So no matter how hard I try

P

palz.

New member
Everything I record sounds shitty.

My band recorded last night and the only thing that sounded any good was the direct guitar. We used 3 mics on the drums; 2 condensors hanging over either side of the kit and a dynamic on the kick, but it still sounded like it was recorded in a cave, and the signal was really low in comparison to the guitars. We miked an overdriven guitar and it sounded awful and weak. This is probably a vague description but if anyone has any advice it'd be appreciated. Thanks.
 
yeah, treat your room. dont use condensors in a shitty room.

we all get that problem sometimes.
 
It's not my room and I don't know how realistic it is that we could modify anything. Also those 3 mics are all I have.
 
Like it's my drummer's basement, and he has these separators down there that he refuses to even take out.
 
its probably your room dude.

take a look in the studio building section and search for treatment and use of 703 fiberglass. you can make some movable panels which i bet would help you alot.

what kinda mics, pres, into what kinda medium?

obviously if you are recording onto a cassette or something, its not gonna sound as clear as digital thru apogee converters.
 
We record on a tascam pocketstudio 5, and use 2 Rode NT1-A condensors as overheads, an SM57 on the kick.

Given our setup we aren't looking for anything spectacular, but still.
 
A 57 generally makes for a lousy kick mic. It's more common to use something with a larger diaphragm, like an AKG D112 or even an EV RE20.
 
There are too many factors involved in a "shitty" recording to pinpoint exactly what the problem is, and to offer any useful advice. It's akin to my saying "I can't make a good-tasting chocolate cake to save my life -- what's wrong?"

Seriously, it could be a bad recipe ... could be bad/not fresh ingredients ... could be the cooking time, the oven ... or more than likely, I'm just a bad cook, but the bottom line is there could be any infinite number of possibilities as to why my cake isn't turning out the way I wish it would.

What it's going to come down to is using high-quality instruments and amps that are well-maintained (heads and strings changed regularly, etc.) played with good technique in a good-sounding (accoustically treated) room or facility using decent quality recording gear by an experienced engineer who has a solid fundamental understanding of sound, audio and recording technique.

If your recordings don't sound good, there's about a 99% chance that the problem is any one of the above-mentioned factors, a combination of several or even all of the above factors.

In fact, if I were a betting man, I would put a lot of money on the odds that all of the following are applying in your current situation ...

1) Using instruments / gear that don't sound very good to begin with.

2) Tracking in a poor space (you mentioned it sounded like a "cave").

3) Using poor recoring technique / gain staging, etc. (if your direct guitar sounds better than a mic'ed amp, then you've definitely got some technique issues going on).

4) Using poor quality or inadequate gear for the job; example would be a portastudio with only 3 mics in your entire collection.

5) You currently have very little knowlege about what you're doing when it comes to recording.


If getting a good recording is important to you, then I would recommend that you have someone else do it for you. If it isn't that important or it's just a hoby ... then just keep working at things and get some practice under your belt. You're not going to be Phil Specter overnight.

.
 
The main problem is probably the sound of the drums themselves, thats usually what I find it is. Mess around tuning them for ages and get new heads. You should be able to get a much better sound that way. Also if you cant afford or find another mic experiment a bit more. Move the overheads closer or even try just one overhead and one of the rodes on the snare. The rodes and the shure are good enough mics to get a decent sound out of so the problem lies somewhere else. As the guys above were saying, room treatment might help. If you cant afford proper stuff try things like hanging blankets and putting up old matresses about the place. Just keep trying new things. Try something new, record a track and label it then change one thing and record a new track. Compare the two. Keep changing one thing at a time and after a lot of hours u'll begin to get a feel for what sounds good.
 
Are you doing the whole band at once or one track at a time? I would definitely recommend the latter if you're not already doing it. It's less complicated, and it's way easier to tweak your recordings later when you're mastering them.
 
definatly work with tuning and new heads as reccomended. Try to do something with the space, basements can de really hard, low ceilings, lots of parallel refelctive surfaces, etc.

try a set of MSH-01s for overheads, i really like them (better than my MXL 603s right now) as they seem to pick up just the drums where the 603s seemed to pick up a lot of everyhtign i didn't want. Note, my drum recordings still suck, because I have my drums pretty much in a corner, and even with good heads,t hey are not the best drums ever.

PLay around with placement, can you get some really different results with some different angles and with a few inches.

daav
 
Are you doing everything

on the Tascam? I mean, you're not then dumping those tracks onto a pc for mixing? How many tracks does a pocketstudio 5 record at one time?

I know it doesn't come off sounding helpful, but in reality Chessrock's right. In your case it's probably really everything. Recording drums is, by most accounts, the most difficult thing to do well. A good-sounding drum recording, in an untreated basement using the equipment that you have would be challenging for someone who has a fair amount of experience.

What you're saying is sort of the equivalent of saying "I'm 15 1/2 and I just got my learner's permit. I have a hand-me down '98 Hundai Excel that a guy I know just put new shocks on for me. But as hard as I try, I can't qualify for the pole at Talledega." So if you get a response or two implying "well, duh!" just be aware that there is some basis for them feeling that way.

Now, let's try to help you. Are you locked in to the equipment you're using? Because there's probably only so much that can be done with it, but that doesn't mean it can't be better than what you're getting.

So, how many tracks does it do simultaneously?

Are you mixing on a pc or the Tascam?

Do you have an external mixer (I'm assuming not)?

If those are the only mics you have, how are you doing vocals?

Do the drums and or whatever else sucks sound good in the room, live? Just know that if the drums sound like shit, what you're going to get will most likely sound like shit, too. Garbage in = garbage out.

So answer the above questions, and let's get started.
 
elementary said:
The main problem is probably the sound of the drums themselves, thats usually what I find it is. Mess around tuning them for ages and get new heads. You should be able to get a much better sound that way. Also if you cant afford or find another mic experiment a bit more. Move the overheads closer or even try just one overhead and one of the rodes on the snare. The rodes and the shure are good enough mics to get a decent sound out of so the problem lies somewhere else. As the guys above were saying, room treatment might help. If you cant afford proper stuff try things like hanging blankets and putting up old matresses about the place. Just keep trying new things. Try something new, record a track and label it then change one thing and record a new track. Compare the two. Keep changing one thing at a time and after a lot of hours u'll begin to get a feel for what sounds good.
Click to expand...

Good advice, but I still think it will be pretty tough to get a good drum sound with those mics. Unless you're going for a garage band-y sound with a lot of midrange beater click and kind of a constant wash of reverberant cymbals.

If you've got any samples you could post, and a description of exactly how they were done, it would be helpful.
 
I have to agree, just about everything's wrong.
You're trying to get a sound that takes a great
studio setup to accomplish.

There's been some good suggestions-
Treat the room-buy some Auralex panels, or if
nothing else, egg cartons will do in a pinch.

You're probably getting a ton of bleed from the overhead
if the drums aren't isolated.
Whatever's closest to the mic, or loudest will overwhelm
the rest of the parts.
The SM-57 isn't made for what you're attempting, but
mic placement may help.
Is there a mic port on the kick head?
If so, experiment w/ moving it out 3-5 in.

The easiest thing to do, is buy a sequencing program,
do the parts 1 at a time.

kirk
 
palz. said:
We record on a tascam pocketstudio 5, and use 2 Rode NT1-A condensors as overheads, an SM57 on the kick.
Click to expand...


According to the user manual the Pocketstudio can only record two tracks at a time through 1/4" jacks and with no phantom power option SO...........how the hell did you have things connected up. Where were the Rodes getting the necessary 48V phantom power from?

:cool:
 
I'm not sure why you're asking this question in the mic forum. As has been pointed out, you are actually asking for advice in several different areas. And you're being lazy about it. I suggest you search in the various forums here about recording, mixing, guitars, etc, breaking down your recording chain step by step by step. If you don't want to take the time to learn to do this properly (which would be understandable), I suggest you set everyone up in a circle, facing each other, so that it sounds good to you when you play, and then take your best microphone and put it in the middle. At least that way people can get a general idea about how your band sounds.
 
I did it using an 8-track mixer.

Ok look, I'm not a recording expert, but I'm not a moron the way that bitter 36-year-old dude painted me out to be. I've spent the last several months reading up as much as I can on recording, enough to have reasonably purchased the equipment I have (I got the 4-track and two fo the mics as gifts, though), and without any forseeable options, took it upon myself to try and get this album recorded as best I could.

I'm not trying to be a recording engineer here; I'm an 18-year-old kid whose entire creative focus for several months has been writing and (hopefully) recording an album. We can't afford a studio, we can't afford additional equipment, and as I said, it's my drummer's basement, who isn't dedicated enough to take gobos out from the other side of his basement, let alone pay for room treatment down there. So we ARE locked into what we have.

The Tascam is a 4-track, yeah. Drummer also has a Fostex 8-track, but we don't know how to use it and he doesn't have the manual.

you can hear what we've done with just 1 mic at myspace.com/nrel. I can upload something we did with two mics (one condensor, one dynamic) as well.

But just try to keep in mind that I'm not recording this myself for an ego boost, it's really a last result. There's a slight chance we can get a friend to step in this summer and help us out, but he hasn't gotten back to us yet.
 
LI_Slim said:
I'm not sure why you're asking this question in the mic forum. As has been pointed out, you are actually asking for advice in several different areas. And you're being lazy about it. I suggest you search in the various forums here about recording, mixing, guitars, etc, breaking down your recording chain step by step by step. If you don't want to take the time to learn to do this properly (which would be understandable), I suggest you set everyone up in a circle, facing each other, so that it sounds good to you when you play, and then take your best microphone and put it in the middle. At least that way people can get a general idea about how your band sounds.
Click to expand...

Yeah I posed the initial question pretty harmlessly, these obnoxious responses are completely unwarranted. Sorry.
 
but seriously dudes I'm not here to argue. does anyone have any advice? I realize my situation could very well be hopeless here.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top