Drum recording... first of many posts to come.

[keat_taylor]

ok. so, I'm going to begin recording drums for my band next week and although I know my equipment is up to par on some levels (mics, drums, computer.) in other areas I'm a little shaky. I have no firewire capable interface so my drums might have to be recorded as one track. I am using a 57 for snare, 2 shure omni's for overhead, a beta52A kick mic and possible a matched pair of Nady SCM 900 for overall room mics, its just dependent upon the sound I get out of the omni's and whether or not I switch those out for 57's. I may be using a Fostex 8 track digital recorder for drum tracks so I can have at least four separate tracks so that mixing in the end is a little easier. If I cant use the fostex I'll be running the mics into a 12 channel powered mixer from there into a tube pre and going from the pre into my audio input ending up i Logic pro 8. my question is one of opinion I suppose, how much is it going to effect my sound if I have to mix these tracks down into a single drum track? am I risking a muddy sound because of several channels being bounced down to one? do you have any solid suggestions one way or another? the music has a pretty country feel to it, but I want to get that very deliberate snare sound very snappy and pretty dry. a big kick sound, not too punchy but not too boomy either.

thanks a ton guys
byhookorcrookband

 

[mixsit]

.. am I risking a muddy sound because of several channels being bounced down to one? do you have any solid suggestions one way or another? the music has a pretty country feel to it, but I want to get that very deliberate snare sound very snappy and pretty dry. a big kick sound, not too punchy but not too boomy either.

Well there is the 'less is more track; keep the path as straight and clean you can, and consider single overheads and rooms, vs duals that might loose more in blur' (in mono) than they add.

 

[keat_taylor]

ah...

My thought was that if I ditch the room mic idea and stick with overheads and snare and kick it should come out fairly clear. we're going to spend a day micing and checking levels. all I'm worried about honestly is panning the snare and the overheads. which I can do on the mixer it's just a matter of the muddiness. I want to run them through the tube pre with a conservative input/output mix so that I don't have that hollow electric sound when I track them into a computer. again though I worry about the muddiness of it all being one track.

also, I had a bad experience tracking at a very prominent studio in the midwest as far as drums and vocals go, I plan on only micing the actual snares, does anyone have any arguments against that? would it be more beneficial to mic the top head? I dont want to capture that bouncing sound as much as I do the crack. I had to mix the tracks from that prominent studio and the sound we got from the top head Vs. the snares was disappointing at best.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

My thought was that if I ditch the room mic idea and stick with overheads and snare and kick it should come out fairly clear. we're going to spend a day micing and checking levels. all I'm worried about honestly is panning the snare and the overheads. which I can do on the mixer it's just a matter of the muddiness. I want to run them through the tube pre with a conservative input/output mix so that I don't have that hollow electric sound when I track them into a computer. again though I worry about the muddiness of it all being one track.

I'd venture that any real problem with muddiness will not be because you're going down to one track, but because the individual tracks themselves are not optimal.

I'd pray for the Fostex if I were you, not just because of the number of tracks, butbecause of the sound itself. You don't mention the type of powered mixer you're thinking of using, but, just in gegeral, the pres and circuits on may of the lesser powered mixers are just plain not up to the par of something designed for recording. That doen't mean you can't get good sound from it, just that if it's not the best-sounding of mixers, that could be your biggest quality bottleneck.

Why are you going to one track? Is that because it's a mono mixer or because you want/need to run everything through that preamp? If it's a mono mixer, I might recommend runningthe OHs and the kick through it,and directly in, and save the preamp a a seperate line for the snare only. Record those two tracks and then mix them as you see fit during mixing.

Tune your drums to a RCH of perfection before you record, especially the snare; get the whack you want from the drum itself before you even think of micing it. You can mic the top, the side or the bottom of the snare; just try them out and see what works for you for the sound you want and for the amount of isolation from the hat you do or don't want. And remember if you mic the bottom, that you may have to flip polarity on that channel. If your mixer won't do that, the bottom miking could be a problem.

If recording to 4track, I'd recommend submixing to stereo instead of mono. Us ethe OHs to determine the stereo spread and the majority sound of the kit, and then fold in the extra snare and kick as required. You can always run the individual tracks back out to the preamp and back in again if you want to add the preamp grit later.

G.

 

[TexRoadkill]

Running all the tracks through a cheap tube pre sounds like a bad idea. Also if you want a punchy, tight sound that usually requires a bit of limiting on the individual drum mics and will require having everything on separate tracks.

 

[blue4u]

Why not rent or borrow the equipment you need and record good, solid tracks FIRST? The rest can be dealt with as you go...just a thought

Rich

 

[giraffe]

cheap tube pre's = suck.

like glen said, (and is repeated ad-nasium here) the kit needs to sound awesome before you hit record. that's the most important part.

with the b52, make sure the mic isn't too far in the kick, that's the only thing that really stands the chance of mud.

the omni's will almost certainly sound better as overheads then the 57's

try both under and over the snare, don't limit your options.

hit the drums hard, but don't bash the cymbals. with drums technique is
SO incredibly important to the sound, this can not be overstated.
especially with a limited mic setup.
when mixing the kit (if you must submix before tape) remember, if the snare and kick are a bit loud, you can still compress them out a little, but if the cymbals are to loud, it's really hard (nearly impossible) to bring the kick and snare back out.

 

[keat_taylor]

;bhsd

awesome thanks for all the input guys!
My drummer is pretty immaculate with his drum kit and I'm very satisfied with the sound of it. I dont really know much about drum maintenance but he told me a bunch of stuff he did to make it sound better, he has three snares to choose from that are all pretty awesome so we'll have to toy around and see which one is going to sound the best and which mic technique will sound the best.

I am in fact praying for the fostex because I WANT (so badly) more than one track on the drums. for all the reasons you all listed. worst case scenario we will be running through a behringer eurorack. Behringer in my experience has been the nail in the coffin for just about anything but we're working with what we've got here.... more to come on the progress of all this.

 

[Dogbreath]

Just a thought for you but you might check into the "Glyn Johns" and the "Recorderman" techniques for tracking as well.

Big sound. Small hassle.