acousticks

December 7, 2013 6:50 AM

The Wikidrummer How the sound of a drum kit changes depending on where you play it. (slyt)
posted by fearfulsymmetry (11 comments total)

Hear the drummer get wiki! That was fun but I'm surprised at the amount of reverb he was getting outside (not under the underpass). Having played an unmiked kit outdoors it's always been a good but much deader sound.
posted by merocet at 7:14 AM on December 7, 2013 [4 favorites]

This is good - but I'm willing to bet that the reverbs are all software based, "aligned" to the physical spaces in the video.
posted by gorbichov at 8:18 AM on December 7, 2013

Yeah, I was thinking the same thing, gorbichov.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 8:21 AM on December 7, 2013

gorbichov - the note beneath the video does say "no artificial reverb added".

Either way, I love the style of keeping the drummer constant and changing the location.
posted by a womble is an active kind of sloth at 8:55 AM on December 7, 2013 [1 favorite]

This video shows some behind the scenes stuff.

http://www.wikidrummers.com/making-of-the-wikidrummer/
posted by jonathanhughes at 8:56 AM on December 7, 2013 [1 favorite]

I am having a hard time believing that got a solid kick drum like that with a shotgun microphone. It sounds pretty close-miked to me. Can anyone smarter than me explain this? I don't see any close-miking and the making-of video seems to show only an incident pair and a shotgun.
posted by scrowdid at 10:27 AM on December 7, 2013

Maybe not artificial reverb, definitely some dynamics processing.
posted by Foosnark at 11:02 AM on December 7, 2013 [1 favorite]

ok ok, i stand corrected and chastened! :)
posted by gorbichov at 1:26 PM on December 7, 2013

Super cool.
posted by aubilenon at 1:33 PM on December 7, 2013

Just a pair of really good mics can produce some really fantastic recordings - lots of classical recordings that have won Grammys for "Best Engineered" have been essentially done with 2 mics. So I find it plausible that the stereo pair of mics can get that solid kick sound.

But I also agree with Foosnark that while there may be no artificial reverb, there's absolutely some dynamics processing going on (for example, when he's in a field with that highway or rail line way off behind him, there's no way those distinct slap echoes would be so prominent in the sound without some compression or limiting), and just on principle there's almost certainly some equalization happening.

Still a very cool video, and I wish I spoke French or that Google translate worked better so I could do more poking around the website.
posted by soundguy99 at 10:59 AM on December 8, 2013

They're only using the "live" video recording for the reverb, it's mixed with a studio take, hence the punchy kick drum. So the reverb is real, and it's probably heavily compressed in the final mix.
posted by surrendering monkey at 1:20 PM on December 9, 2013