two drummers

F

Frenchc

New member
ok so I'm recording a band next week with two drummers in every song. Has anyone done this before because I havn't. I'm thinking I should record one to a click first and overub the second drummer to the first one with the click. I'm using a digi002 and only have 8 tracks to work with not 16. Or would it be better to record both together and play with the bleed isuues. I'd appreciate and information or ideas ifa nyone has come across this before

thanks

Chris
 
I'd suggest recording the "main drummer" 1st to the click & track the 2nd drummer to that

keeping 2 stick men in time could be troublesome & not mention you can record both (drum) parts using 8 tracks

indeed good luck
 
if you can, go out and buy any CD by black eyes....

you're probably going to have to track them however they want to be tracked..I would be prepared to do it live.
 
Double drumming is one of my favorite things to do. I really dig playing counter beats against the other drummer's rhythms, then doubling up for emphasis.

Do they play together often? If you can, record them together so they can feed off one another. I think you'll get much more "life" out of the tracks than with overdubbing.

I was actually just listening to a jam session with me and my housemate double drumming and all my coworkers think it sounds awesome.

The room is 14 ft wide so we have to set up in a V -- him in the right corner, me in the left (I'm lefty and he's righty). The cool thing is we only used six mics for the drums -- three for each kit. One dynamic for each bass drum. I had two overhead SDCs (X/Y). He had one SDC overhead and a LDC in front of his kit (diagonally from the overhead for streo spread). Watch out for phase. The bleed actually helps with ambience too BTW, so use it to your advantage.

If they can play to a click, then try it. Otherwise just let them groove to each other. One trick I've used for many bands is to have them do 3 or 4 takes with a click and then one without - which usually is the keeper.

As usual, if the room is good, it can definitely work!

Good luck!

Rez
 
If the two drummers are any good (and they better be), I'd definatly do them both at once, most likely in the same room.

That is, unless the song calls for drastically different accoustic environments for the two drums.
 
i second the comment about black eyes. it's going to be next to impossible to do it without it sounding kind of sloppy. which most of the time i think sounds pretty cool.. but... just giving you a warning of what to expect. the band (i'm guessing) probably has a fairly intentional sloppy sound, nature of the beast. anyways, good luck.
 
yes they have played together for a while and both are very talented drummers. I will probably just have the guitarist jam along with them and record both of them live with 4 mics on each drum......kick/snare/undrsnare/overhead. This is how I usually record drums and have gotten a decent sound out of it with a AT4050 as the overhead, 57-snare 58-undersnare D112 on the kick. Well I guess I'll jsut have to see how it goes. I'll post my results in a week or two.

Thanks

Chris
 
I played with a band that had two drummers,,,, totally insane craziness. 1 would lead the other off, and then vica versa... they watched eachothers every move,,, 1 would back off when the other was going in heavy, they would switch and do different things.

You'll def have to track em live, just like suggested. I would think that would make a diffence has to the style the two were playing together. for example if one was doing a lot of kick snare stuff while the other was doing a lot of tom work. Mic tight as possible and work with the spacial to where it sounds good.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top