Drum Tracking Questions For The Pros !

[Light]

Hey Smellyfuzz,

you wish your 96 channel SSL wasn't in repair right now!


Light: that was the most overdone, non-informatic post I've ever read on this forum. You mentioned every possible mic that dude will not have available.

He asked what the pros use. If he had asked what he should use on a particular budget, I would have answered accordingly. When I was doing this shit professionally, that is what I liked to use. I did not like working for the corporate dick heads I had to work for, so I quit. Of course, now I work for the same corporate dickheads as a lighting designer and stagehand, but what I do is done at the end of the day. I also do not have to put a product out into the world that I do not like. It was either quit, or slit my wrists. Deciding I enjoyed life too much to die, I quit.

To be honest, the specific mics are not what matters, it is the techniques. Far too much emphasis is placed on specific mics. While the specific mics I mentioned may be out of your range, the style of mic (I.E. when I say an M 149, I mean a LD multi pattern condenser mic) will not be.

If you look at the techniques, and the STYLE of mics, you can learn a lot. If you only want to drool over gear, than you can do that too.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi

 

[Downside Studio]

 

[Son of Mixerman]

I can't answer the questions. There is max word limit to a post.

This question is so wide open. Its like Bruce always says "It depends"

Ive mic'd monster kits that you need a 24 trk 2" machine just for the drums and another for the rest of the band and down to just 2 SDC's and 1 LDC. Every position conceivable has been used because rooms, drums, drummers, genres, mic lockers, producers and engineers are all different.

SoMm

 

[toby.I.]

If you are recording a good drummer, whose kit sounds good if your in the room with him/her ( not advisable to do on a regular basis) the greatest drum sound i have found can be achived as follows:

Pair of AKG C414 co-incident pair above drummers head ( angle and height dependent on style, but pair shout be centered on snare)

Shure sm57 on snare, gate this so it cuts the end off. This way you get more reverb ( from the 414's) on the tail of the snare)

D112 inside the kick ( vary with style of music)


Kareoke mic ( preferable some auwful shade of red) outisde kick drum.


Neuman M147, or U47 ( haven't tryed it with 47, but i assume it will work) as far away as possible from the kit.


If the drummers kit sounds shit either close mic everthing , or put a single pair of mics further away from the kit than OH will normally be.

Compress all of the individual elements mildly, the get them all to a stereo bus and compress the sub-mix to shit.


Works for me, so good luck