Drum Recording. Is the sound quality good?

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Relic1882

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I've been torn left and right to how to get these drums sounding best in my crappy basement and cheap mics. (A set of Digital Reference drum mics from Guitar Center on sale for 100 bucks!)

I'm using a DR snare mic, 2 more DR'son the top toms, an old Shure 505 on the floor tom, the DR Bass drum mic going inside the drum pointing at the beater, and for the overheads I'm using a Digital Reference dynamic mic and a Shure PG58.

The drum track I recorded is here----> SoundClick artist: William Baron - This stuff is mainly for fun! My real serious work is with my band, RELIC.

Can you veterens give me your thoughts on the sound I'm getting, or what I can do to maker it any better? I've recorded the track into Sonar X1. The kick and snare are on their own tracks, the toms and overheads share a left and a right track.
 
I think for most folks, drums are the hardest to get right--so I'd say you're at a good starting point. But drums, almost more than any other instrument, are nearly impossible to judge by themselves. Put 'em in a mix--add some scratch tracks with roughly the sound you'll be going for, and see how that sounds. And post it up for us to hear as well.
 
I'm having a hard time punching up the toms with just the mixer alone. If I add more low EQ it feels like the overtones are too much. I was also using Aquarian rings on them too. The problem I have is I don't have a seperate mixer for the tom mics and the overhead mics yet so they are recording together on 2 tracks. 1 for left and 1 for right. I don't want to compress the toms because the cymbals will sound washed because of this. I'm working on it. I'll repost a new one when I'm done.
 
I think you'll never get a good drum mix if you depend on post-production too much. Your toms should sound good with no processing, which means that you need to learn how to tune them, get good heads on them and place your mics properly. By "properly", I mean that you need to move mics around until you find the sweet spot for every drum. One inch often makes a huge difference. You can't have dead, shitty sounding toms and expect them to magically sound good when you record them, hoping that you can EQ in frequencies that aren't there in the first place.

Also, you should get a good sound with just 2 overheads, a kik mic, and a snare mic. Then you use spot mics to get you over the top. Another problem is that you're not using a matched pair of mics for your overheads, and on top of that, they're dynamic mics (if I'm not mistaken). You could only go so far without condensers for overheads.

Get new heads and learn how to tune your drums first. Then, just use 2 overheads, a snare mic and a kik mic until you have a good mix. Then experiment with the placement of your spot mics....By that time, your drum sound should be 90% there. Then, and only then, should you worry about EQ and compression to get you the other 10% there.

Or, forget everything I just said, and go to the DRUM forum and read Greg's guide, which is a sticky at the top of that forum.
 
I read that sticky already. I'm not using any effects at all with the drums right now. I guess I'll have to wait it out until I get some cash to afford some decent condenser mics for overhead. I'm not sure what the best kind to use are. Am I better of with the pencil style mics or should I get a large diaphram. I'm new to using condenser mics. I only own a single Apex 435 right now.
 
Replace the tom heads with something decent and take of the rings. If there are to many overtones use something like RTOM moongels instead of rings because rings kill the decay to much.

Actually I think those rings should never have been invented.
 
My drummer has moongel I can borrow. Good deal I'll try that out too. But can anyone tell me the best style of condenser mic to use for overheads?
 
Relic1882 said:
My drummer has moongel I can borrow. Good deal I'll try that out too. But can anyone tell me the best style of condenser mic to use for overheads?
Click to expand...

Well there aint no correct answer to that question, IMO.
You can get good results with LDC, SDC, and (Ribbon mikes not condenser)
Personally I preffer a matched pair of AKG 414's, they are quite expensive, so if you are looking for something cheap I'd reccomend MXL603, they are pretty decent for the price.

Oh regarding the moongels, if your toms are sounding dead, moongels wont fix that they'll just make em' deader
 
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