A little drum mixing help?

ZoSo58LP

ZoSo58LP

rock guy
Hey guys, so usually i'm content with how MY set sounds when I record it, but my drummer of my band has his set at my house and we're currently doing a demo....so i've got 6 mics on this beast:

Shure sm57 on the snare
AKG D770 on the highhats
AKG D770 on the smallest tom
AGK D770 on the floor tom
not sure which brand, some type of kick drum mic on the kick drum (it's my drummers and i'm not next to it, but it's gray. might be one of those CAD's?)
MXL Vm63 stereo condenser mic overhead picking up both left/right channels panned hard for the overhead image

now, i'm not sure i like the sound. we were tinkering with it the other day, and it sounded decent...but i still didn't like it. so today i toyed with it by myself a bit, and i'm finding that my toms just sound..well...weird? i can't describe it, so i'm posting it to let you guys hear and give me tips on wtf is going on. the floor tom is panned hard left, small tom panned right, and the condesner picks them up overhead. his kick sucks, it's got no bass to it so it's just a thud, so i picked the lows up a bit...and since his head doesn't have a soundhole (like mine) i can only mic right in front of the kick drum (one of the other reasons i wasn't happy with how it sounds). so here's the file, i kept it as a .wav only to keep the quality. if you'd like an mp3, i've attached that as well. please gimmie some input on howto get these sounding well!

keep in mind, i use a 6 channel mixer here, and the rca out's plug into a behringer UCA222 which then plugs into the laptop via USB, so it's ALL one track here. the track you're getting is the exact thing i see when i record; which means i have to do the mixdown on the mixer first

my problem with it is that it sounds as if it's underwater, or wishy washy or something when i'm doing each drum individually. the toms sound REAL weird together. on the EQ, i raised the mids/highs/lows a bit on both of the toms. other than that, this kit sounds fine alone. is it some sort of phasing issue, with the fact that the condenser is overhead and the rest are dynamics? help!

oh and don't mind my shotty playing. lol not trying to impress here, just trying to get sounds from all the drums

drumsample.wav --wav file

drumsample.mp3 -- mp3 file
 
You could start simple with just kick, snare and overhead, then you'll have less phasing/cancellation to deal with. At the very least get rid of the hihat mic, you'll get plenty of hats in the overhead
 
The toms don't sound weird to me. I think you need to chill on the panning a bit. I usually don't pan toms and try to achieve a more natural stereo image by only panning the overheads and room mics. Are you adding any kind of compression or eq? Sounds very dry to me.
 
Murdersgalore said:
The toms don't sound weird to me. I think you need to chill on the panning a bit. I usually don't pan toms and try to achieve a more natural stereo image by only panning the overheads and room mics. Are you adding any kind of compression or eq? Sounds very dry to me.
Click to expand...
+1 on the panning.
I don't really hear anything weird on the toms either. Check your mic placement. Also agree on starting with your overheads. Get them sounding good and then blend in the other mics to taste.
 
Toms sound stellar man, when I heard that floor tom going I was thinking of the old Chips Ahoy commercial with that famous big band piece playing, of which the name escapes me...

Sounds good.
 
couldn't get to the sample, but one thing to try might be listening to just the overheads and paying very close attention to where things are in the stereo image. Then, pan toms etc. to the same positions when you bring up their close mics.
 
mediafire has spam and ads? sorry, i use chrome with adblock plus.....



as for that file, thanks for the tips. yes it is very dry, no EQ, no compression, that's literally how i recorded it. basically, i'm not sure if i'm liking that condenser as the overhead. i don't want an overall image of the kit, i kind of want a nice punchy sound instead. i tried another thing today, using dynamics for the cymbals and just getting rid of the overhead condenser. the toms didn't sound weird in the end, it was my computer....had it set to the wrong output! oops lol

as for the panning, i only went by what i read, maybe i'll give it a try. here's the file with the dynamics as overheads. i'm just not happy overall with what i've got going here, but with such a limited arsenal, i guess it's the best i can do! to me, not using hte condenser cleans up the sound and makes it sound less dirty/roomy. it's hard to explain,b ut here's the file on soudncloud:

Drum sample, all dynamics by Jay Ochs on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free

also, here is JUST the overhead condenser (remember, it's just one mic that's got 2 diaphrams built in, panned left and right to create a stereo image)

http://soundcloud.com/jayochs/drum-sample-condenser-overhead

what the hell is a good overhead supposed to sound like!? i have no idea. also, some are saying get rid of the high hat mic, but the high hats are real low for the overhead, IMO. any thoughts?
 
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I think the overhead condenser sounds better. The first is tighter but the second has more clarity and a better balance of the kit.
 
that's kind of what i was thinking...the tightness sounds good, but it sounds kind of drum machine-ey ya know? i kind of like the overall image of the kit too...but now to get a good overhead sond and mix that. hmm
 
In the end, the only thing that matters is that your drums sound good with the mix. Getting a universally good drum sound is quite difficult, if not impossible, considering the wide variety of music. You wouldn't put the Carpenter's drum sound into Metallica's songs. So, critiquing drums alone, outside of a mix, is a bit difficult.

From my perspective, your toms sound good, but they're panned way wide. For my tom panning, I get an image of the overheads, and then pan the toms to match the placement in the overheads. Much more natural that way (if you're wanting a natural sound). Also - gotta get rid of that hihat mic. Ya really don't need it.. Either that, or turn the sucker down... It almost completely eclipses the snare, and that's almost never a good thing.

Another problem you're gonna run into is phasing... Especially since you aren't gonna have control over the individual tracks, as they're being mixed before they hit the computer. Do everything you can to eliminate the phase between the kick, snare, and overheads.

As far as the "dynamics only" vs "overhead condenser" mix goes... Either might sound good, or they might not - depending on what music you put them with. Get some music, then post it back up, and I'll give it another listen.
 
cool thanks for the advice. just trying to get eveyrthing together for the drums, so we can continue and go on to record guitar, bass, vocs etc...(ugh vocal mixing is gonna be hard, i've never done it before.)

i did a bit more editing today, put the condenser back up top, and unpanned the toms a bit (they're around 3:00 and 9:00 respectivley for left/right) and i lowered the high hats.

Drum Test final, compression by Jay Ochs on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free

any thoughts? what i also did was a trick i was told, double up the track, and compress one of them and put it a little lower. i did that above, so they're mixed. here's the original, dry track as well:


http://soundcloud.com/jayochs/drum-test-final-dry

which is better? the compression added one sounds fuller
 
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