Why do my drum tracks suck? (recording inside)

[MightyPOOsticK]

http://www.geocities.com/mightypoost...nionneeded.mp3

Right click and save target as...

Tear it apart....

Right now I'm not liking the toms...in person they're nice and resonant but on this recording it sounds like I have pillows stuffed in them.

[Chibi Nappa]

First of all, how are you recording them? They seem mono to me. Is this a restriction of your equipment, or did you just mix them that way?

And those drum sounds themselves aren't that bad. It's kinda' hard to tell outside of the context of music actually....Do you have a recording with a full band? The biggest problem seems to be the drummer himself. He looses it every now and then.

Without knowing what you did, all I can say is move the tom mics around some untill they accuratly pick up what you are hearing in the room. Do the tom mics sound OK on their own and then fall apart when other mics are brought in? Could be phasing problems.

[DonF]

What Chibi said.

Plus, your room has a hollow sound to it. Either get a better room, improve the room you have, or resign yourself to close-miking everything. (The room might not be objectionable if there were some stereo imaging, though.)

Overall I think the sound is pretty good. Beats the tar out of my drum machine.

[willovercome]

toms and bass sound pretty good! i don't really care for the cymbals and the snare. i'm not sure if you have a seperate mic on the hi-hats, if you do try less of that and a tiny bit of reverb on the snare. that just might liven up the track. and maybe a little stereo seperation will undo some of the hallowness. again, without knowing what you did it's hard to help fix it, but overall i think you're on the right track!

[MightyPOOsticK]

K heres my setup....

1 - overhead (samson c01 condenser)
1 - snare (sm57)
1 - floortom (cheap shure pg bass mic)
The bass is triggered....

I wanna get another c01 for another condensor (so I can get everything in stereo) but I'm afraid its just gonna pick up the hi hats like mad....The hi hats are friggin loud as hell!

Should I go for another condenser (for stereo purposes) and just work with damping the hi hat?

[TexRoadkill]

Why are stereo overheads a big deal? You usually can't even notice it the spread that much when mixed into a song. I generally like mono drums because they have more punch.

I can't listen at work but I'll try to check out your drums later on if I remember.

[scottboyher]

I don't think they sound all that bad. Maybe a little EQ?

[chessrock]

Your drums are fine.


You just need to learn how to balance things a little better -- your cymbals are a little loud -- and work the EQ.

You need to get more snap / beater click out of the kick, and more slap out of the snare. These are more/less EQ things.

Just learn your way around the EQ and you'll be fine.

Here's some more specific things you could try (just a suggestion):

On the kick:

* try cutting about 3 dbs at 200 hz, medium Q.

* Boost about 4-5 dbs at 100 hz, and another 3 dbs at 63 hz, both VERY NARROW Q.

* Boost 2.8 khz by 5-6 dbs medium-wide Q

If you have any bass enhancer plugins like maxx bass, you might try just a hair at 63 hz just for shits and giggles.

On the snare:

* Boost 2.5 khz by 4 dbs, medium Q

* Cut 450 hz by about 4 dbs, with a wideQ


Remix with a little less cymbal, compress/limit, and you'll have a fairly kickass-sounding drum track.

[MightyPOOsticK]

Wow you guys made me feel alot better.....

Thanks for the specific examples chessrock....they help alot.

I guess I'm just gonna work with what I have right now....I guess so far my only beef is the snare doesn't have as much crack as I want it to....I'm gonna play with tuning and probably end up getting a new (wood) snare later on this week or something....

Thanks alot guys!

[TexRoadkill]

Not bad. The only thing that really bugged me is that ride or crash. There are probably some phase issues going on that are making the cymbols sound a little weak. I don't like that sampson on overhead. If you could spring for a better mic that will help alot. A little more snap in the snare would be nice.

The mix is a little off. The floor tom is a bit hot. I would say everything sounds a little too up front. I tend to prefer a 'roomier' drum sound because it makes the drums sound bigger. I like to use mainly a compressed overhead for 90% of the drum sound. But everyone likes something different.

What kind of a system are you working with? It sounds a little muffled like your not getting a very good frequency response through to your final mixdown. That may just be the sampson overhead in combination with a behringer or something.

[MightyPOOsticK]

Yeah I'm going from the mic's to a mackie 1202 vlz-pro to a delta 66...

Is there any way I can fix the phase problems I have? (if you think they are phase problems)