drums and drums and drums.

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jacobs

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hey ya'll! looking for some more experienced ears.

i've been unhappy recently with my drums sounds. they sound good, just not good enough.

so......i'm posting mp3s of my drums, along with mp3s of just drums from a band whose sound i would die for. our drums sound greta in the room, and if we could capture them to computer the way they are we'd be in love.




ahk.mp3 is my recording. rescue.mp3 is my "goal".

my drummer has a dw collecters series kit....20x18", 12x14", 14"x14". he uses a cheap metal snare with a diecast hoop on one side, very unique, LOUD crack/pong/tin can sound. works well, records pretty well too. all evans g2 coated heads. variety of cymbals, usually ones that are far too big/thick. we're working on that.

mics on my setup:

d112 on kick, kick has a remo renassaince (sp?) resonant head, with a hole cut in it. it sounds great live, but its hard to tame on a recording. i usually put the mic just outside the hole with it pointed at the beater. my biggest problem with my sounds is the kick.

snare: 57 pointed at the center form above the rim, a few inches off. bit too unhappy with close mic'd snare sound.

oh's: one at 3035 and one oktava mk-319. i'm getting some of the oktava mk012's soon i think. i'm not happy witht he lareg diaphragm mics as drum overheads. very harsh sounding sometimes, hard to tame (?). i'm hoping the small diaphragm condensors will help my overall drum sound. any comments about that thought are invited. i point the overheads diaphragms from behind the drummers shoulders at the toms, rasied up about 2 feet.

the room mic is an ancient superlux small diaphragm condensor that doesn't usually cut it as an oh, but works as a room mic. boos the bass/treb, cut the mids on it to add ambience and reinforce toms.

i'm gonna start tring close mic'ing toms just for reinforcement and flexibility in mixing, but on this i don't have them mic'd.

i eq the drums basically to exactly what the article on slackmasters site about mixing drums says. compress the bass drum, not anything else really. maybe a tiny bit on the snare. i drag the oh and room mic tracks to match up with the close mic'd tracks.

i'm really just looking for an overall tighter/more professional sound out of the drums (don't we all). any advice on things i might want to do eq wise/tracking wise/mic wise will be greatly appreciated!

thanks!

jacob
 
i think first of all, you've got too much room sound. you should definitely mic the toms.. that way you wont need as much room/over head. plus it's easier to make 'em sound good.

you'll wanna eq the snare higher. probably play around with the 5k to 10k area. maybe even reduce the low end... i can't tell cuz of the room.

as for bass drum micing... try placing the d112 inside the bassdrum near the middle, and point it directly at the beater. this has worked well for me. you get alot more punch out of it, and you could definitely use some punch in the kick. cut out some lowend in the bass drum too.

hope that helps some.
 
I think this is a very important post for all Clinic members to address.

Drums, drums, drums ... yes !

If there is one single instrument that the majority of Clinic members use that are 'samples' and 'electronic' and 'MIDI' it's drums.

Thorough discussions on drums and drum sound are very, very important here for the primary reason that of all the 'MIDI' sounds that can be used, drums are one of the easiest to 'make real'.

So we all benifit exponentially when one element of our music that has the potential to be more real than any other, becomes more real.

I'm D/L'ing this and intend to write AT LEAST the legal charater limit ... and maybe even double post !

I have several loaves of bread here, a large TROUT, and some cream CHEESE !!! and of course a gallon of grape juice ...

:D
 
nevermind the drums, tell us about the trout......i love me some trout......
 
americanruse said:
i think first of all, you've got too much room sound. you should definitely mic the toms.. that way you wont need as much room/over head. plus it's easier to make 'em sound good.
Click to expand...

I think if he could, he would. That's my dillema.
 
Your snare sounds like it's lacking a little crispness. You could try a boost between 3 & 6 kHz, and maybe rolloff below 100Hz.

Your kick has a lot of bottom, which is good, but maybe a bit too much. You could try a cut around 300-500Hz, and maybe a boost arount 3Khz if you want to hear the beater.

Also experiment with you mic position. Try pointing the mics more at the rims than the centres.

Check these drum sounds I recorded on my crappy Forum. This was done with a kick mic and a single ohead condensor.
The first is the pure dry sound, and it sounds like pus.



This one is the same recording with some eq and limiter. I'm not suggesting this is a great drum sound or anything, but you can hear what a few plug ins can do...

 
i already have the drums eq'd quite a bit, using the process explained in the article on slackmaster2k's site. i'll try twweaking some more today.

thanks!

jacob
 
I know nothing about micing acoustic drums yet, but I think your drum sound is pretty good except that it's not as crisp as the other example.. bass drum may be a little woofy... add some crispness and it's a usable sound...
 
agree with the room sound, it kinda takes away the studio feel and puts me right in your garage:D The kick is really powerful, might be tough to mix the bass guitar in.

Al
 
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