Drums got me down. Please Help !!

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FunkSoulRhythm

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I am new to the site so I would like to start with a hello and thanks for having me. I did some work before (just my own stuff) using acid pro. I recently graduated to reason 3.1 and I have discovered the world of MIDI. Along with this I have taken on the task of recording my friends' band.

I am using a Roland VS 2000 for recording and mixing and (mostly because I cant figure out the Roland) my pc and Reason for editing/effects/final mix. I am very new to Reason, I would say about one month. I am somewhat familiar with live recording via pc. (i use a SB Audigy 2 Platinum)

Basically what I am doing is using the roland as a mixer/imput device to level out the sound and record it on my pc. We are only a 3 piece but have a large sound. My problem comes when recording the drums. I have the base,toms,snare, and cymbals all mic'd. (cymbals using overhead) I am getting some feedback from one mic into the other and also the condensor mics are picking up the sound from the bass and guitar stacks.

In other words, i adjust the level for the tom up and it also raises the level on the snare and vice versa. if i turn up the hi-hat then my snare is also affected. It's driving me mad and I would love some help. Also I am recording in the basement and Im not sure if I can or how to prevent feedback from the bass and guitar on the drum channels.

Please understand I am new to the site and for that matter recording. I wasnt sure if this goes in newb section since it is so basic or under recording. I would appreciate any tips, pointers, suggestions, or otherwise constructive advice anyone may have.

Thanks,

FSR
 
put the coutch in front of the bass amp
no, really, use whatever you have.

use whatever you can to block sound to whatever extent possible
if you had a headphone rig i'd say put amps/people in seperate rooms, but i'm guessing you don't.


bleed is a fact of life (bass in the overhead for example) in a crouded recording, position the mic's as best you can to cut down on it, and just deal with the rest.

you probably won't need a hi-hat mic.

and one more thing....
turn the amps down a bit.
 
By headphone rig im not quite sure what you mean ? Everyone put on the phones and play ? I thought about that but it sound like crap kind of. The drummer cant hear the feed over the live drums. Any suggestions ?
 
short of better headphones/better headphone amp there’s not much you can do about that particular problem.

and as far as i know, noones ever thrilled about a headphone mix, the target is usually

useable.
 
Yeah, if you get things sorted out right you should be able to get enough volume in the headphones for tracking. If you do this you'll be able to run the bass direct (not amplified in the room) and remove that from the bleed equation. In my experience that's the worst offender. Guitar bleed you can usually work with. Play with amp position and maybe some gobos (sound blockers). Getting good drum sounds just takes some practice. Make sure the kit sounds good in the room; if it doesn't, you'll have trouble ever getting it to sound good recorded. Close mic the snare, kick and if you have the channels and mics to work with, toms. If your overheads are picking up too much cymbal, try mounting them back off the kit a bit, over the drummers head. Also, try and use a room mic (again, if you have the channels to work with); a large or medium diaphragm condenser about 4-ft or so off the ground, 3 ft in front of the kit can capture some nice sounds. If you're limited on tracks for recording, consider focusing on the drums first with maybe a scratch guitar track to keep the drummer oriented, then go back an overdub the other instruments.
 
I appreciate the pointers. The Roland has 8 inputs.(either 1/4 inch or standard 3 prong mic cables) I was using 5 mics for drums and 1 for bass and 1 for guitar. The leveling was such a nightmare. thanks for the help fellas, i will give it a shot.

FSR
 
When you are recording guitar, bass AND drums all at the same time in 2 room, you are bound to have these problems. I doubt you can get a very good sound on anything with all that stuff going on at the same time. Drum mics will pick up a whole bunch of bass and guitar and EQ is only going to make it worse. Track your stuff one at a time, that's all I could say.
 
A couple of extra things to consider:

You didn't mention what kind of mics youre using where on the drums, but if you already haven't done so, make sure where possible you are using directional mics aligned in a way to try and isolate them from each other as much as possible (e.g. the tom mic pointed away from the snare, etc.)

In a similar vein, if you can position the players in such a way where the bass amp et al are in front of the drum kit pointing away from the drums. Adding any additional sound blockage between them can help also. Foir example, hanging dense moving blankets between thr kit and the amps, that kind of thing. Giraffe was not joking when he said move furniture between them if you have to. ;)

As far as the headphone setup possibility, another possibility is to use those in conjunction with time-shifted multitracking. This may not be something your bandmates may be used to, and they may not adapt to it well, but if you did something like set up a click track or a basic synthed drum line to playback through the headphones for the bass and guitar player to play to. Record then as they're playing to that track. Then go back and play those recordings in a rough mix back for the drummer to play to and record him seperately. Or you can do that in reverse order if that works better for them, or even do it in the same order, and when the drums are there, go back and re-tracik the strings to the keeper drums.

HTH,

G.
 
Halion said:
When you are recording guitar, bass AND drums all at the same time in 2 room, you are bound to have these problems. I doubt you can get a very good sound on anything with all that stuff going on at the same time. Drum mics will pick up a whole bunch of bass and guitar and EQ is only going to make it worse. Track your stuff one at a time, that's all I could say.
Click to expand...

I actually record everything at once in one room all the time and get good results. The key for me is to eliminate the bass guitar from the equation. If the band is tight and plays well together, it can sound very good. And most bands I find play/perform better this way than doing a bunch of overdubs to a solo drum track.
 
The easiest solution would be to record using overdubs instead of having everyone play at once, live.

If you need to play together live, the following might be fun. It may require a little bit more equipment than you currently own, and I don't know enough about your interface to tell you exactly how to do it, but you might give it a whirl: :)

What I like to do in a situation where I have a band that needs to play live together, is take a DI off the guitar and bass (and/or whatever else), and put that in the drummer's headphones during tracking. This way, the drummer can hear everyone's instruments, but his mics won't pick up anything but the drums because the amps aren't making any noise. From there, you can either re-amp the DI tracks (if you've recorded them) -- i.e. send the dry DI signal back out into any effects pedals and the amp, and record that with a mic -- or you could just re-record the guitar and bass parts one at a time while listening back to the drums.

Hope that makes sense. :)
 
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