1st NEW drum recording with 8pre - 60's Guy's WINTER

Llarion

New member
Hey gang!

I decided to celebrate the rensiassance of my acoustic drums by buying a nice 7pc mic kit for them and a MOTU 8pre to get 8 tracks simultaneous into the computer! Woo hoo! Dis be COO! :) the preamps are LOVELY!!

Anyway, I've been working with 60s Guy on his lovely song "Winter"... Here is the song with the new drum recording! 60's guy got the cherry!!

Randy is doing vocals and four different exquisite guitar parts; and I added bass, drums, a Rhodes part, a synth pad, and extra percussion.

This is a fairly rough, quick-and-dirty mix; I broke the rule about tracking and mixing on the same day, I wanted 60's Guy to hear it...

It needs a few solos. I'd like Mr. Lawler and Rami to pay special close attention here. ;) If either of you would like to contribute a solo, talk to 60s and Yousend me a high bandwidth file.... :) :)

WINTER - by Randy Kline

(Yeah, there have been other iterations, with electric drums, and other ickiness...)

Let us know what you think!!!
 
Sounds good - the drums are pretty cool. Your V-Drums were really nice, but these acoustic drums definitely have a good sound too. I think I like the tone of the rolls on the acoustics. Anyway... they sound good and the mix is great. Great song with lots of really nice instrument parts going on throughout. Feel free to break the rules anytime ;) .
 
Well, what motivated this in the first place is that I was pissed off at the lack of nuance in the V-drums. I like doing things with cymbals; they are capable of so many tone colors, but the V-drums are sort of a binary state; hit them or not... So I decided I was gonna learn to record real drums if it killed me. I think I have that part down OK; now I just need to make the kit itself sound better... :)

Thanks very much!
 
Those drums sound great, man. I would maybe bring up the rim shot if possible. I'm not comparing with the volume of the rimshot on my recordings, because it tends to be too loud. But it can use a little boost. How did you mic these? Sounds like most, if not all, of your sound is overheads,which gives it a really organic sound. If you used a snare mic, you can try bringing it up a bit when you're rimming.:) For a first drum recording this is top-notch.

This is a beautiful song, too, 60's Guy. Very nice all around.
 
RAMI said:
Those drums sound great, man. I would maybe bring up the rim shot if possible. I'm not comparing with the volume of the rimshot on my recordings, because it tends to be too loud. But it can use a little boost. How did you mic these? Sounds like most, if not all, of your sound is overheads,which gives it a really organic sound. If you used a snare mic, you can try bringing it up a bit when you're rimming.:) For a first drum recording this is top-notch.

This is a beautiful song, too, 60's Guy. Very nice all around.

There are 8 mics on the kit, here they are, 1-8:
Overhead
Hats
Kick
Under snare
Over snare
Toms 1-3

The sidestick thing (and by the way, that's what it's called, a rimshot is when you hit the head of the drum full on, but contact the rim at the same time with the middle of the stick, it's a much louder punch than a regular hit; think Stewart Copeland getting that fat pop from a piccolo snare) is because the snare is chrome, and super loud relative to the resonance of the sidestick. The good news is that I can indeed bring up just the sidesticks; that's one of the reasons I wanted to have 8 signals coming in. The other is so I can get good EQ curves on the core. I love the hat mic, because my hats are very clangy and full of lower mid resonance. But I can basically do a 1K highpass filter on that mic, and it just gives me the articulation and edge, while the overhead gets the resonance at a more reasonable (and organic) sound.

What I did with this is I recorded all 8 tracks at very low levels (max peaks were ~ -24dB), then normalized each, and went through and killed all the sounds not related to that mic, so there was essentially zero bleed. The overhead was the only one I left the whole wav intact. Here are some pix I just snapped of the setup...
 

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Thanks!

I just remixed it, bringing up the sidestick, and I pulled back the kick a smidge, pulled back the bass a smidge, and widened the field a smidge. (It didn't pass the car test, too boomy)

Here's the final, except of course needing solos...

(9MB 192Kb/sec)
 
Error playing and downloading Phil ...

Edit - Okay - now it's playing fine when I click on it......

The cymbals seem loud at 4:50 during the break....might be just because it's a break though.....

I kinda miss that prominent bass guitar - it's still audible but it was sweet in the last mix (PC Speakers though so the boom wasn't apparent). It does sit good now so no problemo.

Definitely hear that snare more now - lifts up the groove a bit... If I was dancing to this it would drive my hips betta..... ;)


:) :D :) :D
 
Sounds great now. Nice set up, too, in those pics.

(I'm aware of it being a "sidestick...Just got used to everyone else calling it a "rimshot", that I one day finally succumbed) :D
 
ido1957 said:
I kinda miss that prominent bass guitar - it's still audible but it was sweet in the last mix (PC Speakers though so the boom wasn't apparent). It does sit good now so no problemo.

I try not to be Paul McCartney when I can... :)


Thanks Rami & Jerry. Now, if I can just get 60's Guy's attention! :)
 
Llarion said:
Thanks Rami & Jerry. Now, if I can just get 60's Guy's attention! :)
Phil,

Sorry for the delay. I had a 12 hour day at the plant yesterday.

This sounds excellent!

The new drum tracks are superb as are the pics. :)

I'm glad that you ditched that extra guitar I added. The more I thought about it I realized it didn't fit, which once again is proof that "less is more".

Thanks again for all your time and effort. When you have the time, email me a wave file. Who knows. Maybe I'll make another attempt at solo guitar. :eek: :D
 
60's guy said:
Phil,

Sorry for the delay. I had a 12 hour day at the plant yesterday.

This sounds excellent!

The new drum tracks are superb as are the pics. :)

I'm glad that you ditched that extra guitar I added. The more I thought about it I realized it didn't fit, which once again is proof that "less is more".

Thanks again for all your time and effort. When you have the time, email me a wave file. Who knows. Maybe I'll make another attempt at solo guitar. :eek: :D

My pleasure. It does need some solos; I left a lot of space for someone really creative to fill up... (Again, messers Lawler and Rami, are you listening?) :)
 
OK, I had to twiddle some more to get the snare livelier; and I did miss the slightly bigger bass, and I got the vox to sit a little better, and I thought the synth pad was edgy, and... :)

Anyway... fresh ears make good mix.

 
Llarion said:
OK, I had to twiddle some more to get the snare livelier; and I did miss the slightly bigger bass, and I got the vox to sit a little better, and I thought the synth pad was edgy, and... :)

Anyway... fresh ears make good mix.

On my way to listen now, Phil.

Rami's absence is forcing me to make another attempt at solo guitar. That's not a good thing! :D
 
I'm listening on my PC speakers and I think I notice a slightly harsher louder edge to the snare at times compared to the previous mix.

Maybe it's just me. I'll compare the two mixes tomorrow with fresh ears.

You rock, Phil!

I can't wait until we collaborate on a different song.

You got anything cooking on the stove? ;)
 
Yeah, that's on purpose, I wanted it to push harder than it was. :) Use better speakers though, PC speakers will push the mids too much. The file is high enough bandwidth to make a CD of...

Gadzooks, I have about 19 half-baked things; I have a pathological inability to complete my own songs. I can arrange others work great, but my brain goes blank on my own stuff. :)
 
I just got up and on my way to work. I'll check it out later today when I get home.
 
Phil,

I added a couple of additional guitar tracks, but I didn't approach doing a solo track because I'm still waiting on that guy named Rami. ;)

Here’s the latest mix of Winter that you and I have done with a couple of additional tracks.

Winter June 6 Mix
 
Hmmm... Not sure. I think we may have already hit maximum density. My ear found itself trying to decide which parts to isolate, rather than enjoying the cumulative texture... Each part you id dis very cool, but I think ones replacing others as possibilities is what's up; rather than additive. Again, not sure...
 
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