Firepod Presonus, need help recording drums..

[Kapo_Polenton]

Gents,

I've been trying to get a good recorded sound over the past few days but I want to know from those of you who have similar technology, your experiences. Soo far, it seems like my kick is coming through /bleeding through the most on each seperate track : kick,snare,tom 1, tom 2, tom 3 and despite having overheads as well, the whole kit sounds mufled and bassy. I can hardly hear the toms and that is the biggest problem. Anyone experience this? I set the preamps to the point of clipping and it is barely audible, i have to set them past 2 o clock and listening through the monitoring headphones, it is a heap of distorted mess... however, into cubase SX, it is just barely better. Is it something with how i have set up the channels in cubase? Do I need to have the audio track's volume peaking and then tweak the preamps on the presonus to get audible clear signal?

I'm using sm57's a 52 on the kick, and two condenser behringers. I had recorded once before with the over heads and a kick and it turned out clearer so I am wondering what gives here. Really frustrating.. with soo much kick bleeding through it is a flubby mess. The mic's are facing down on the toms and toward the center of the batter. Maybe they need to be angled so that they face horizontally into the center of the batter and not down closer to kick? I haven't a clue, thought you guys might know.

Thanks

[Russtopher]

First and foremost, if you're newer to drum recording, this thread is a MUST READ:

http://homerecording.com/bbs/showthread.php?t=39030

If you're down with all that, then there still could be a number of issues. Experiment with the mic placements both around the toms as well as the overheads - try Recorderman, Glyn Johns, spaced pair, just try and get a clean sound from just the kick, snare, and overheads.

If none of that works and for some reason everything sounds flubby, maybe check and make sure your Firepod mixer software is running, check levels there (I have a Firebox so I *assume* you have the mixing console software from Presonus). Also make sure your latency is OK if you're recording all those individual inputs to their own tracks, I know sometimes my Firebox would get all distorted and nasty/poppy/clicky when the latency was set too low.

A lot of kick bleed in the overheads can be removed by pulling out all the lows in the overheads, especially if you end up close micing the toms.

[Bulls Hit]

Post up a clip so we can hear what you're getting

[Kapo_Polenton]

Alright, I'll have to make a decent clip tomorrow. I was standing at the kit earlier and just hitting various drums so its nothing that gives a clear indication. I did manage to get the levels up somewhat but what is odd is that i had to turn up the first preamp attached to the kick mic and the other levels went up too! Maybe it is a shortcoming of the presonus? I had it set quite low initially and i think this affected the other mic lines. Again this is a guess.

So now with the sound levels up, I noticed that toms 1 and 3 were picking up the kick and here is where they sounded flubby. Whenever the kick sounds, these mic's distort and flub in a huge pulse. If you guys want i can post that sound so you can get an idea but it sounds to me like a phase issue of some sort or that the mic is bust.

I'm off to read that tutorial.

[Greg_L]

I use a firepod and all 8 inputs for drums. I've never had any problems. This may sound dumb, but make sure you have your tracks assigned to the correct inputs.

[Kapo_Polenton]

Greg L, are you using Cubase? If so, I've got 8 input/outputs that show up when I assign a track and I;ve got them as follows

input - presonus --> assign left or right (tracks 1,3,5,7 on left, 2,4,6,8 on right)

output - mic 1 - 8

Am I missing something? These things are just picking up the kick something fierce. Maybe you can shed some light on that for me.

Thanks

[Greg_L]

Originally Posted by Kapo_Polenton

Greg L, are you using Cubase? If so, I've got 8 input/outputs that show up when I assign a track and I;ve got them as follows

input - presonus --> assign left or right (tracks 1,3,5,7 on left, 2,4,6,8 on right)

output - mic 1 - 8

Am I missing something? These things are just picking up the kick something fierce. Maybe you can shed some light on that for me.

Thanks

I don't know about all that left right stuff. I haven't been using cubase lately, but if I remember correctly, you go into Devices>VST Inputs and make sure each input for the Firepod is activated. Then go to your mixer and assign each track an input. For example: Kick-IN 1, Snare-IN 2, Tom-IN 3, etc, and then make sure you're actually recording the kick or whatever to the correct track.

[Russtopher]

Originally Posted by Greg_L

I don't know about all that left right stuff. I haven't been using cubase lately, but if I remember correctly, you go into Devices>VST Inputs and make sure each input for the Firepod is activated. Then go to your mixer and assign each track an input. For example: Kick-IN 1, Snare-IN 2, Tom-IN 3, etc, and then make sure you're actually recording the kick or whatever to the correct track.

Same way for the 4-input Firebox as well. VST Inputs are set to make sure all mic/line inputs are activated, then in the main Cubase project screen each track is assigned an input. If everything's getting assigned to the same 1 or 2 tracks in Cubase that might be why everything sounds flubby....

[Kapo_Polenton]

I'm gonna check that out.. maybe I have forgotten to select the inputs 1-8..that would make sense, they just keep recording over each other. - Apparently this is an ID-10-T problem .. I'll try that tomorrow. Probably solves the problem. Thanks guys, I'll let you know.

[Kapo_Polenton]

Guys, can you check your firepods and let me know what the settings are in Cubase? I swear I think mine is f_cking up. It keeps only giving me about 2 or 3 channels of sound. The other mics are not picking anything up.(I have tested the mics they work fine and are picking up signal) Inside cubase I see options for IN and Out for each channel, I have them marked/selected to mono in / mono out, mono2 in/ mono2 out etc.. all the way to seven but not all the mics are actively picking up sound and recording it!! Its driving me nuts.. there is also the option to use the Presonus drivers - left or right (IN) and PResonus out to listen back. I'm wondering if this is the result of having the presonus Inspire installed before but I uninstalled it before installing the driver for the firepod. Whatever it is, its not working and its driving me insane. Ideas anybody? I might email Presonus as well..it can't be this hard after all. Soo far I am not digging my firepod that's for sure.

And yes, under VST, I did add 8 mono tracks for in and out. ..maybe I need to disable or remove the presonus left/right input options.. they might be taking precedence.Not sure if I can do that but just thinking out loud at work.

[Dogman]

Opps, looks like you did exactly what I said.

I delete this post.

[light40]

I've heard of people having this problem with the Firepod and Cubase before. All I can say is make sure your inputs are correct, as well as all of your sample rate and latency settings. If everything is as it should be and it's not working, call PreSonus?

Good luck!

-alex