Recording drums - bass drum SO QUIET in my IEM

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Shadow1psc

New member
Hello all, I hope this is a good place to put this.

I'm getting into making music in my garage, and I have a fairly sophisticated setup I'd say for someone who is 'just starting out'. I have a 7 piece drum kit and a whopping 10 mics feeding into my Scarlett 18i20 (paired with a Behringer Ultragain ADA 8000 for extra inputs). I'm a competent musician, I know how to make sure I'm building a good sound from the ground up (starting with proper care of the drums, proper tuning, proper placement, and proper technique), and everything sounds magical directly from the mics to my IEMs (Shure SE 215s), except I can't hear my kick. Every channel is set to +0 db, I'm not adding any gain to any of the mics, I figure drums are already loud enough, and in fact, the Focusrite gear came with 'Scarlett Mix Control' so I could tweak this for this very reason.

So I set up a separate mix for my IEM output, and even after cranking the bass drum mic channel (an Audix D6 mic) and knocking every other mic down -5 db (and turning OFF the room mics in the mix), the bass drum is still too low. If I crank up the input gain on the channel between +5 and +10, it finally cuts through everything, but at this point I've cranked the channel output on the interface to my IEM almost max to get a listenable level. In contrast, when playing along to stuff for fun, I have to turn iTunes or Spotify almost completely down. If I turn the rest of the kit down in post to my IEMs, not only does it start to make each channel sound like crud, but then I hit a floor where the drums are too quiet for even the lowest volume setting in iTunes.

I feel like I have missed something completely, maybe overlooked something. I have the d6 inside the bass drum hole, pointed at the beater, and I've tried various angles and positions in/out, that doesn't seem to affect the volume I'm getting, just the amount of attack/decay/tone, so that doesn't seem to be the issue. Is this a common thing? I apologize, there's a lot of information here and working parts, and I'll be happy to provide additional information/screenshots to help clarify. FWIW, I'm pretty sure if I just lay down a beat in my DAW with all the channels set to +0 db on the interface, I'd probably get a usable signal and sound/mix (I may try this and post what everything sounds like in relation with no mixing), but actually recording is awkward, at least to me, if I don't have a nice presence of my kick drum in my head.

Thanks in advance if you read through and can make sense of any of this :laughings:
 
You do not want to increase your input gain to hear the kick. Best to crank the output-which you have done.

Another option is to use a 'real time' trigger for the kick so you can crank the hell out of it.

I might recommend you get one of THESE ButtKickers man. If you cant really hear the kick in your IEM's. You need to feel it.

That being said, make sure you have a sturdy throne and there are no audible sounds/vibrations that other mics will pick up.

It is quite impressive what they can do to improve how you play when you actually feel the kick drum.
 
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I've heard of the butt rocker. I thought that was more for environments where you don't have access to IEMs. So in your experience is it common to lose the kick drum even when direct monitoring?
 
Quick update - I did a quick record in Logic Pro X with every input at 0. Every drum came in clean and sounding amazing at around -13 to -16, except the bass drum mic which came in at a staggering -25 at peak. So pushing +8-10 or so on the input brought it to audible levels and a -13 to -16 in the daw. With the max increase in my personal monitor out it wasn't bad, but I had my monitor output dial completely pegged, making anything else coming from the computer ear shattering.

I can sorta work with this since I'm a solo act, it's just mildly irritating. Is it normal for the bass drum mic to be picking up so low? I feel like it should be louder and sound better up front without having to add gain... Sounds a little weak in my recording.
 
Shadow1psc said:
I've heard of the butt rocker. I thought that was more for environments where you don't have access to IEMs. So in your experience is it common to lose the kick drum even when direct monitoring?
Click to expand...

Direct monitoring? Oh.... Well that changes things.

I must ask why you are direct monitoring. Is your system not able to monitor from DAW with low enough latency to play well?

And the 'Butt Kicker' is actually great for situations where you use IEM's and not an array of drum monitors in a live situation. Headphones can't make you feel the low end. Though not sure why you are not feeling that from the kit itself.

I will say there is nothing cooler than the feel of a gigantic PA and monitor system pounding the kick drum in your gut. But that is not what is best for recording.


Though it seems like you have something weird going on as a kick drum should be one of the loudest drums when a mic is on the beater head.
 
Your problem is that you are not setting your recording levels properly. "Drums are loud enough, so I won't add any gain" isn't how you determine the record level.

With drums, you will want to set the recording level so that the hardest hit will peak around -6dbfs in your daw. With percussive sounds, you need to let the peaks go up that high.

When you set the levels properly, you will be able to mix your IEM's a lot better. You will still need to turn down the ipod, because commercial music is processed to make it crazy loud compared to the raw instrument sounds.
 
jimmys69 said:
Direct monitoring? Oh.... Well that changes things.

I must ask why you are direct monitoring. Is your system not able to monitor from DAW with low enough latency to play well?

And the 'Butt Kicker' is actually great for situations where you use IEM's and not an array of drum monitors in a live situation. Headphones can't make you feel the low end. Though not sure why you are not feeling that from the kit itself.

I will say there is nothing cooler than the feel of a gigantic PA and monitor system pounding the kick drum in your gut. But that is not what is best for recording.


Though it seems like you have something weird going on as a kick drum should be one of the loudest drums when a mic is on the beater head.
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I can monitor from the DAW, but often times I am also just jamming out to tracks via iTunes or Spotify. My interface has a software mixing/monitoring application that is frankly a pretty amazing thing to have included. I'm a multi-instrumentalist, so I have different mixes set up on different headphone or studio monitor outputs depending on what instrument I'm playing, or if I'm mixing, or if I'm just listening to good music.

If it helps clarify, I play mostly hard rock/metal, so things get loud, and the cutting 'click' or attack of the beater is what helps keep me on track sometimes. I could play pretty well 'blind' so to speak, I know if it 'feels' like I nailed a quick bass drum triplet/quadruplet or whatever, but hearing it also lets me know if the fill or run actually came through, if you know what I mean. Sometimes one can do a quick bass drum thing, and maybe one of the notes barely made contact, or it was slightly out of time.

As for your last statement, that's what I wanted to know - is it usual for the bass drum to be so low, and I did not think that was the case. I have the D6 pretty much entirely inside of the bass drum sound hole, and pointed as best I can directly at the beater contact spot, though I wouldn't think that even if I was off a little or a lot that that would change the volume (just the tone and amount of attack). Could this either be the cable, or a bad input slot on my interface? I guess it would be an easy test to take a known good cable/slot and see if my results are different.
 
Recording level and volume are two separate things. The recording level is a combination of the volume of the source, the sensitivity of the mic and the gain you apply to the mic signal.

It has nothing to do with the mic not being placed properly, it's just that the D6 isn't as sensitive as the other mics you are using. That is what the gain on the mic preamp is for- to bring the mic signal up to the proper recording level. How much gain that takes is how much it takes. All of your other levels are about 10db or so lower than they should be too. The kick was just 10db lower than the others.
 
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I've always read that you should shoot for between -16 and -12 in any DAW for your levels to give adequate headroom?
 
That is an RMS reading, not a peak reading. Since drums and other percussive instruments have very high peak to average ratios, you set it by the peaks. Those peaks are what the headroom is for.

For instance, setting levels for a piano, you would strike a note and set the recording level of the SUSTAIN to -18dbfs. The peak can end up where it ends up, that is what the headroom is for.

With drums,the sustain is so short, that you can't really set the level of it, so you put the highest peaks up in the -6db range and get on with your life.
 
Farview said:
That is an RMS reading, not a peak reading. Since drums and other percussive instruments have very high peak to average ratios, you set it by the peaks. Those peaks are what the headroom is for.

For instance, setting levels for a piano, you would strike a note and set the recording level of the SUSTAIN to -18dbfs. The peak can end up where it ends up, that is what the headroom is for.

With drums,the sustain is so short, that you can't really set the level of it, so you put the highest peaks up in the -6db range and get on with your life.
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I'll keep that in mind and set my gain knobs accordingly, see what I come up with. Maybe once cranked +20db, I can properly mix the bass drum in at non max output levels.
 
Once you get the gain staging correct, everything should fall into place and make more sense.
 
Shadow1psc said:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I've always read that you should shoot for between -16 and -12 in any DAW for your levels to give adequate headroom?
Click to expand...

The 'average levels, sustained sounds -20 -- 18, what ever, and what ever it takes to keep the peaks well below full scale (..his ' -6 ' is just a decent number for an 'oops / safety range.

I happen to use the -24dB 'RMS + Peak' scale in Sonar as it works great;
When the average' range levels pop up somewhere into view in the lower part of the meter, good to go typically.
 
Yes, with drums, as long as you don't clip, you are good to go.

-6 dbfs means you are using all the bits, while giving yourself a little 'oops' room. This is like horse shoes, close is good enough. You don't have to spend too much time and energy one it. You just have to get it in the right ball park. You were just shooting about 20db too low with the kick and 10db too low with the rest.
 
Should I be setting the gain on my overheads in a similar fashion, or do I want to treat those more like sustained volume instances?
 
The overheads aren't just cymbal mics, they pick up the whole kit. Chances are, the peak from the snare will be much higher than the sustain of the cymbals. Set it to the peaks.
 
My first thought was that if you're monitoring directly, while also playing along to stuff like hard rock and metal, you aren't getting nearly the attack/beater level that are in those. The kicks in those are usually compressed to hell and then have at least a bit of a boost in the top end around 2-8kHz to bring out the beat/click of the kick.

My suggestion would be to monitor from the DAW and apply compression and EQ to the kick once you have your levels set properly as Farview has mentioned. Compressing it a bit and then adding a bit of top end might help it cut through the way you're hearing on your metal recordings.
 
MrWrenchey said:
My first thought was that if you're monitoring directly, while also playing along to stuff like hard rock and metal, you aren't getting nearly the attack/beater level that are in those. The kicks in those are usually compressed to hell and then have at least a bit of a boost in the top end around 2-8kHz to bring out the beat/click of the kick.

My suggestion would be to monitor from the DAW and apply compression and EQ to the kick once you have your levels set properly as Farview has mentioned. Compressing it a bit and then adding a bit of top end might help it cut through the way you're hearing on your metal recordings.
Click to expand...

Yep. :)
 
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