Drum mics... EQ... and then some...

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purpulkow

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Did you see that icon? Yes-the angry face of frustration, that is what drum miking is doing to me. If anyone is willing to help me, here is a list of what i have to use:

5 Shure SM57 mics, Sennheiser MD421, Soundcraft Spirit Folio SX 20 channel mixer, Boss BR-8 digital 8 Track, DW drum kit: one rack tom, one floor, bass drum, snare.

Now I know that using the 57's is not a very wise choice for overheads, but I don't have any condenser mics, and don't have the money to buy any at the moment. So I'm using the 57's to mic everything except the bass drum, because I have the MD421 for that. EQing the drums is driving me crazy as well. I have to work with just HF, swept MID EQ, and LF EQ and with just that its driving me insane. If anyone could and is willing to... could you please recommend any settings? I am an extreme newbie at this stuff. Thanks.
 
not sure if this applies or not - but I would definitely record with EQ 'flat' and then worry about it later in the mixing process

also - don't depend on EQ to 'fix' your sound - experiement as much as you can to get a good sounding drum sound to begin with - mic placement can make a world of difference
 
I agree 100% with that, which was where I was going with the track question. If you don't have to premix anything, try not EQing anything while tracking. You can always it on mixdown. As I record more, I am starting to be really cautious when it comes to EQ. I'm starting to think of it more as a tool to seperate the instuments during mixdown. If you EQ while tracking, your not hearing all the other instruments, so it's hard to say what the EQed track should sound like. Make any sense?

Ziller
 
well, i left everything flat, and it doesnt sound bad. the question i have is if i should leave the overheads flat as well. i dont have much power over the drums after i record them because im going through my mixer, and all that is going to be recorded onto one track on my BR-8. thanks for the help so far
 
um, welll, geez.....

that's a different story then....I was under the impression that, since you had 8 tracks, you would be using a few (at least 4??) for the drums...I apologize for my assumptions

now...1 track for drums?????? you're not even going to get a stereo recording???? big mistake, in my opinion. stereo adds life to drum recordings. what the heck are you using the other 7 tracks for?

Well, if you must record the drums onto 1 track - then my suggestions (especially EQ flat) is more or less moot since you won't be able to go back and do any EQ tweaking after the fact (I really don't think that it would be a good idea to EQ the drum track, as a whole)....I used to record this way (6 mics mixed down to stereo recording) and it was experiment in patience...

Here's what I did to get the best sound possible...I would track each 'microphone' (eg. bass drum, snare, toms, overhead) by muting all others and only recording that one mic - I would then play back the recording through my mixer and EQ (SPARINGLY) until I got the sound that I wanted...repeat for all mics then record with all mics on and see if you like the sound....I managed to get pretty decent recordings that way....but now have graduated on to a few more tracks and am able to record mics on separate tracks and EQ, process separately, AFTER THE FACT. That way if I don't like what I've done (EQ, processing wise) - I can always revert back to the no-EQ recording
 
I was under the impression that the various "x" track recorders do not have preamps and thus you need either a dedicated preamp for each mic or go through a mixer which has the preamp built in.

This is the reason I bought my Mackie VLZ Pro 1202 board. If there is another way to record I'd definately be interested in hearing it.

Currently I have 3 mics (2 sm57, 1 akg D112) which all go into the mixer then I take the "Tape Out" (which is an RCA type connection) into the back of my stereo.

How would one go about getting multiple tracks without going through a mixer to preamp the mics?
 
hey bedubs.....

the Mackie VLZ Pro 1202 board has 4 outputs (L/R main and L/R Alt 3/4) which means that you can record 4 tracks at a time while using the mixer's preamps. Here's a quick example of how to record 4-tracks of drums:

channel 1; bass drum; - pan hard left - take the L main out into track 1 of your recorder

channel 2; snare drum; pan hard right - take the R main out into track 2 of your recorder

channel 3; L overhead; pan hard left and send this channel to the Alt3/4 bus - take the L Alt3/4 out into track 3 of your recorder

channel 4; R overhead; pan hard right and send this channel to the Alt3/4 bus - take the R Alt3/4 out into track 4 of your recorder

Doing this will allow you to record 4 separate tracks simulteneously while maintaining separation between your mics so that you can process/EQ them (and them alone) later during the mixing process.

hope this helps
 
Thanks Pratt. So you're saying that by panning the input to left or right I'll actually just force the output onto a specific track/channel vs. have the mic pick up more sound out of the L/R side? I know that's pretty newbieish but to me if I pan Left for example, I expect to pickup more Left than Right sounds out of the mic.

Also, how specifically would I send the channel 3/4 to the ALT bus? Don't tell me I'm gonna have to RTFM on the Mackie....arrrgghhh... :)

Any tips for how to use this setup into a computer? I know that I'll need another sound card and at this time I don't even have the PC dedicated to this task (nor am I ready to take this on yet) but I'm just trying to get as much info from various sites so when I'm ready.....I'll be READY. :)

-b
 
unless you're using a 'stereo' microphone, than panning left or right (as I've described) will not change the sound that's been picked up by the mic (mics like sm57s and akgd112s are mono) - this panning method is just a way to get each microphone on its own separate track

as far as the ALT3/4 bus - I think that the Mackie has a Mute/Alt 3-4 button for each channel - depressing this button will send that channel to the ALT3/4 bus.

regarding a computer - if you want decent quality you're going to need a dedicated 'recording' card - I have a Delta44 and it's great. It has a breakout box that has 4 ins/outs so I can record 4 tracks at a time. Of course you're also going to need some software (I use CubaseVST), a nice speedy hard drive, lots of memory and decent processor. Before I had the Delta44 I used an SBLive! Platinum which allowed me to record 2 tracks at once - but the quality of the Delta44 A/D converters blows the SBLIVE out of the water.
 
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