Have great gear, need great advice to go with it...

Hollowreed

New member
Hello good people,

I have been reading the various forums on this site for years, but this is my first post. Although I am not independently wealthy I have been lucky enough to have collected some pretty decent gear over the course of about fifteen years, and I have what I think should work pretty well for some decent recording. My musical style ranges from pop/rock/alt (Elliott Smith, John Mayer, Radiohead) to hip-hop (Roots). My main concern is how to use my microphone collection/recording gear as efficiently as possible, particularly taking into consideration that I have 8 tracks of audio recording using a Firebox and Inspire combined, routing through a Mackie mixer and into a Macbook Pro, and that I am recording live drums (I used midi-driven soundfonts for years and am sick of them). I am looking for advice on any aspect of recording, mic choice/placement (esp for drums), DAW workflow, etc. If you had the same gear, how would you use it to get the most out of it? How would you best use my mics to mic a drum set?

I should mention that I mostly work with Cubase and now Reaper, and am decent at understanding the DAW process, I am just having trouble feeling confident that I am using my gear properly, being self taught at this. Also, being a father of 4 young children and a school teacher, recording time is soooo precious and I don't want to keep wasting it second guessing myself on my basic equipment setup. I want to CREATE!!

Here's what I have, thanks for any help you can give:

MICS:
Neumann u89i
Beyerdynamic MC740N
Rode Nt1
Sennheiser MD421
Audio-Technica Kitpak Drum Mics (2 sets)
CAD KBM-412
Nady CM 90 (x2)
Nady SPC-10
Sony ECM-330 (x2)
MXL 990 (x2)
Homemade Subkick

RECORDING GEAR:
Presonus Firebox
Presonus Inspire (daisy-chained to Firebox)
Macbook Pro (10.6.4)
Mackie 1642 VLZ pro
Behringer TRUTH B2031A Monitors
Studio Projects VTB1
Focusrite Platinum VoiceMaster Pro Processor
Alesis Quadraverb GT
Tascam Reel-to-reel (x2 in my basement)

DRUMS:
Sunlite kick and toms with Aquarian R2 heads
Slingerland Silver Sparkle snare
Gretsch BlackHawk chrome popcorn snare
Zildjian "Z" 13" Dyno Beat/Zildjian "K" 13" HH
Zildjian 20" Z-custom China Boy (cracked :()
Zildjian 18" Z-custom Medium Crash (cracked :()
Sabian AAX 16" Stage Crash
Sabian 20" Pro Sonix Ride
Sabian B8Pro 10" Splash

GUITARS:
Martin 000-28H w/Fishman Thinline
Fender American Strat
Gibson SG Bass
Fender Jumbo Acoustic
Fluke Concert Ukulele
G-String Soprano Ukulele

AMPS:
Traynor YGL-3 Mark III
Fender Acoustasonic 30 DSP Combo Amp with Effects
 
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If you want individual tracks for the drums you're going to need a different interface with up to 8 inputs that you can firewire or USB to the computer.
Drums usually use four mics - snare/kick/2 overheads but you may want more.
You'll need to try all the mics to see which work best for each drum.
 
Thanks, I actually have had good luck creating an aggregate device (using core audio) on my Mac, which allows me to record 4 tracks from the Firebox and 4 tracks on the Inspire, totaling 8 tracks simultaneously (yes, they CAN be daisy chained!). I was excited to find that out.

I have been experimenting with using different mics, but I think I may be missing something obvious... for instance, I have 1 MD421 which I know is a good mic for drums, which drum should I use it on? What about my u89? should I only consider it as an overhead, or are there other ideas? I know I shouldn't put it in harms way.

Thanks for the help.
 
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