tracking drums, what sort of room?

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drummersteve

New member
hi there
ive got this little home studio set up, and im more than happy with the quality i can produce. the one thing is tho that sometimes the drums just lack that brightness, they seem dull, and i think this may be because of the acoustics of the room im tracking my drums in. its a small room, with hard bare walls facing the drums, so no doubt there will be reflections and all sorts effecting what the mics pick up.

my mates band asked if i could record a 2 or 3 track demo for a bit of fun. gives them a chance to have a copy of their material, and me a chance to practice mixing more. thing is, id rather track the drums in a decent-sounding room (plus it wont be disturbing my mum when they are playing the drums non-stop alll day!) the thing is, i dont know what is the most ideal room to do them in!

i know no room is perfectly ideal, not evn after being treated i can imagine it will still have flaws in it. but im sure i can find a room better than the room in my house! i had a few ideas which are a possibility. which, if any, do you guys think would be the best?...


a hall - has a nice reverb sound, but when it comes down to mixing they may have too much, obviously as the reverb is tracked its hard 2 undo! a bit of a debate there...

local practice room - basically just a room, but its bigger than the one in my house so im guessing the reflections wont be as obvious.... or

my drum tutors practice rooms - underground (dont know if this makes any difference?!) decent sized rooms, all walls ceilings and floors covered in a carpety kinda material... not sure what material it is... but it seems to deaden the sound a bit.

if not any of these rooms, do people have any ideas of what sort of room i should be looking out for? i want a lively bright sound to the drums bear in mind. thanks for any help in this query.

Steve
 
I would get into the biggest room you can find and put the drums against one wall (if the room is rectangular, the short wall) The reverb of the room can be minimized by close micing.
If you are going for a lively sound, don't bother trying the room with the carpeting on the walls.
 
If you have the tracks available, you can also play around with different room mic locations to see if you can pickup some good natural reverb to use.
 
Im getting ready to record a demo for some friends as well and the drummer is the youth minister at his church...that means he has a key...:)...we are going to track his drums in the chruch and see what we can do in there...has nice high ceilings and plenty of space...
 
a live room is always fun u can close mic and then throw in some room mics for some real verb and u wont have to use the alithrogram crap (some of it is good but u need sirous money)
 
drummersteve said:
shure sm57 on snare, agk d112 on kick, 2 sennheiser e604 for toms and some SE electronics SE1 overheads
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Hmmm,

Well it seems that you're running pretty good mics, so you shouldn't be having problems picking up the full spectrum of frequencies.

If you have any sort of tape or extra dampening, take those off the drums and/or cymbals. Try to tune the drums as best you can. Maybe postioning your mic's a little closer to your source can help bring more presence with less airyness.



Other than that, it could be a mixing issue. If you want more "in your face" drums, that's done in the mixing stage (ex. compression).

It's usual to record the drums as is until they can get spiced up in the mixing stage.

Any questions, just ask ;).
 
haha, yeh there all pretty decent mics. i have no tape or anything, just a thin o-ring on the snare tp cut down a bit of the ringing..not too much though.
the drums have a lot of punch, specially when i run snare n kick through a compressor, its really punchy then. its just, i dunno, theres lots of punch down lower frequencies, u can hear the cymbal strikes well, they certianally dont lack the precense, they can be heard! i think it may be my snare, its got a nice crack but i just seems a bit muddy. mind you, when i have been recording drums reecently i have been micing the snare underneath due to lack of proper boom stands etc, which may cut down on the ring i get from the top head, making it sound somewhat muddier n lacking the brightness the ringing gives it? maybe this is the source of my problem, what do you think? thanks

Steve
 
Can you pick it up through the overheads? Are you using a room mic? I've had some success in playing with the location of the overheads. Right now I've got them positioned essentially over the drummer's head and that's helping to pick up more drums/less cymbals in my room. I've also had good success using another mic out front of the kit a few feet. This tends to pick up more of the high frequencies and brighten the sound of the kit in an otherwise dead room.
 
drummersteve said:
maybe this is the source of my problem, what do you think? thanks

Steve
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Ahh, there we go my man...


Try to see if you can find a way to get that mic on the top head. That makes a huge difference. Part of that great snare sound comes from the crack of the stick, plus, you'd want that direct impact hit more than the bottom of the head. :D

You'd be surprised at how much it'll pick up the bottom end of the snare, too.

Give that a try and let us know if the change helped any.
 
ahh there we go, hit the nail on the head it would seem :D
il give it a try, i should be buying a new boom stand 2mroo so i can sort that out. is it worth having a mic on the underside of the snare too to pick up the snare crack? or is that going to give me more problems than its worth?
alex, what mic are you using a few feet in front of your kit? is it dynamic or condenser? il give it a try, ive run out of mics now though! haha. thanks for your help guys.

steve

ps - i am planning on recording a m8s bands drummer in a hall soon to mess around with that. will the reverb of the hall help brighten up my sound at all? thanks
 
I'm using an LDC (SP B3). It's a somewhat bright mic so I'm sure that helps.

And I think moving to a larger space would certainly help. I don't know about the reverb helping with the brightening per se, but certainly a larger, less absorbent space with a lower potential for muddy standing waves should be a good thing.
 
drummersteve said:
is it worth having a mic on the underside of the snare too to pick up the snare crack? or is that going to give me more problems than its worth?
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You can get around not using one, but it's like painting without all your possible colors, know what I mean? :D
 
yep, i understand exactly what you mean. but i will benefit more from micing the snare on top rather than underneath, ok wiked. well, i should be doing this recording within the next few weeks. as regards to the SP B3, to capture the acoustics of the room i am recording it would i have it set on the omni pickup pattern? thanks for your help people, much appreciated.

steve
 
oh and another thing. what is this microphone like for recording vocals? i wanted to get a nice vocal mic for a while, n if i can achieve this and a nice ambience mic at the same time then thatd be a treat :rolleyes: thanks guys.

steve
 
drummersteve said:
haha, yeh there all pretty decent mics. i have no tape or anything, just a thin o-ring on the snare tp cut down a bit of the ringing..not too much though.
the top head, making it sound somewhat muddier n lacking the brightness the ringing gives it? maybe this is the source of my problem, what do you think? thanks

Steve
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I have a maple snare, which tend to ring the most. The ring can be nice in a live situation. But deadly in recording.
Evans makes a snare batter head with small holes around the edge, which works great for me in getting the ring out. Room ambiants can also fuel the ring in the snare. I hung cheap outdoor rugs from lowes on my walls. It works. It got rid of the infamous "airy" reflections. I am much pleased. I offset my overheads about 2-3 feet pointing them directly down. I would start with the overheads only. If you get a good sound with them first, the close mics will add attack to the individual shells.
 
drummersteve said:
i have been micing the snare underneath due to lack of proper boom stands etc, which may cut down on the ring i get from the top head, making it sound somewhat muddier n lacking the brightness the ringing gives it? maybe this is the source of my problem, what do you think? thanks

Steve
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thats the problem. Micing the snare from the bottom skin you are bound to get more lower frequencies because of the bottom skin blowing more air down to the mic. especially if you are doing it near the center of the snare. The 'ping/ring' from a snare is allways off the top skin. I think it has something to do with the rim? if you hit the rim and the skin at the same time (hard snare) you dont get that 'ping.' anyway, get a cheap boom mic stand from anywer (ebay maybe) you dont need an expensive one cause a sm57 isnt a heavy mic. If you want more of the 'brightness' of the snare have the sm57 pointing to the center of the snare put so the mic head is over the rim of the snare. That should do it :)
 
drummersteve said:
is it worth having a mic on the underside of the snare too to pick up the snare crack? or is that going to give me more problems than its worth?
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scrap having the mic on the bottom. It would be nice ofcourse, if you had enough mics :D
Put the mic you wer going to use for the bottom of the snare and put it on the high hats, You would be suprised how much the mics on the toms and the overheads pick up. there will be enough lower end and if youre using the hats alot iits allways worth making them sound as good as possible. the sm57 will do a very good job on the snare so i dont think its worth it. But try doing it both ways and see which one appeals to you best.
 
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