I HAVE TO ADMIT...I am a suckie Sonic Engineer...

  • Thread starter Thread starter fakeness
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fakeness

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After spend quite a lot of money on equipments...
i have to admit that, i am very suckie engineer.
Now i do have 7 mics-
Beyer M201
C451 B
AKG 112 D
C 4000
Studio Project C1
Sm 58
D60 s


BUT....
the result of recording sometimes sound crap!
7 mics sometimes may sounds even worst than 1 mic...(my gosh, that do upset me oftenly)

i do know there are some people around use way less mic than i but turns out with some excellent quality....oh lord......
How would u guys use my microphone on drum?
 
You've got a nice mic collection. You are probably right that they don't all sound good together at the same time.

Start with the obvious: D112 on kick, M201 on snare, and pick one other mic you like as an overhead. Work on mic placement until that sounds good.

Adding mics beyond that gives you more options in the mix, but if you don't start with a good basic sound more mics won't help.
 
first off. dot ever say you are a bad engineer. you gotta start somewhere. Whats the room like that you have been recording in? what kind of gear/ pre amps are you going into. There are a lot of really good people on this forum that will help point you in the right direction. What kind of sound are you going for?
 
hey dude, i like your post, cause i've been in the same situation,

i've always been recording stuff, and for years i worked with absolute junk, and i just loved my recordings.... i had crappy equipment, so i had to work REAL hard to make it sound at least a lill bit decent...

but after a while i had enough money for better stuff, so i started buying nu gear, and i sold allmost all my old gear;..

and one day i said to myself; GODDAMNED....what the fuck are you doinnnnng ??????

i was recording my drumkit, and my brother who plays guitar, and i was totally dissatisfied with the quality......

naw, if this happens, don't get ....; ehm ... discouraged...NO !
say to yourself; if some people can make decent recordings with Junk equipment, then i definately can make KICK ASS recordings with MY STUFF !!!

so just start working, record a shedload of tests, experiment, let some guitarists, drummers or singers come over to do tests, they don't have to play songs, just let 'em play something, so you can record,
and while they play you gotto work on MIC PLACEMENT !!!! extremely important ! you'll read that in every book, that Mic placement is more important than EQ-ing

and believe me ,,,, i believe its true !!!!
even with my AKG c414 i had bad results .... but after following the hints and tips from the people of this forum i managed to record nice Drum overheads with that ONE agk 414

see ? get your ass off internet and start doin some music man !!!!!
HAVE FUN

and did you ever experiment with two mics on your snare, on on the top and one on the bottom ?
what about your kick ? one mic pointing at the batter head and one at the other side ?

it all gives different results.....

Njoy
earworm
 
thanks, guys...

somehow, my problem usually rise up on two parts - - -
Bass kick and snare
in certain, the kicking sounding way better to my ear than to D 112
sometimes, Bass Kick sounds awsome...
but snare ends up crap (even i set it up the same....)

WELL, first my definition of good and bad is.....
CLEAN AND PUNCHING.
bright snare sound (like Hot Chili or Dreamtheater)
Kick like Nirvana
actually , guys, i can send you people my samples; it's always easy to "HEAR" it then just "say" about it
who wanna have a tried? give me your emaill address : D
 
Problems might exist with the kit itself. Most people might recommend running the kick and snare through an api, osa or similar mic preamp to put them up front in the mix, however, you might want to consider replacing drum heads or alternative drum tunings.

-Jake
 
A miked Kick always gives some disappointment I guess, but often a bit of simple EQ can really make a lousy kick sound acceptable to great.

Off course it varies from case to case, butI usually cut some mids between 200 and 400Hz, and give low boost round 80 Hz and some attack above 2K. When EQ'ing, I use the largest Q factor, boost the dB and try it in the frequency field I am trying to EQ. When finding the right freq, you can lower the Q and dB to your taste.
 
fakeness said:
somehow, my problem usually rise up on two parts - - -
Bass kick and snare
in certain, the kicking sounding way better to my ear than to D 112
sometimes, Bass Kick sounds awsome...
but snare ends up crap (even i set it up the same....)

WELL, first my definition of good and bad is.....
CLEAN AND PUNCHING.
Click to expand...

The big thing with drum sounds is that what happens before the mic is more imprtant than anything you will do as an engineer. If the drums are really ringy than you are not going to get a clear sound no matter what you do (drummers will always fight you on this because its really fun to play with really ringy drums, but if something clear and punch is the goal than you have to cut down the ring on the and make sure that the fundemental of the drum is louder than the overtone.

You should also try multing (duplicating) the kick and snare to another track and gating them and bringing the gated track up in the mix for more definition.

Lasty, if the drums are pretty solid sounding but not clear, try cutting around 500 hz are almost every drum mic.
 
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