Being able to replicate existing drum ambience and apply it to a different recording might sound like science fiction, but it can be done with the right tools. We show you how…
Ambient Drum Mics
The time-honoured technique of using distant mics on a kit in combination with close mics promises the best of both worlds; that is the immediacy, control, and pop of a close mic recording combined with a natural sense of size and perspective that real ambience can offer.
Over the years, many engineers have adopted this way of working and developed it into their own trademark sound, much in the same way that some musicians betray their identity as soon as they start playing. Employing techniques such as delaying ambience, or applying creative dynamics processing across it has allowed engineers to meld the sound of their room into the overall picture, with many drum sounds becoming recognizable even to the casual listener.
Placing Your Drums
Having unlimited time in a large format professional studio is something that very few of us have access to. The reality is that even on those occasions where budget affords the artist time in a world class facility, time for experimentation is usually the first thing to go out the window when the schedule is tight. Sometimes the amount or characteristic of drum ambience might need to change in mix, but of course this is already ‘baked-in’ on our distant recording.
Evoking Ambience
Accentize Chameleon is the plugin that listens to existing reverb or ambience in a recording, and lets you apply an estimated model of those characteristics to a (usually) dry recording. What is so useful about this way of working is not only the ability to apply ambience to recordings, but also to dry things up where needed simply by tweaking the plugin’s mix or return level. Working this way also opens up extra possibilities for ongoing projects where studio recordings are augmented with overdubs made at home or in other studios. Chameleon is of particular use to those working with dialogue, however it also works very well in music applications containing complex transient and tonal content.
Accentize Chameleon Features
create unlimited different unique reverbs with a single click
automatic parameterisation of dry/wet-mixing, stereo-width and pre-delay
the ideal tool for realistic ADR and foley matching
useful for creative sound-design or music-production
extract the natural room-impulse-response of any recording and export as a wav-file
Watch in the video how I use Chameleon to match drum kit close mics to an existing ambient recording making use of its versatile realism.
Photo by Dima Pavlenko from Pexels