Expert advice..

[Recordepreneur]

I recently bought the Shure 6 Mic Drum kit..

i have the two pg81's overhead. the 54s on the toms. and the kick mic on the kick naturally..

i have an sm57 on the snare..

now here are my questions:


1. Do I need to have a separate mic for the hi-hats? it picks up decently right now without one.. but im not sure..

2. On the 54's, i have 0 gain. and the high eq is turned all the way down.. but its so loud compared to the rest of the setup.. what should i do?

3. how do i set my eq? i just dont know how much of each i need to turn down or up..

4. when i record guitar, and then record drums to the guitar.. it just doesnt sound right. it sounds so cheap.. not together.. i duno it could just be me..

any advice on anything.. even if i didnt mention something would be greatly appreciated..

-jay

[Bulls Hit]

A lot of this stuff is trial and error, but a few things have worked for me.

1. No I don't think you need a mic for the hats. The oheads should pick up plenty of hats.

2.If your toms are too loud, just pull them back in the mix, as long as they're not clipping.

3. I tend not to eq when tracking, only afterwards when mixing. Remember the general rule with eq is to subtract before you add. Read this
http://www.recordingeq.com/EQ/req0900/primer.htm

4. I always record drums first, then guitar. Seems to blend better. You can also add a touch of reverb or delay to the drums to get the mix to gell together better

[LeksBD]

With all due respect, I would have bought all mics seperately to suit each drum's tonal qualities. But I'm assuming you were on a budget, so this was a sensible choice.

In terms of EQ, for the kick, I normally cut most if not all of the mid frequencies, this instantly gives the kick some definition.

I would offer advice on the snare and toms, but It's all about the producers preffered taste/mix.

Hope this was of some use, would be a first.

Leks.

[Jblount]

I think we are all critical about our drum tones, because that one instrument can reveal alot about how professional we are (or arnt). It can also make or break a song. The best thing I can tell you to do, is record the kit flat without clipping. Then sit down and spend a couple of hours playing around with adjustments on the eq. Single the kick first and just play around with that then throw it back in the kit mix, and see how it reacts. You will figure out what happens each time you change something, and eventually you will find how to get that sound you are looking for. Some sudgestions, boost the 60-80 hz range on the kick and cut 600hz and up. For flappy sounding toms, cut the 500-800 hz range, you will have to play around with each tom seperately, since they are tuned differently. Each tom has a sweet spot to boost, usually for a 10 tom, 160hz, 12 tom 140 hz, 13 tom 120 hz, 14 tom 100 hz, 16 tom 80 hz. But that is all subjective, just play around with it. For more crist snare, boost 8-10khz, but be careful around this area, you will affect the other elements in the song and the way they react to eachother. Overheads, cut everything below 800 hz. Same thing for the cymbals as the snare, be careful with the top end, too much is way lot worse than too little when you are above 5khz.