Help! I am plagued with Crappy kick and snare sounds...

Uladine

Uladine

New member
No matter what I seem to do with mic placement I can't get anything remotely useful lately. I've got some shitty mics (Nady) but I'm sure theres a way to get something way better than what I'm getting.

The kick sounds almost like it has a "ping" to it. No thud. It sounds excellent in person but through the mic its awful. The snare sounds like its being cut off. I'm nowhere near clipping. I took the screen off of an SM-58 (technically the 58 is a 57 with a different screen right?) and I put that on the snare. Still sounded like shit. I moved it away from the head, Still no better. I even tried miking the underneath and still no good. I experimented with phase reversing and EQ and everything on both mics. The snare sounds like its choked, but theres no muffling on it at all. In reality it has a nice metal ring to it (piccolo) but through the mic its just a snap. All attack and no sustain. At first I kept thinking I had the mic too close and started backing it away, but I got around 6 inches away and figured the problem must be somewhere else. Maybe the mics are clipping? But shouldnt the 58 be able to handle loud snare drums?

Can anyone give me advice to help me get better sounds with my crappy mics? By the way, the same crappy nady mics actually sound good on the toms, so I know I must be doing something wrong on the kick and snare. Also I'm using a Mackie 24.4 vlz mixer into a PC with Sonar.
 
Are you using overheads too? Is the resonant head off the kick? Is the mike too close to the batter on the kick?

Yep, the kick and snare are the hardest to get right. Don't give up.

The 58 is fine for the snare.

Try adjusting the kick beater off-center as much as possible (higher or lower or off to the side). Try this test. Use a soft head mallet stick (looks like a round marshmallow on the end of the stick) and hit the batter head dead center, then off-center. Sound better off-center? It usually does.

Use the overheads as the main drum sound (includes room effects) and mix in the close mikes. There are some great threads on recording drums here. Do in-depth searches here and on the recording techniques areas, maybe mikes. Spend some time on the searches. It will pay off.
 
Let's take this one drum at a time.

Give us the Kick drum first.

What size kick? (depth x diameter)
What head types on each side?
What kind of muffling?
What kind of Mallet are you using?

Now, what kind of sound are you after?
(Give me some examples)

How are you recording these drums?(PC?)
What kind of Mic are you using on the kick?
What kind of Mixer are you using?



Tim
 
I have a Tama Rockstar 16x22" kick drum with a aquarian superkick 1 head set with no additional muffling thus far. I will experiment with the front head removed later tonight when I go out to our rehearsal space. The kick sounds awesome in person, its just through the mic where it sounds terrible. I'm using Tama Iron Cobra double bass pedals with felt beaters. Also theres one of those kick drum pads on the batter head.

I'm not going for any particular sound, just a nice thud with a fair amount of attack. I've read countless drum miking articles and posts but I don't have a place to practice techniques. When I took my equipment out to my bands rehearsal space to mess with drum miking, I tried to apply what I've read. I guess my real question is if my crappy nady mics are even capable of getting a good sound. I don't have any money to buy new mics.

I'm using a mackie 24.4 vlz mixer and a sonar equipped PC.

Oh and one reason I don't want to rely on the overheads is I want to experiment with drum replacement techniques in sonar, so I'm basically going to be using the overheads for the cymbals and I'm putting every drum on its own track. Then when I'm done recording I want to experiment with replacing some of the drum tracks with samples. But if I can't get good samples of my drums then it won't work.
 
If you are after a "Thump" type of Kick sound (versus a Boom) then you'll want to go with 1 Head, and some kind of muffling inside.


Tim
 
I have the same Tama size kick (older Granstar, birch) and the same kick batter head as you. It did sound good in the room with the front head on (also the same Aquarian series for the resonant head). The front had a hole for the mike but I couldn't get a decent kick on tape no matter how I tuned it or where I put the mike. I had no thud. So, I lowered the front head tuning to very loose (for a deep resonance) and miked both the batter and front. It was an good improvement but still not enough.

Then I read stuff on this board. I removed the front head and added a very small towel against the batter. This was much better than anything. Then, after messing with the batter tuning I found that an off-center beater improved the deepness. I couldn't believe it so I posted this off-center beater thing on two drum message boards and a bunch of people agreed that's what they do. I couldn't move the pedal to a side so I extended the beater arm as high as it could go. Best sound yet for recording (probably could be improved further). This made the pedal action different but it's worth it to me. The mike is pointed at the beater strike point, a little higher than center of course, off-axis, and about 7-8 inches away from the head.
 
I disagree with part of the above. I couldn't get a good kick sound until I put a front head (with a hole) on my kick (20" Sonor from the '60s).
 
I tried taking the resonant head off tonight and that pretty much made the difference. It also helped having an assistant this time who could kick the drum while I adjusted stuff instead of recording and running back and forth. I got a nice thud, but this time there wasn't enough attack and it was a bit soft. Thats just an EQ problem I guess so I'm not worried about it. I'll probably replace the kick with a sample anyway. I think my beaters already hit a little above center but I will check this when I go out there tomorrow. Thanks for all the help. Oh yea I got my snare sounding decent too. I dunno what I did to fix it, because it ended up in the same place as last night. Oh well its cool now.
 
something to try...

You mentioned lacking attack in the kick - try taping a couple of quarters to the beater - making for a wider and harder contact to the head.

-Dave
 
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