Drum Recording Problems

  • Thread starter Thread starter Scrubucket7
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Scrubucket7

Scrubucket7

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ok, me and my band have been recording a demo for the past couple weeks. But everytime i record drums it sounds like crap. Ive been using a shure ksm-09 as an overhead by the high hats, and a crash. Then i used a 58 a few inches away from the front of the bass drum. I used a shenhieser e855 on the high tom and a cheap fender mic i got with a package on floor tom. I am also using a shure axs-3 on snare. Ive tried other set ups, but this is the one i got the best sounds with. Anyways, im sending all that to a behringer ub1202 and then to my zoom mrs-4. Everytime i record my drums sound either too thin and like the mids are scooped kind of. The snare for instance always sounds really bad. It is a steel snare though, and it doesnt sound that great when our drummer plays it anyways. Well i was wondering if anyone had any suggestions on how to make this not sound so bad with the equipment i have, (i also have two cheap mics i can use). Thanks.
 
If the drums don't sound good without mics, they sure as hell aren't going to sound good in front of 'em!

Get the kit sounding good on it's own.... then tame some room reflections (hang thick blankets, drapes, whatever)... and THEN experiment with mic placement.

Some better mics can't hurt either...!

One of my older articles may be useful to you ---> http://www3.sympatico.ca/bvaleria/bluebear/articles/9in2days.htm
 
Scrubucket7 said:
Anyways, im sending all that to a behringer ub1202 and then to my..... Everytime i record my drums sound either too thin and like the mids are scooped kind of.
Click to expand...

You answered your own question to why the drums sound the way they do. On alot of the budget mixers the pre's tend to thin out everything that goes through them. If you were using outboard pre's then the mixer really wouldn't matter that much, but if your using a good portion of the pre's on the mixer then your going to have a thinning out of everything.

The only way I know to fake big drums is to use gated reverbs and eq the snot out if it.

SoMm
 
Blue Bear, thanks alot for the article, really helps. Well, the thing is, i can only use two tracks, for stereo recording. So i cant do any great post eq or anything. Yea, i know the drums arent gunna sound good, so were gunna try to borrow a maple snare and some thinner cymbols, cause i get some cymbol flanging when recording his dark crash and rides. Mixerman, thanks for the advice, ill be sure to try it out soon. Gvarko, thats not really gunna work for me, first off i have no experience with drum triggers and such, and i dont have any money. But thanks anyways. Well, i was also wondering if anybody had some suggestions with where i should put the mics and such, with the ones that i have. Thanks
 
Here's an idea, round up four of your best mics. Try sitting one mic about 2.5 stick lengths form the center of the snare over your drummers left shoulder pointing in towards the snare. Take your second mic and position it 2.5 stick lengths over the drummers right shoulder pointing somewhere between the floor tom and ride ( you're going to have to experiment with positioning to get the absolute best sound). Now take another mic and mic the snare. Position the mic so that it's facing AWAY from the hats otherwise you may wash out the snare track completely. Take the last mic and mic the kick internally (reso on or off is up to you). I like to have my mic about an inch or two from the batter pointing towards the floor tom to cut down on possible snare bleed.

Now, why this works: The snare mic and kick mic are obvious, they're the two most important ingredients in the drum sound and therefore need their own tracks so that you may bring them forward, drop them back or whatever you may need to do. The two over-the-shoulder mics approximate the the positioning of the drummer's ears. When you do this, the mics will be hearing what the drummer hears so if he is crashing heavily and just tinkling on the toms, that's what the mics will print.

Another suggestion, ALWAYS CHECK FOR PHASE!!!! Phasing will absolutely KILL a good drum sound. Make sure you check all of your distances and make sure you check the sound at the faders to be sure that you aren't washing out the snare drum.
 
song

thanks alot, but i figured out what was really killing my drum sound. The cheap ass compressor effect on the mrs-4, it made it sound horrible. I tryed that method of recording my drums, and id say it came out pretty good. I pretty much finished one of the songs thats gunna be on our demo. Its at http://www.soundclick.com/bands/2/ffrmusic.htm
its called "This is life (demo version)" please tell me what you think of it, even though you probably wont like the style of music tell me what you think of the job, and keep in mind this is my first project ever really. thanks alot.
 
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