Help with miking and mixing drums on a Tascam 388

[WhinyLittleRunt]

I finally got around to miking up and recording my drums for the first time in my new home studio, and I wasn't totally pleased with the results. In a way, they sound fine and I'm not striving for a high-end production, but I'm sure a lot of it is my technique.

First off, I started recording on a Tascam 388. I only plan to use a computer for the final mixdown to digital and that's it. Otherwise, I'll get obsessed with fixing everything with software. So, minimal approach from here on out is best.

My room is a standard, recently-finished basement about 20x15, with acoustic foam on the walls and a separate control room. I do not have bass traps in the "live" room, only in my control room.

My drums are a 3-piece MIJ stencil kit, mid 60's. I'm used to recording on a modern set of Yamaha Stage Customs, so this is also new to me. My bass drum has a front head with no port, and I want to keep it that way. I went for a 4-mic approach, using two RODE NT1-A LDCs as stereo overheads, an SM57 on snare and an Audix D6 on bass. My mic selections are limited but the full list is:

Rode NT1-A (2)
Samson C02 (2)
MXL 992 (free from Musicians Friend like 8 years ago)
Shure SM57 (2)
Sennheiser e835
Audix D6

That's what I got. Most of it was purchased a long time ago on impulse, besides the Rode mics. I got the Audix D6 because I was lazy and didn't want to spend a lot of time EQ'ing my Yamaha bass drum, which, in the end, that was all BS. I liked the way it sounded on the Yamaha kit. I bought all this stuff back when I had money to spend on crap. Now I'm married and have a baby So, guess what my current music budget is?

So, I have to use what I have. I can sneak cheap stuff here and there but this will also force me to make use of the stuff I bought and make it sound as good as possible.

I started off thinking I'd pre-mix or submix the drums in a different mixer first, and then send the stereo output to 2 tracks on the 388. That was a pain and more trouble than it was worth. I realized I can just utilize the 388 inputs and just assign what I want to where. Where I have ignorance is when I'm using up 4 or say, 5 inputs for drums, I would only be left with 3 tracks to do scratch tracks on. I don't want to mix down my drums to save room until I know I have something to work with. And for that matter, if I use 4 mics and mix that as stereo, will bouncing the group to one track keep the panning or is that a stupid question?

Anyway, any assistance with the mixing portion and maybe some tips on what I can use on my kick drum out of my crappy mic locker would be helpful. Sorry for the long drawn out story.

[mdainsd]

What is not "right" about the way they are coming out now? What do you want them to sound like, particularly the bass drum? This is always personal preference, but if you state what sound you are looking for, you will get better suggestions. I prefer bass drums to sound like click-Boom, but thats my preference. I use a large diameter condenser mic inside the drums right near where the beater hits (boom), then a SM57 on the face of the drums right where the beaters hits (click).

I also needed to go to a 24 track tape recorder to get around the problem you are having with available tracks...

[coreytx]

Try the D6 or NT1a 6 inches away from the front of the kick and a 57 somewhere around your head. You can't go wrong.

view.jpg

[A Reel Person]

I'd mic the kick, snare and 1 overhead, and limit the drum tracks to 3.

[famous beagle]

Try the D6 or NT1a 6 inches away from the front of the kick and a 57 somewhere around your head. You can't go wrong.

Attachment 77713

That's not a 57, is it?

[WhinyLittleRunt]

I went back and listened to the drum mix again and I think it's growing on me. I definitely want to try some different techniques for miking the bass drum though... too much of a "boump" sound, when I'm looking for more of a "puh" sound, know what I mean? I was able to EQ it a little, plus I ran some acoustic guitar and bass over the drum mix just to see how everything fits and it really wasn't too bad. I keep my overheads down pretty low to balance it out. I think I can easily get a decent 4-mic drum sound with some practice, and then bounce it to two tracks. I tried doing that already but I must have bounced everything by accident. That will take some practice.

[A Reel Person]

Try putting a pillow, blanket or some foam against the outside kick drum head.
4-mic/4-track drum setup is ok with me, too. I'm not sure I'd bounce it down to 2 tracks, tho.
If that's the case, you might as well fine tune your 4-mic drum setup to 2-tracks live on the first pass.

[mixsit]

Try the D6 or NT1a 6 inches away from the front of the kick and a 57 somewhere around your head. You can't go wrong.

Attachment 77713

Right. Look at the room. That trappings's coefficient probly' drops like a rock below one or two K.
They'll never get anywhere like that.

[LToro]

I dig "puh"sounding drums. Are the drums tune up to sound like "puh"? Do u have puh sounding drum heads? A "puh" sounding room? If you do than it boils down to choices of "puh" drum sounds Do u want a big puh drum sound? Move the mics away from the drums. A tight small "puh" sound move the microphonescloser.
All mics and pres sound the same in the sense that all "grapes" taste the same. Slight different flavors? yes! But it all starts and ends with the source. Again sorry about my Ingles. And this is in my very humble opinion of course.

[witzendoz]

Try the D6 or NT1a 6 inches away from the front of the kick and a 57 somewhere around your head. You can't go wrong.

Attachment 77713

I looked at the picture and realised that I have the exact same drum kit and both the mics shown in the picture at my studio and I have never tried to record this way, next free day we may have to give it a go jus to see how we can get it to turn out.

Now back to the original question, I record my first full album of a band I was it on a 4 track reel to reel, we only had 1 track for drums so we recorded the drums with a traditional mic set up and a mixing desk. Over head (1 coz we were going to mono) snare, tom, floor tom, kick, no hats as the overhead had it well covered and used the mixing desk to mix down to 1 track. Had the drummer play along with the band as we were recording all the instruments live, set up the drum mix, and then had a friend watch the drum mix while we tracked.

We tracked to the 4 track (1 track each), drums, bass, acoustic guitar, guitar. I then mixed down all the instruments to a stereo 1/4 track reel to reel, put that tape on the 4 track and added 2 tracks of vocals, then mixed the vocals with the music. This was how bands like the Beatles did it when there were 4 tracks. I still have that album, now mastered to CD (originally a cassette release, it was 1988) and it actually sounds very good.

On an 8 track I would mix the kit with a mixer to 2 tracks and if possible put the snare and kick on their own tracks and mix the rest of the kit (toms, overheads, etc) to stereo, I often still had to do this when I had a 16 track tape machine. If that's all you have you have to work around it but you can still get good results.

Alan.

Just to add, the 2 microphones in the picture are a AKG D12 on kick and an AKG D19 overhead