drum recording

[sonarstar]

i have tried many different ways to record my drums to get them to sound good. and i have finally come up with a good method using only a single mic. i just record a single piece of my set at a time. e.g. first i record the hi-hat, then the snare and so on. the sound quality is excellent, but it is more difficult to play that way. of course. i was just wondering if anyone else here has experimented with that setup. of course you could buy a mic for each piece, but then unless you can record multiple tracks, the drums can't be mixed after recording. any other ideas?

 

[Zeppelin456]

i tried that once, it sucked...you can't get any groove going at ALL and its not how the drums are meant to be played...stick to playing to one mic or just buy more mics and a mixer...

 

[wjgypsy]

have you ever heard of this?......

if you can, buy a mic for each drum, then direct ch-1 (kick) to
record to track one. then direct ch-2 (snare) to record to track one. repeat all of the above until you have a track for each drum. then set the recorder to record all the tracks at the same time. then go play (All Of The Kit!) this way you can stil have controll over each drums effects, eq and volume AFTER you have recorded.

try that, then let us know.




zeke

 

[maddrummer]

Are you just describing using more than one track for drums?

 

[sonarstar]

Zeke,
are you talking about using a multi channel audio interface? cause that is the only way i know haow to record more than one mics at a time into seperate channels. but if there is another, that would be awesome? if you could expound on this, i would appreciate it a lot. thanks!!

 

[RJandthefull]

That is an awful method, your better off using one mic on the whole set. There is no way of doing this without a multichannel audio interface. However, if you have a mixer you can separate it into 2 channels by pannel the drums you want on one channel left, and the other one right. You can record it onto 2 mono tracks and pan them in whatever software you are using. Hope that helped.

 

[Track Rat]

If you have a mixer, you could submix the toms, overheads and kick to one buss and send it to one track and put the snare alone on the other. At least you'd have some kind of mix controll. The snare is obviously isolated and if you need more or less kick vs overhead after the fact, you can do a bass boost/cut.
Plating the drums one at a time just ain't an option as it'll take an act of god to make them groove.

 

[wjgypsy]

here is the only two ways that i know of.

1. if your mixer has an output on every channel ("direct Out" or "insert") then try this..... plug each drum's mic on it's own channel. (ex: snare,kick,overhead,hi tom,mid tom and low tom.) the take a cable (1/4") and come out of each of the channel's output. here's a drawing.........

mixer_________________________________________recorder

channel__________________________________track________
kick-----direct out-----------------------------------track 1 input-------
snare----direct out----------------------------------track 2 input-------
overhead----direct out-----------------------------track 3 input

and so on...........

then select all the tracks (that have a drum channel on them) to record.

if your mixer channels don't have a direct output then do this....

if you mixer'd channels each have there own insert, then do the same thing that you would do if you had a direct out only, instead of pluging the cable in all the way, just push it tell the first black ring on the connecter goes in then leave it.

2. my recorder (fostex vf-16) has a bilt-in mixer with a direct record mode so it's easy to do it from that recorder.



hope that this helps you.....if it don't..i'm only 14.


good luck,


zeke

 

[rocky outcrop]

MIDNIGHT OIL

MIDNIGHT OIL RECORDED THE DRUM TRACKS ON THEIR ALBUM 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1, ONE BIT AT A TIME AND IT WENT ON TO BE ONE OF THEIR BIGGEST SELLING ALBUMS WITH AROUND 6 TOP TEN HITS(HERE IN OZ)THE DRUMMER ROB HURST IS ONE OF THE BEST IN THE BUSSINESS SO THAT WOULD HELP WITH THIS TECHNIQUE. I THOUGHT THAT THE ALBUM SUCKED AS THE DRUMS SOUNDED FORCED MACHINE LIKE AND FAKE(AS IN WERE IN IT FOR THE MONEY) COMPARED TO THEIR OTHER ALBUMS THAT REALY ROCK.
BUT HEY IF YOU GOT TIME AND PATCIENCE THEN GO FOR IT