I noticed something a bit surprising today in a kit comprised of a set of the blue Fibes shells from BFD2 (a long-time favorite) and a few various cymbals selected “off the shelf.”
After recording the output of BFD to my DAW (Digital Performer 11) I discovered that the cymbals were not present in the recorded OH / RM / AMB channels, although the drums themselves certainly were.
The mic tab on all cymbals showed them as being routed to all 3 stereo channels, and the channels were being recorded by my DAW… but the cymbals got left out. Crazy.
Might be worth noting that a hi-hat was selected, but not involved in the final product.
The cymbals were likely of 3.4 vintage – they had routings to the Trash, Side, FX, etc… mics which of course BFD2 pieces such as the Fibes kit would not have.
I’ll have to look into it more – In the general mix I really thought I could hear the cymbal sound being expanded by a room-type presence, but closer scrutiny made it seem as if this was not in fact the case.
For the purposes of getting my tracks further along, I used a secondary send to route the cymbals into the Ambi-Mix channel and they sure showed up there. But I rarely use Ambi-Mix – I prefer to do my mixing in the DAW rather than BFD, and just pass the audio from BFD out to DP in order to handle the balances there.
Maybe I’m just stumbling over something that everyone else has always known… but it sure did seem like “not the way it’s supposed to work.”