Recording and Editing drums

adiobox

New member
So I was curious... For live drum recording what are some good methods to get the best quality track. I'm not talking mic and gear quality. What I mean is do you do a full song with live drums? Do you do segments at a time to metronome and sync them up for the full song? Are there any tricks to getting a real pro sounding drum track or is it just playing a full song live as best you can?
 
Personally, I go for recording the whole song at once with the intention of keeping at least the drums. Anything else that's good is the bonus plan. The way you get good tracks is getting good sounds first and then not recording too hot. As long as you're not clipping, there's a lot of vodoo you can do after the fact. It's possible to edit just about anything at any point along through the chain. I don't like click tracks and in my experience most drummers have trouble with them. Unless their timing is horrible, well, you're fucked already with or without a click.
 
Yea I feel the same about click tracks, I don't like them. I have pretty decent timing without them. I do sound checks to make sure I'm not clipping before I start recording, my drum tracks are good. I was just wondering how to take them to the next level. I run my eqs on everything but I constantly have the problem that the cymbals are ear piercing. It's not the volume it's the frequency. So I usually cut ALOT at 10k and up. The strange thing is that they sound fine during the mix but when I import to master they sound horrid. I make sure to dither to 16 bit. Anyways it always takes me a few Attempts on the master to tame those high ends. I'm about to start recording live sessions like you said and then using what's good...I hope the live atmosphere helps in that department. Thanks for your reply!
 
Cymbals can be a problem with no easy solution. It can be the cymbals themselves, the room, the mics, the player, all of the above or any combination.
 
Sometimes, if it's a 'tricky' song, I'll record the live drums knowing they are a scratch track, and redo them later. It can be one drum at a time, it may be everything except cymbals, whatever. I do whatever I think makes the song sound better in the end. It may just be the chorus or bridge, it may be a fill here and there. The punch in is your friend. If you're doing this at home, you aren't watching the clock, so why not? But then, I am certainly no 'pro' drummer. I am just a guy who usually just adds a 'boom-tat' to his songs, but sometimes I can try and channel (fill in the name of your favorite drummer here).
Click tracks are a can of worms, so don't open that can unless you really want to start something.
 
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