i need your help!

[drummerdude666]

these tracks are from my bands demo- the 1st track is just drums and they sound awful - i havnt eqd them or compressed them but that isnt making any diffrence as the second track will tell you. On the second track ive mixed the drums to the best of my ability and they still sound stupidly bad. why is this? Please can you tell me anything that might help. Im not a newbie but im not an expert either. The drums themselves sound good (pre recorded) im a drummer and the drums are tuned exactly as i like them. but when i record them they sound awful. any eqing tips - blatent things - i wont take offense. "eg. are u sure ur ot hitting carboard boxes?" i will check and make sure im not - just incase u ask im hitting drums not carboard boxes. i have inculed pix of my set up and drum mic positioning. please..... anytihng

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/6/jephukmusic.htm

 

[xfinsterx]

Where are these pix at?
And the download at soundclick gave an error message dude.

 

[drummerdude666]

soz here are the pix

http://209.25.203.234/showthread.php?p=1845673362#post1845673362

eroor message hey......mayebe it wunt play them cos theyre so bad

ill take a look now. thanks

 

[drummerdude666]

the error message is saying that they need to cheak the file or something. wat a few hours and i think it will work.

 

[xfinsterx]

well first of all, id say that ive never miced a snare witht the mic that close and gotten a good sound.
Same with the tom mics.
Try to put some distance (air) between the drum heads and the mics man.
If i put my ear directly to your tom as you played it, Id think it sounded shitty too.
But if i heard it from a distance it might sound better.
Does that analogy make sence?

 

[Blue Bear Sound]

Yes -- placement plays a large role, as does mic selection.....

 

[Track Rat]

Didn't hear the clip but those mics look WAY too close to the drums. I've never gotten a decent sound that close.

 

[drummerdude666]

ok so thats a good to know. wheres the best placement? 2" in and 2" up? and then pointing toward the centre right? Also the snare is sounding very bad - its ok once ive compressed it and mixed it but it means i can only get one snare sound. wher should the snare mic be pointing?

BlueBear - the mics are as followed - sm57 on snare - then some cheap ass mics from stagg. they're the same as the red5 ones revived in SOS a few months ago. they said they were excellent value for money. and at that point in time i couldnt afford anything more. Donations will be accepted tho

 

[xfinsterx]

heres what you do for mic placement.

Record various experiments with different mic distances.
Do this one drum at a time.
Start with the snare.
Then tom1
etc...
Foe each distance test, yell into the mic what take it is, like....

"Take 1, mic 3 inches from snare"
then play your kit with the mic at that distance, while recording.
Bam! theres take 1.

Then move the mic

and yell that takes name.

That way you can book mark your experiments.
But Most of all...just experiment.

 

[Blue Bear Sound]

I just heard the clip......... to my ears - it sounds like a combination of problems.....

First issue - the mic selection -- I think those crappy mics are giving you that Listening-to-a-drum-kit-covered-with-a-wool-blanket kind of sound. Very murky and muddy.......

Second issue - the room you're in -- it's very boxy sounding -- sounds like a very small space........ you might want to consider some acoustic treatment to tame some of the short reflections.

Third issue -- mic placement...... given how close you placed them in the pics, the room-sound issue must be even more obvious, since even with mics that close, you're still getting a lot of the room's boxiness.......

 

[giles117]

Didn't hear the clip but those mics look WAY too close to the drums. I've never gotten a decent sound that close.

Hey rat...
never cut R&b drums huh?

Close miking is a regular thing I do it 99% of the time.

Snare sounds reasonable, but toms are exessively ringy (but then the style may dictate)

I think mic selection is #1 and mic position is #2. boxiness can be over come. that is a minor issue when mixing down.

You have to enlarge the feel of the Overheads.

I think your floor tom is really ringy. Might want to deaden that bottom head a bit on it.

i'd like to hear the kick a lot better, it seems very far away.

Biggest issue is the ring on the toms.

You can make crappy mikes sound good by working on the placement.

The idea is to use what you have and what you can afford and get a great sound.

And in the mix you can as I said, enlarge the sound field.

I do it all the time. Delays on the kit (right places) large rooms or chambers to nullify the roominess, etc.... No big deal.

Personally I'd use a Beta 57 on snare. Much brighter mic toms are easy just adjust placement till you get the attack you are looking for.

Sm57 has never been a mic i like but hey aiming it right it sounds great.

 

[drummerdude666]

ok thanks xfinsterx ive just been experimenting with it - it appears that the best one is about 1 inch in and 2 up. But still. The room isnt small - well it is. Ill explain waht i mean. ive been helping at diffrent studios for the last year or so now on a regular basis and the room is bigger than any room ive recodin in so far - but also im mixing in the same room so im having to find out everything by trial and error. which i will do because i want my drums to sound good. Im very happy with the way im recording everything else - it hasnt comeout on the guitar track v well but the guitar and vocals are sounding good. Its just the drums.....
When in studios before ive always literally stuck the mic 2" by 2" and left it at that but obviously thy've been using better mics than me. The kick drum is particulary bad with out gettin the 1 sound i can get from it has heard in 'boneman'

Bluebear - yeh thats exactly the sound im hearing from the drums and its crap! But there isnt much i can do about that - i have a selection of other mics - a yamaha MXL 992 which i use mainly for vocals. then a shure pg58 - an assortment of other cheap dynamics. and also another overhead as used before.
Yeh the room is quite boxy - i acn hear futtering and a few other issues. Unfortunalty again the budget is an issue but at somepoint in the next few months i will need to sort its out as im mixing and mastering in the same room and it will cause some issues.
And also i have been experimenting with the mic placement and it has imporved - but marginally. Kick placement? in the 1 day get all ur songs down in 1 take guys studio sessions ive been in it was a case of kick mic in body of kick drum pointing at beater. I shouldnt really have to eq the drums that much should i. it should be pretty much done for me. ill keep on trying and ill post my results tonight. thanks for all your help guys.

 

[F_cksia]

I think before changing mics, mic placements, and mostly eq'ing: the first thing to do is to get the room good, with more or less isolation.
And even more important: tune that drumset! I can hear you didn't put much time in it and that no matter how you are going to record this kit, it won't sound better. The best you can get it on tape is exactly how it sounds in that room for your ears.

So, take some tuning bible or something and mainly work on the kick and toms (the worst problems where Tom 1 and Floortom, first one too ringy, second one can use a lot of dampening and a lower tuning).

A great tuned set can sound good with only one or two microphones. A good tuned kit can sound good with more microphones. A badly tuned kit will never sound good anyway.

 

[Track Rat]

Hey rat...
never cut R&b drums huh?

Close miking is a regular thing I do it 99% of the time

I've cut R&B, blues, rock, country and just about any style you can think of with tight miking (which I prefer but not as tight as his pics illustrate) and distant. What in my response led you to belive I've never tracked R&B?

 

[giles117]

Specifically that close is not a problem if aimed properly. I have had cases where the only way a floor tom could get captured correctly (for example) was to have the mike not less than 1/2" from the head. Just seemed a strange statement so i thought i'd ask. Which is what I did, ask

And what led me was your statemnt of I NEVER got a decent sound from miking that close.

 

[drummerdude666]

im workin on the maic placement - yeh the drum did need 2 b retuned - the batter head had slakend to much after an intense band session. its now been corrected. new problem is wen i dampem the heads the tone goes its either a bit of reso and aftertones or cardboad box tones. i guess ill be hear for a while tuing the overtones out. fun nite ahead hey!

 

[Fall From Grace]

honestly dude, from what I can hear on these pc speakers, the drums aren't that bad. The toms will sound good with compression, same with the kick. The snare is lacking some body but I listened to that other trqack of yours and I liked the way the snare sat in that song. ALl in all I think you just need to try and get some good compression going and you'll have a pretty killer sound.

 

[jmorris]

to my ears....

The drums themselves don't sopund all that hot..no offense intended. Too ringging toms but a gate could help that. Mic's look odd. Except that 57? on the snare. I hear a lot of room. I think Blue Bear may have stated the same. What relationship of mic mix are we hearing? I mean overhead to drum mic placement. Compressing wont help nasty tone.just bring up some lower signal of nastyness Ha Ha! What are thosew tom mic's? I'd go with 57 's on all toms if noth'in else. The kick is blanket sounding. I at least have decent luck 3"-4" off axis from the batter head inside the shell with the res. head off,batter head tuned low, blanket or something laying in bottom of drum just touching the head..

 

[drummerdude666]

Fall From Grace- i was quite happy with the sound before then compared it just to some comercial stuff and i got annoyed. I think that although the sanre might be okish becuse ive compressed it so hard ive only gt one snare sound. The kick - well theres a preset on cubase for the kick and thats what you hear on the second song - but again its sounds slightly tinny and not what i wsa looking for.

jmoris- no offense taken. lol. The toms ive retuned - they had detuned recently in a intense pracice earlier - and the heads were new. Id love to go on 57s on all the toms........slight problem when i only hav 1 of them. The tom mics are cheap stagg ones. But its all i could afford. Yeh i'd just changed the kick drum positioning and its again impoved. Thanks for all your help.
Im going to be recoding with my band today so ill post the results of the session tonite. Thanks again guys. (and girls)

 

[Blue Bear Sound]

honestly dude, from what I can hear on these pc speakers, the drums aren't that bad. The toms will sound good with compression, same with the kick. The snare is lacking some body but I listened to that other trqack of yours and I liked the way the snare sat in that song. ALl in all I think you just need to try and get some good compression going and you'll have a pretty killer sound.

You sure you're listening to the same clip???????? Try listening on monitors... critiquing sound quality using PC speakers is akin to commenting on a mix by hearing it on AM Radio.......