Another request for suggestions concerning drum recording

  • Thread starter Thread starter Roch
  • Start date Start date
R

Roch

New member
I'm looking for suggestions for recording my kit in my basement.

First of all, my kit(standard 4piece) , is in a long unfinished basement 40ft x 22ft. I have two sure sm58's and an Apex 430 condenser mic. I have an alesis microverb III and a RNC compressor. I am currently using a Yamaha MD8 to record on.

I have tried two mics about a couple of yards away and some half-assed closed micing. One 57 on snare, one in kick and the condenser overheadabout2 to 3 feet over centre of kit to get everything else. I have never tried to compress any signals yet because I don't know where to start or, will it even make a difference? I guess I can only compress one line.

I don't like the tom sounds. They are too boxy some times and some times seem to be too boingy(you like that word, don't you??)

I'm just looking to try other set ups that get a consistent sound for pop type music. I'll try anything. But I'm not cheap.

Roch
 
Its aaaall in the tuning, do you get a good sound comming from your toms ? If you do, should walk around the room, wjhile someone plays the kit and place the condenser microphone where you think it sounds ok.
Offcourse your room could be a big influence, maybe you should use some blankets to "deaden" it a bit =)

Use compression while you're mixing ! it's better not to compress the sound while tracking, cus then you've got no "undo".

grtz

btw, yeah i like "boingy" :)
 
A stereo condensor pair fairly close in and well placed as the main 'kit' sound, the sure's on the snare and kick, some cheap to build fiberglass gobos placed around the kit to control how much deadness you like (and/or on the room).
The rest, like Fazil mentioned, would come from the tuning and playing, which can make everyting else for not, so I guess it should have been first instead of last.:)
With a nice big room like that, at least you have the room for some real nice ambient options.
Yeah. boingy. cool:cool:
Wayne
 
Your probably right about the tuning. Drums may seem to sound good at the time but when you listen to a recording of them they sound different than when you initially tune them. Its not the initial tone , but this other resonance crap that sounds bad.

Its just like mastering. Although, when I do a final mix to burn to cd, (it should hardly be called mastering, because I am a master of squat.) I think something sounds good on a few different reference monitors and then, after I burn it to cd and play it on a typical home stereo, something always seems to sound different than the final mix(pre burn)

Maybe I am deaf. Not a good qualification for a recording engineer wannabe.

Roch
 
Roch said:

Maybe I am deaf. Not a good qualification for a recording engineer wannabe.
Click to expand...

You need to train your ears, just like you train them for tuning your guitar. When I go back in my old bedroom, where i used to record, the acoustics are awful, though i never noticed that before.
The room's dimention didn't change.
The point is: you get much more critical when you record alot.

grtz
 
I like this thread and I'll tell you why. It reminds me on the time, more than twenty years ago, when I was trying to get a decent drumsound with my two MD421's, my Tascam 4 track and my Teac 2A 6in4 board.

I didn't have any clue how to tune the drums properly and was experimenting a lot.
There was not such a thing like the internet, so I had to learn everything from experiencing a lot of crap.

Now I record drums with 10 or even 12 mics on a five piece kit and let me tell you, the more mics you use, the more problems, unless you know how to recognize a phase problem.

The keyword in a good drum recording is TUNING.

BTW, the best drumsound I've ever had in my four track time was with a Radio Shack PZM.

A single mic, taped to the wall opposite to where the drumkit was located and it really was a killer sound.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top