

[danlynch]

I am trying to work on an MMW show that I recorded recently.  During the first set, I was clamped to the stage lip, DFC, which ended up being almost directly in front of Billy's drum kit, and closest to the cow bells.

I think you clearly need more cowbell!

[gratefulphish]

Try a limiter...?

I have tried both the soft limiter, and the hard limiter, with every setting pushed from one end to the other.  Nothing seems to catch these hits, as they are such sharp spikes that, at least according to one of my friends, may be too fast for the software to catch and limit.

[gratefulphish]

I think you clearly need more cowbell!

Not when you have a TLM-170 about two feet from the cowbell.  I think, that for once, we might have just enough cowbell.

[db]

are you compressing each spike? i think you may need to compress the whole file.

[Roving Sign]

any chance of a short sample...?

[gratefulphish]

I have been compressing the whole file, but the percsussion spikes are still there.  Out of desperation, I have been using a small envelope filter on each of the spikes, but there are a lot of them.  It just seems amazing that even a hard limiter can't seem to catch them.

[gratefulphish]

any chance of a short sample...?

I have never done one of the short sample things. If you can give me some quick instructions, I will post a short clip.  I know that people seem to use sendspace.  Does it need to be in 16 bit, or can it be in 24bit, or will the file be too large that way?   Any help would be truly appreciated.

[easy jim]

Other than pencil tool editing/automation you may need an outboard device and/or analog hard limiter to handle that if the software tools you have are inadequate. 

A rapid percussion spike like a cowbell, tom hit, etc. will often be too fast/transient for a compressor/limiter (especially a software based one) as you have figured out.  Two things you can try with the compressor/limiter are (1) to adjust the attack speed to the absolute minimum, and (2) to lower the compression threshold enough so that the compression kicks in before/at a lower threshold than the spike.  Since (2) is likely to be an undesireable option for you since it will affect the dynamic range of the whole recording, I would try (1) and try and get it sounding at least OK.  If that cannot be done, which is likely considering the situation as you describe it, I'd use something outboard to handle the limiting (i.e., an apogee device with soft limit, a Behringer device that hard limits to 0dBFS (DEQ 2496), or a purely analog compressor/limiter capable of an ultrafast attack).

[gratefulphish]

Actually, I finally stumbled onto my own solution.  SF8 has a Wavehammer compressor in it under effects.  The compressor is much faster than the built-in dynamic compressor in SF.  It really allows you to just tweak those upper peaks, without affecting or compressing the rest of the waveform.  Wish I had found this long ago.  It will save me a lot of work in the future.

[cleantone]

I was just gonna post that you need the attack to be faster on the compressor

[boyacrobat]

one by one with the pencil for music with multi instruments on it.
compressor no for multi instruments.
respect dynamics and they reward you with atmosphere

g