Drumset vs. the Recording Components

[tnagz]

Hi All,

Interested in opinions from the drummers and the engineers in the bunch.

Me and a fellow band member (who also thinks of himself as THE engineer and owns the recording equipment) are having some differences in opinion. I am trying to figure out if I should press the issue further or simply be happy with the opportunity at hand.

We are about to embark on the journey of recording an LP and album. I have a nice drum kit (Tama Bubinga/Birch Starclassic) that I want to record with. He has a studio set which is an entry level Pacific kit. However, he is insisting that we use his kit and provides the following arguments:

I can understand how you feel about using your own kit. I really wish drums were easy to record like guitars. Just throw a mic or two on them and your ready to go. Unfortunatley, switching the kit out at this point would be a problem here. Please understand that I am not trying to be lazy or anything and Im not trying to give you some long drawn out bullshit excuse, Its just a number of other issues that would cause way more trouble than its worth at this point in time. 3 issues that come to mind at the moment are below.

Issue#1: The Sonar session files have a very specific effects chain setup, like noise gate threshold settings and specific noise gate rez frequencies for each drum, volume/compression settings and EQ settings that are set up only for the Pacific kit for each individual mic on each track. Those setting only work for those individual drums. This is not something that I could just correct in a couple of days and I would have to rebuild the SONAR session files again from scratch and waste alot of time on trial and error building out custom effects chain presets for each drum track.

Issue#2: Just like the EQ/effects setting compatability issues I listed above. The same goes for the mic preamps. Just because the individual preamps that I have setup work for well for the Pacific kit does not mean that they would sound good on your kit. So I would probably have to re-route alot of stuff and go down that dark road of trial and error again.

Issue#3: That problem with locking the tom mics onto your toms.​

So, I am the drummer, but I have an ear for good sound. I also prefer the sound of my drums and setup. Unfortunately, I have a superficial knowledge of all the equipment that is necessary to record good sounding drums. So, I am not sure if what he is saying above is really time intensive or not.

I am going to have to put new heads on all his drums anyway, so wouldn't he have to tweak all his preset settings regardless? Does it really matter in the end, since 90 % of a good drum recording is made up of the drummer playing well? I feel like I have the drum chops part down after playing for 20 years. Maybe I am just partial to the kit I own and paid a lot of money for...

Again, I am trying to just understand both sides and see if the above has merit. Thanks!

 

[Murdersgalore]

Please understand that I am not trying to be lazy or anything and Im not trying to give you some long drawn out bullshit excuse,

That's exactly what he is doing. If he actually cared about getting the best sound, he would audition both kits. There is no such thing as a set of eq's or preamps custom taylored to one kit.

 

[Greg_L]

That's exactly what he is doing. If he actually cared about getting the best sound, he would audition both kits. There is no such thing as a set of eq's or preamps custom taylored to one kit.

That's not true either. This guy could have spent months or years dialing everything in. He probably made his own presets, which lots of people do, custom tailored to his drums in his room using his gear. So in that regard, from the studio guy's perspective, it's not bullshit. He probably really believes that he'll get the best results using his own gear.

Having said that, this sounds like a case of the blind leading the blind, so either way it's probably gonna suck. I'd want to use my own drums too, so I see where you're coming from. But if he's doing the recording and all the work, then STFU and just do what he says or go pay for a pro studio where you can use your own kit.