mixing live drums

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captions87

captions87

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i'm going to be recording my band next week, we're recording a 6 song ep, and all the instruments will be tracked together live, and then vocals will be added afterward. my dilemma is that the interface i'm using has 8 inputs, but the total number we need to track everything is 9 (2 guitars, bass, 2 keys, and 4 inputs for drum mics). now, i've figured a way to get around this is to use my drummer's mixer, and put all the drum mics into the mixer, then run the mixer through the interface. now i'm assuming that means that when i try to mix the drums after recording, i'll have to mixdown all of them as one combined instrument, as opposed to mixing/eq'ing the bass, then snare, etc. my question is, since that is my option, what would be a good way to go about mixing these drums, and what are some eq suggestions that would work in this situation. for reference, if anyone out there has heard of the band broken social scene, they have a song called "cause = time", and that drum tone is really what i would like to go after. any suggestions/advice would be helpful. and please don't tell me that i should do it any other way (buy/borrow a larger interface, etc.), because this is really my only option. thanks.
 
Maybe one of them (keys perhaps) that might otherwise go direct, play along with self monitoring, no bleed, could track later?

..getting the right good drum pre mix could add a lot of trial and error.
Assuming here an overhead/kit pair and kick and snare(?), looks like a sub-mix just for the sake of one track?
 
mixsit said:
Maybe one of them (keys perhaps) that might otherwise go direct, play along with self monitoring, no bleed, could track later?

..getting the right good drum pre mix could add a lot of trial and error.
Assuming here an overhead/kit pair and kick and snare(?), looks like a sub-mix just for the sake of one track?
Click to expand...

the problem with taking out an instrument, such as keys, and tracking it later, is that none of the songs really start out with drums first, and we're not using a click track/metronome of any kind, so for the songs where the keys start off, there could be some timing issues.
 
could you not get the drummer to count with clicks in place of instrumental intros?

like,,,4 clicks before anything,then keep clicking while the keys would play, then play the drums...

then obviously when you overdub the keys, there is a human click track that you can trim out at the end?




either that, or lose the snare mic and spend some time on overhead placement. (i'm also assuming kick, snare + 2 overheads)


personally i'd go with option one though.
 
Steenamaroo said:
could you not get the drummer to count with clicks in place of instrumental intros?

like,,,4 clicks before anything,then keep clicking while the keys would play, then play the drums...

then obviously when you overdub the keys, there is a human click track that you can trim out at the end?
Click to expand...

mmm i suppose i could do that, but we really want to keep this as live as possible, with minimal to no overdubs, save for the vocals. i'm pretty much set on the configuration that i've mentioned before, i'm really just looking for mixing/eq advice/suggestions for that particular scenario, not necessarily ways to get around it.
 
What would you think about trying to send the guitars and bass to the mixer and then summing them to 1 stereo track? I think it would be better in the mixing stage to be able to shape the drums.
 
I've recorded my band like this before. It's fun but something you might not have thought of:
You can't be in two places at once.
You need some really good isolating headphones or somebody who can stand in for you either as instrumentalist or as ears.
That is, The way it sounds is going to be about 95% determined by your mic placement and choice.
And minute adjustments are gonna make a big difference if you've got a bunch of stuff in the room together.
So if you have a particular sound you are going for, it's gonna be a matter of either:
setting up mics, recording a take, then running back and listening to playback and trying to determine what adjustments need to be made,
or
finding a way to hear only what the mics are hearing (either with your really good isolating headphones, or by sitting in an isolated control room area where you aren't right up next to the instruments and your monitors that are giving you a live feed of everything - including the guy you have taking your place on whatever instrument you play - can tell you what the mics are hearing, or by having your person with ears you trust who knows what sound you are going for sitting in that semi-isolated control room area) while you make minute adjustments to the mics so you can get that perfect placement.

If you're gonna track live (which I'm a big proponent of), there's gonna be bleed. Depending on your room and the quality of your equipment, it's either gonna be really easy or really difficult to make that bleed helpful. But it's gonna have to be helpful. You won't be able to fix it in the mix, and, honestly, you should do most of your mixing in this situation in the tracking stage, changing distances of amps and mics and drums and etc from each other. It can get frustrating fast, but there's certainly a wonderful live sound and feel to be had recording this way.

So, yeah, make sure before you ever hit record for a keeper take that you have heard what the mikes are hearing and are satisfied that that is pretty much the sound you're going for.
 
captions87 said:
also for better reference to the drum sound we're going for:

http://www.myspace.com/brokensocialscene/music/albums/you-forgot-it-in-people-10786508

the song "cause = time" is pretty much the ideal drum sound to me.
Click to expand...

Then you have to set some priorities. That sound is the opposite of live sub-mixed drums. Do you want that sound, or do you want to track live with an 8-track limit?

And if you do want to track live, send the keyboard in mono so you don't have to submix the drums. The drum sound is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more important than stereo warbling on a keyboard.
 
Chibi Nappa said:
Then you have to set some priorities. That sound is the opposite of live sub-mixed drums. Do you want that sound, or do you want to track live with an 8-track limit?

And if you do want to track live, send the keyboard in mono so you don't have to submix the drums. The drum sound is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more important than stereo warbling on a keyboard.
Click to expand...

the keyboards will be recorded mono, but the keyboardist plays 2 keyboards, more often than not both in the same song, but never at the same time.

The Cancers said:
I've recorded my band like this before. It's fun but something you might not have thought of:
You can't be in two places at once.
You need some really good isolating headphones or somebody who can stand in for you either as instrumentalist or as ears.
That is, The way it sounds is going to be about 95% determined by your mic placement and choice.
And minute adjustments are gonna make a big difference if you've got a bunch of stuff in the room together.
So if you have a particular sound you are going for, it's gonna be a matter of either:
setting up mics, recording a take, then running back and listening to playback and trying to determine what adjustments need to be made,
or
finding a way to hear only what the mics are hearing (either with your really good isolating headphones, or by sitting in an isolated control room area where you aren't right up next to the instruments and your monitors that are giving you a live feed of everything - including the guy you have taking your place on whatever instrument you play - can tell you what the mics are hearing, or by having your person with ears you trust who knows what sound you are going for sitting in that semi-isolated control room area) while you make minute adjustments to the mics so you can get that perfect placement.

If you're gonna track live (which I'm a big proponent of), there's gonna be bleed. Depending on your room and the quality of your equipment, it's either gonna be really easy or really difficult to make that bleed helpful. But it's gonna have to be helpful. You won't be able to fix it in the mix, and, honestly, you should do most of your mixing in this situation in the tracking stage, changing distances of amps and mics and drums and etc from each other. It can get frustrating fast, but there's certainly a wonderful live sound and feel to be had recording this way.

So, yeah, make sure before you ever hit record for a keeper take that you have heard what the mikes are hearing and are satisfied that that is pretty much the sound you're going for.
Click to expand...

we have taken some measures to cut out some of the bleed, by building some boxes out of plywood and lined with foam inside and speaker cloth on the outside, with about a 12" diameter circle cut out in the front, and each of these slides over the front of the two guitar amps, so we can place the mic in the box in front of the amp, and point the amp away from the drums to minimize bleed a bit. and we don't really have a headphone amp, or access to one, so we were already planning on doing a few scratch takes to see how the mic placement/sub mixed drums will sound before we start recording usable takes.
 
captions87 said:
the keyboards will be recorded mono, but the keyboardist plays 2 keyboards, more often than not both in the same song, but never at the same time.
Click to expand...
Then submix the two keyboards down to one instead of submixing the drums.



we have taken some measures to cut out some of the bleed, by building some boxes out of plywood and lined with foam inside and speaker cloth on the outside, with about a 12" diameter circle cut out in the front, and each of these slides over the front of the two guitar amps, so we can place the mic in the box in front of the amp...
Click to expand...
Good until you started cutting holes in the box. Try it again with no hole and enough room inside the box for the mic and amp together. Be sure to tightly seal the small hole where the mic cord passes through.
 
How about sub mixing the drum overheads and work on isolating the kick and snare. I've run into the same problem trying to get more "feel" on a song and letting everyone play together. I've used the overheads as a sort of "room mic" that favored the drums but then isolated the crap out of the snare and kick. Make sure your overhead placement helps the overall drum sound but count on it bleeding. By doing that the overheads could then be mixed in to taste afterwards as a stereo "room" track, for lack of a better term. Just an idea.
 
an update

just a quick update, we ended up miking both the bass and keyboards. for the keyboards, we panned them so that they'd only be playing from one of the p.a. speakers(since our keyboardist never plays both keys at the same time, we didn't have to worry about them sounding cluttered coming out of one source), then turned the speaker away from the drum set and put up my guitar case opened and standing vertical to sort of block the drums from bleeding into the keyboard mic. overall, it sounded really really good, there was minimal bleeding, the guitar isolation boxes i built worked like a charm, and everything came out nice and clean. one song down, five to go.
 
if you get a chance post some samples of what you got recorded.

be interesting to hear.

later...
 
Just saw this thread.

I'm glad that you're happy with the results.

Just my 2 cents...(really worth about 1/2 cent)...you could've used the mixer for the two keyboards. One on each track the mixer then run a mono out of the mixer into an input on your interface. Then simply edit the two keyboards to two seperate tracks in your DAW.

But like I said.....that's just another way of doing things. Nothing wrong with what you did. :cool:

I'd also love to hear some sample. :D
 
i'll try and post the first song we recorded sometime this weekend, after we record the vocals. i've been doing some light mixing and eq, but this has just been some tinkering and as i don't have monitors i've just been doing this through headphones (which i know isn't a good idea). so when i do post the sample up, the only thing i will have done to it is just adjust the levels so nothing's peaking, other than that, it'll be a barebones recording so you guys can see how everything turned out.
 
It it's not too late...

I'd rethink the whole thing thusly:

1. Set up the following on the drums: snare mic, one mic per tom, kick drum mic, overhead condenser mic, and hi-hat mic. If you have more than three toms, double up on the mics on them- keep our total drum mics to seven.

2. Record the whole band to ONE track. Don't worry too much about details or quality, this will be a scratch track.

3. Everybody but the drummer and you takes a break. Play the scatch track for the drummer, thru headphones. Have him play the song(s) again, and track him on the other 7 channels.

4. Mix the 7 drum tracks down to two, taking full advantage of whatever stereo imaging you can get.

5. If you "need" the energy of everyone playing at the same time, set the drummer up on as quiet of an electronic kit you can find, in the tracking room. Put everyone on headphones (you will need a headphone amp and one set of phones for every band member, plus one set for you.) Play the mixed-down drum tracks for the whole band, thru the phones, and record everyone else. Record the electronic drums, to one track- you might capture a jem- or forget about the electronic drums, and place a condenser mic near the far corner of the room, for ambiance. DI the bass and keys. Record the keys to two tracks, and encourage our keyman to get creative vis-a-vis stereo (you can always mix it down to one track later if that creativity does not add to the sound.) Isolate the guitar amps by putting a SM57 (or other dynamic mic) REAL CLOSE to each amp's speakers.

6. You now have the following eight tracks:
Acoustic drum left.
Acoustic drum right.
Electronic drum, OR room mic.
Guitar 1.
Guitar 2.
Bass.
Keys left.
Keys right.
One of those tracks will be recorded over your scratch track, but it won't matter- you don't need that track anymore.

7. Mix down to two stereo tracks from those eight.

You can do it. I have faith in you.
 
stevieb said:
If it's not too late...

I'd rethink the whole thing thusly:

1. Set up the following on the drums: snare mic, one mic per tom, kick drum mic, overhead condenser mic, and hi-hat mic. If you have more than three toms, double up on the mics on them- keep our total drum mics to seven.

2. Record the whole band to ONE track. Don't worry too much about details or quality, this will be a scratch track.

3. Everybody but the drummer and you takes a break. Play the scatch track for the drummer, thru headphones. Have him play the song(s) again, and track him on the other 7 channels.

4. Mix the 7 drum tracks down to two, taking full advantage of whatever stereo imaging you can get.

5. If you "need" the energy of everyone playing at the same time, set the drummer up on as quiet of an electronic kit you can find, in the tracking room. Put everyone on headphones (you will need a headphone amp and one set of phones for every band member, plus one set for you.) Play the mixed-down drum tracks for the whole band, thru the phones, and record everyone else. Record the electronic drums, to one track- you might capture a jem- or forget about the electronic drums, and place a condenser mic near the far corner of the room, for ambiance. DI the bass and keys. Record the keys to two tracks, and encourage our keyman to get creative vis-a-vis stereo (you can always mix it down to one track later if that creativity does not add to the sound.) Isolate the guitar amps by putting a SM57 (or other dynamic mic) REAL CLOSE to each amp's speakers.

6. You now have the following eight tracks:
Acoustic drum left.
Acoustic drum right.
Electronic drum, OR room mic.
Guitar 1.
Guitar 2.
Bass.
Keys left.
Keys right.
One of those tracks will be recorded over your scratch track, but it won't matter- you don't need that track anymore.

7. Mix down to two stereo tracks from those eight.

You can do it. I have faith in you.
Click to expand...

Chibi Nappa said:
Then submix the two keyboards down to one instead of submixing the drums.
Click to expand...
captions87 said:
just realized that earlier today, actually. it was a revelation.
Click to expand...
captions87 said:
just a quick update, we ended up miking both the bass and keyboards. for the keyboards, we panned them so that they'd only be playing from one of the p.a. speakers(since our keyboardist never plays both keys at the same time, we didn't have to worry about them sounding cluttered coming out of one source), then turned the speaker away from the drum set and put up my guitar case opened and standing vertical to sort of block the drums from bleeding into the keyboard mic. overall, it sounded really really good, there was minimal bleeding, the guitar isolation boxes i built worked like a charm, and everything came out nice and clean. one song down, five to go.
Click to expand...

erftghygtfdsa
 
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