Anyone tried this for drums?

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I've thought about recording drums Glynn Johns style (2 ld condensers & a dynamic kick mic) onto a cassette 4 track then dumping them onto a computer & overdubbing from there. Has anyone tried this? If so, did it work?

I've recorded drums onto a 4 track & they sounded great until I started bouncing tracks so I was just wondering. I was thinking you could use the 4th track for an extra mic on the snare or a ribbon room mic or something like that.

What do you think? Any feedback would be great.

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i don't know of anyone who's done it with a cassette recorder, but there's a lot of folks who will track to 2", then convert the tape tracks to digital for editing purposes

as long as you like the cassette tracks, go for it...there's no reason it wouldn't work
 
I've tried it, it can be done, it's just a lot easier to just record the drums straight on the computer. The playback speed on many cassette machines is not always exactly consistent and this makes aligning tracks on PC a bit more difficult. It's like an extra step in the recording process which can be avoided. Like I said, it can be done, but why make the recording process any more complicated than it really needs to be?
 
there is no need to align anything if your interface will record four tracks simultaneously.

I track stuff (usually drums, bass & gtr) to 1/2" eight track, then transfer to DAW. I realize thats higher fidelity format than cassette four track, but I have been experimenting with mic'ing a kit with only four mics and I like what you can do with sort of a minimalist approach, so its a similar vein...

yeah, I think you could get some nice sounds with this. drums would have some character anyway... might need some help with high end boost and low end thump, but it will sound "tape-ey".

I recommend a couple things:

1- leave the NR off
2- track as hot as possible
3- make sure you use high speed and good high bias tape

use a stereo pair of overs and mic on the kick and snare.
 
i recorded the drums for this project on an ancient ARIA StudioTrack four track cassette recorder then sampled and looped parts of it.
as dani pace pointed out the recording and playback speeds on these machines are not constant so using complete drum tracks might be very difficult.

if this process wasn't so cumbersome and limited in possibilities (four tracks) i'd still be doing it because i really like the lo fi sound and natural compression the tape machine gave.
 
Hi_Flyer said:
there is no need to align anything if your interface will record four tracks simultaneously.
Click to expand...

most cassette 4-tracks don't have dedicated outs for each individual track but a single stereo pair for mixdown purposes. so you'll be able to transfer two tracks at a time.
 
visa said:
most cassette 4-tracks don't have dedicated outs for each individual track but a single stereo pair for mixdown purposes. so you'll be able to transfer two tracks at a time.
Click to expand...

the studio track has one output per channel btw.
 
you've got 4 tracks on the casette...why not throw a mic on the snare and use up the spare track. That way you'll have a LOT more control over the mix once you dump to the computer.

Here's another thing I dunno if you thought about once the tracks ar dumped to the computer you can duplicate the overheads as many times as you want and with some tweaking of gates and filters you'll be able to use one duplicate to get the brass sounding right, another set to get the toms sounding right, another set you can put through a low pass filter for the bottom end and smash the hell out of it with a compressor and slide that in under the rest of the kit on the mix to give it some serious bottom end and punch.

I use 2 studio Projects B1's for overheads, EV RE20 on kick and a 57 on snare. I'm not bouncing from tape (any more), just recording straight to the DAW and I've had some excellent results using the above mentioned techniques.

Food for though :)
 
Thanx!

Thanks for all the great feedback gang!

Hey Hi-Flyer, I understand track hot & good tape but why leave off the noise reduction?

I can get access to a 4 track with individual outs so I'm not so worried about aligning the individual tracks. That does sound like a big pain. My main reason for going this route is apartment living & my need for real drums. So, portabillity. The whole tape drum sound thing appeals to me very much as well. I will almost certainly use the 4th track for snare or room micing.

BTW I'll be using 2 Groove Tubes GT67's an AKG D-112 and an AKG D-790 as my main mics.

Thanks again for all responses!
-small
 
glad to help.

myself, I'd go with the snare mic over the room mic, that way you can gate both the kick and snare in the daw to get good clean signals for processing, even if you duplicate the tracks to do so and leave the ungated tracks in to help gel the overall sound with natural spillage
 
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