The Tasmanian wrote:It took me many years of wondering why Kik drums sounded soggy on some mic pre's - I kept wondering why some pre's sound amazing on almost everything - except kik drum - until a tech informed me of slew rate.
So I think it is good for others to try their different pre's on kiks and see which pre has the fastest attack (or use soundreplacer and dont worry about it.....)
I think this has been a good discussion for those who do not know about all this stuff
Get to know your pre's attack response!
Its also worth thinking of all this in regard to choice of mics, monitors and monitor amp. Some are far more revealing than others. I like to describe it to myself as hearing the edge of the note and have heard it mostly in recording jazz where the source sound is acoustic. Acoustic bass is an instrument that reveals a lot of info for me re the edge of the recorded sound and how different gear behaves, and i have been chasing better results for ages in equipment choice. Bad mic positioning will stuff it though before you get anywhere near the gear choice factor. My choice of the B&W speakers was made when hearing how they responded to the edge of the sound and this improved when i upgraded my monitor amp to a Poul Kirk monitor amp made in WA. The optro 7500 preamps are great in this regard and so are the preamps in my Trident VFM which are op amp topology ( go figure?). Many stereo buss comps are not so great for this but the Avalon 747 is a stellar performer. I have never read what the slew rate is in any of this gear so i'm making assessments from hearing only. I did a recording in a great room, of a jazz band last Saturday where this all came together for me in a better way than usual so it's interesting it has come up for discussion now. The challenge of moving forward in these types of areas is what makes this job so interesting.......and being involved in the music of course.
