drum mix problem

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the pete

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ive been trying to record my band, and ive been working on drums for a while so far. i just cant get them to sound right. they're all in tune, and for mics im using an sm57 on my snare, beta 52 on my kick drum, and 2 sm81's for overheads. im pretty sure its a pretty decent setup. im going into a mackie mixer, audio interface and recording onto sonar 4 producer. ive been using a little bit of eq on the kick and snare. and its just not comming out righ, it seems kinda like the overheads are just overpowering everything, they're not even that high. can someone help me out here? thanks - pete
 
Maybe that's the problem. If the overheads are "not even that high", maybe they should be higher. They might be too close to the kit.
 
There could be a lot of things going on. First, the drummer may just be playing the cymbals too hard. Or the cymbals themselves are heavier and meant more for playing live than recording. Or both. Generally I end up with overheads about 2 or 3 drum stick lengths high measured from the snare top. But that's just what works in my room and plus I like a tighter sound (very little room in the mics).
 
need help huh ?

yea umm ,the kick drum mic is freakin aweosme you dont have to change that as far as i am concerned ,for the toms ,you can use pg58's for all of them ,the snare ,i recomend an e609 silver from sennheiser ,and for overheads ,MXL 991's .
 
some more info please

Is there anyway I/we could get some more info on mic placement(how far off the drums/angle/etc...) also on the room (type of material on walls/room shape/etc...) Then maybe I can help you, but i'm afraid there are just too many variables for this equation at the moment if you get my drift!
But just to leave you with something to think about, are you panning your overheads as in left and right? Because if you aren't that will make it sound how youd describe. Try full left and full right, or partially left/right, bascially whatever sounds right to your ear. This will just give it some more depth in the stereo field and avoid confusion to the ear. Good luck. I will check this post for a response to my question. Peace.

~dude
 
THIS is a good article that explains the various ways to mic drums. Scroll down and you'll see the links to the different methods of micing drums.
 
i'd like to hear a sample, with a tuned kit, a decent drummer, and thoes mic's you should be golden.
 
With four mics on the kit, assuming you're not clipping on your mackie, it's likely your drummer is at fault. He needs to balance himself out in that situation. Cymbals too loud? Don't hit the cymbals so hard. Toms not loud enough? Hit the toms harder. Snare not have enough crack in it? Hit a freakin rimshot instead of burying the stick in the middle of the drum. and so on so forth
 
cubanorocker316 said:
yea umm ,the kick drum mic is freakin aweosme you dont have to change that as far as i am concerned ,for the toms ,you can use pg58's for all of them ,the snare ,i recomend an e609 silver from sennheiser ,and for overheads ,MXL 991's .
Click to expand...


where the hell did this post come from?
 
cubanorocker316 said:
yea umm ,the kick drum mic is freakin aweosme you dont have to change that as far as i am concerned ,for the toms ,you can use pg58's for all of them ,the snare ,i recomend an e609 silver from sennheiser ,and for overheads ,MXL 991's .
Click to expand...

dude WHAT i spend 400 a piece on my overheads
 
There is no reason to change your mics. If you can't get a decent sound with the ones you have, than you need to check stuff like drum tuning, mic placement etc....

I would reccomend adding tom mics if you are after a typical rock type sound. Using just overheads to create that big kit sound is not always an easy affair. It requires much more critical mics, placement, playing, preamps and overall experience. The sm81's you are using are capable mics in the right hands, so the mics are certainly not at fault. In fact, I would find it to be a huge step back to move to MXL 991's as overhead mics. Sm81's have a much softer sound which would make it much easier to get a better overall kit sound with them wihtout having to worry as much about the harshness of the cymabls interfering.
 
nascentjunkie said:
Is there anyway I/we could get some more info on mic placement(how far off the drums/angle/etc...) also on the room (type of material on walls/room shape/etc...) Then maybe I can help you, but i'm afraid there are just too many variables for this equation at the moment if you get my drift!
But just to leave you with something to think about, are you panning your overheads as in left and right? Because if you aren't that will make it sound how youd describe. Try full left and full right, or partially left/right, bascially whatever sounds right to your ear. This will just give it some more depth in the stereo field and avoid confusion to the ear. Good luck. I will check this post for a response to my question. Peace.

~dude
Click to expand...

Alright, heres my setup (and i know all my mics are working perfectly. i've got. beta 52 on th kick, with about half of he grill of the mic inside the drum. the 57 is positioned at about 10/11 o'clock about 3 inches above the head. i have 2 octaka mk-319s on my 2 toms, with my 10" tom to the left and my 14" to the right. i have a zildjian z custom medium crash (16") and 14 zildjian quick beat hihats, and a 20" zildjian A ping ride, pretty heavy. my overheads are set up about 3 ft over my highest cymbal, which is pretty low. i have one sm 81 on the left side of my kit, and the other on the right. should i use eq? the kick doesnt sound that great, i have all of the volumes and gain set at the same level, except the overheads which are a tiny bit lower and my kick durm is set a little bit low. ive got some sound board up on my walls and it actualy does help alot. i dont have anything to use for effect other than the plug-ins on sonar 4, i use a little reverb. i know it sounds like i should be getting a pretty good sound, but i dont know whats up, if you could help me out itd be great. thanks man.

oh also i know my drums are tuned up well
 
ok here you go

sometimes that happens wen the OH mics arent positioned right, and also it could be the rooms sound, depends on how your walls are, and another thing it probably is, is that you dont have a recording soundcard, or if none of that works just try overall repositioning of mics .
 
well your overhead placement is probably at fault here. also, even though it may seem evil.. try playing with compression. i had what i thought was a completely unusable drum track once (1 overhead, 1 awful snare, unusable kick drum that i just replaced with a sample) and once i started playing with compression it just came to life and worked great in the mix.
 
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