Drum Recording

L

laststartoshine

New member
Hello everyone, i would like to first start off by saying that while i am new to these boards in terms of posting, i've been reading off and on for a few years, even more so these past couple of months.

My band is planning on demoing very soon, now, i understand the ideal would be to multitrack the drums, but unfortunately financial resources (at this time) are only allowing for a stereo mix, so i have to use my mixer to mix drums down in advance. I use Sonar, and will be layering in all the other parts later, I was wondering if anyone has any experience with this, and how do you try to mix the drums in advance, so they sit better in the mix later on?

I have been messing around with recording for a long time, and i have a lot of experience with live sound, and plan on opening a studio very soon...i just need to prove i can get some business, and in fact that is a partial reason for these demos, so i can say


"SEE!!!! LOOK WHAT I CAN DO WITH CRAPPY GEAR... do you want to record with me at a professional studio when it's built?"




i've recorded this way before, and it seems like no matter how i mix the set, something always seems off in the final mix. ie. Kick was too quiet, rerecorded and over compensated, kick too loud...(etc)


OH also, idk how much this matters, but i plan on micing the 2 toms and snare with 57s, the kick with an audio technica ATM25, and for overheads, several large diaphragm condenser mics (once again, this is what's available for no $$$)


any recommendations? thanks for any and all opinions.



Josh--- new kid on the block
 
Are you recording the drums from the start as a stereo track, or recording them on multiple tracks, and then sending a stereo mix of them to someone else to do their overdubs?

If it is the latter, keep the original multitracks of your drums. You may be raise the level of the kick (or snare, or overheads) in the final mix by blending in some of the original track with the final mix. Obviously, you have to have things exactly lined up, or stuff will get very phasey. But I've fixed some mixes that were brought to me using this technique, and it can be done.

The obvious proviso is that blending in more of the original tracks can make things louder. It's harder to make thing softer. But even that can be done. One way is to flip the phase of the waveform, and blend it in little by little into the mix.
 
it might be interesting to try tracking some midi drums - or pre-program the drum tracks minus the symbols - then go in and record a cymbol performance. You could tweak the snare, kick, and toms later to fit the mix as needed once everything is in.

If you dont have access to good drum samples, then just record a few takes of each song with your drums - each with some different mixes to give you some options for later.
 
littledog said:
Are you recording the drums from the start as a stereo track, or recording them on multiple tracks, and then sending a stereo mix of them to someone else to do their overdubs?

If it is the latter, keep the original multitracks of your drums. You may be raise the level of the kick (or snare, or overheads) in the final mix by blending in some of the original track with the final mix. Obviously, you have to have things exactly lined up, or stuff will get very phasey. But I've fixed some mixes that were brought to me using this technique, and it can be done.

The obvious proviso is that blending in more of the original tracks can make things louder. It's harder to make thing softer. But even that can be done. One way is to flip the phase of the waveform, and blend it in little by little into the mix.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, i'm recording into a mixer, and then into a Tascam US-428. for some odd reason, only the 1st two chanels of this work...anybody got any ideas why the 3 and 4 inputs don't work?

i am doing all the recording here at my house, right down to the mixing. i'm defiantely aware of avoiding phasing and things of that nature...so that's not really the issue...my issue is the whole having to pre-mix the drums

it might be interesting to try tracking some midi drums - or pre-program the drum tracks minus the symbols - then go in and record a cymbol performance. You could tweak the snare, kick, and toms later to fit the mix as needed once everything is in.

If you dont have access to good drum samples, then just record a few takes of each song with your drums - each with some different mixes to give you some options for later.
Click to expand...

I thought about using midi drums, but i definately want to keep all the real tones i get...i really like your idea of tweaking the mix and re-recording, leaving me with several different versions. thanks for the help!
 
For starters I did this recording when I was only 16 and it was my first effort. I used a 4 channel Behringer UB1202 mixer and (using several adapters yuuuk) plugged it into the line-in port of a Sound Blaster Audigy 2ZS. Sounding Seedy?

The way I went about it was by recording just one song and logging all the settings I used. Then, I mixed/mastered the recording and figured out what needed changing and then I accordingly changed it :)

Ended up working rather nice. We did 13 tracks.
 
We recorded in this order:-

First Song:
Drums (Draft)
Guitars (Really rough, stuff-ups OK etc etc)
Bass (Really rough, stuff-ups OK etc etc)
Vocals (Really rough, stuff-ups OK etc etc)

That would give me an idea of what I was dealing with in the mix. I would record all takes with the sound I wanted. If a guitarist hitted a wrong not I didn't really mind. It was going to get deleted anyways.

Once I had a good draft I would re-record with the same settings for the best recording I could get.

Then I just went from my settings and recorded the whole album making a few minor tweeks here and there.

Obviously I didn't end up with an ample sound having used 3 cheap Samson Dynamic Mic's to mic up the kit (1 OH, 1 Snare, 1 Kick). I'll see if I can get a sample up.
 
As with any drum session... start with your drums and your drummer... get new heads, get the drums tuned up as well as you possibly can... make sure your drummer can not only play his parts, but play his drums (there is a great deal of skill behind understanding drums... where to hit, attack, consistancy) ... and go from there. To be honest, I've recorded drums succesfully with 1 room and one overhead... it won't be a stereo drum sound, but if you mess with it enough and know how to work a compressor, you can actually get damn good tones...
 
I agree with the multiple takes idea mainly cuz that's what I was gonna say. :D

I think once you get a good stereo image of the kit from your OH's, the main things you'd end up tweaking later on (imho) would be the kick to help it blend with the bass guitar and the snare just cuz I always have to tweak the friggin snare... :rolleyes:

If you have 2 or 3 takes of each drum part, you could tweak each one a bit different on the way in.

Or,

I could be talking out me arse... :cool:
 
make sure you record you final drum tracks last, that way you can click play tweak the drum sound then hit record. Also another good trick is to is to copy the drum track a few times in sonor and then use eq compression and other effects to help you bring out or hide certian drums in the different tracks and then use that to level. for example if the bass drum is to low, copy the drum track and cut the highs and the high mids(excluding ofcourse a small group of frequencies where the slap of the kick would be) and then raise or lower that track to add more bass drum. or another idea would be if a drum is significantly louder than everything else and you want to bring it down, copy the track, add a gate to isolate the loud drum some and then reverse the phase of the track and bring it in and out of phase to adjust the volume. be creative lots of little tricks can help
 
your not multi tracking as in your not recording the instruments one at a time or your not recording multiple tracks per instrument. if your recording the instruments one at a time what i suggested will work fine, you just right copy and paste the track over and over again then edit the tracks so different parts of the drums stand out more than others then you can level the volume some like that. if your recording all the instruments at once with only 2 tracks then i suggest you go get a program like audacity(which is free) offline and record them one at a time so mixing later will be a hell of alot easier.
 
Depending on the style of music and how aggressive your drum sound needs to be. I would suggest using two overheads and a kick. The overheads should pick up the snare, toms and cymbals in stereo and the kick should be in the middle. You will have to experiment a little to get the balance right with the kick but that may be your best bet depending on the style.

I recorded my band with 4 tracks. I used a 1=kick, 2=snare, 3=toms, and 4=overhead. After mixing the tracks I really wish I had gone with 2 overheads a kick and a snare. I think drums sound so much better in stereo. Of course at the time I didn't have the mics for overheads so I was kind of stuck thinking I had to do it that way.
 
Is your drummer talented? to the point where he has no discernable rhythm problems? if so, this might work for you.

1) have the drummer track the drums (without any cymbals) with the guitar player helping to guide the song.

2) have the drummer overdub the cymbals...

This way you have independant tracks of both your cymbals & your shells. I've been using this technique fairly frequently recently on my own stuff, even though I have multitrack capabilities; It kinda gives the drums a completely different feel.
 
when i say not multi-tracking i mean the drums are just going to be a stereo image.

here's my plan


1)kick through onboard compressor(panned center)

2)Snare through onboard compressor(panned center)

3)Rack tom through on board expander(panned hard left)

4)Floor tom through on board expander(panned hard left)

5)Overhead 1(panned most of the way left)

6)overhead 2(panned most of the way right)

...i figure doing this will give me the stereo imaging i need....

my drummer is amazing, but i feel not recording the cymbals will reduce from the over all feel of the recording.
 
well it turns out i'm borrowing a firepod from a buddy tomorrow, so for me this is pretty much not needed anymore


we tested some stuff out tonight, just running all the drums through a mixer and stereo-out into my tascam US428(just 2 channels) and then into sonar 5

(not my drummers best preformance he was just goofing around)

lemme know what you think





thoughts?
 
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