i need your help!

  • Thread starter Thread starter drummerdude666
  • Start date Start date
I dunno.....

Im certainly no professional, but on the whole the thing sounded pretty good. I mean, the snare and hi hat were kinda crisp, and the cymbals werent too ringy ot tinny sounding. The volumes were about right. The only things i didnt think were perfect were the toms...they got those ringy, bell tones to them. Now, I know you spent a great deal of time tuniong your toms just right, but thats for real life,or stage. Recording drums is quite different than playing them on stage, from what i read. The cymbals on stage that sound great are supposed to be the long decaying ones, and shorter decay sounds better recorded. But the cymbals sound fine.

Curiously, most people for their "freshman effort" tend to get the bass drum too "boomy" and the toms way too dead/cardboard sounding...this is the opposite...i'd try to deaden the sounds of the toms, and actually increase the boom of the kick. I thought the snare and cymbals and hi hat were nice and tight. Id suggest deaden the toms, and un-deaden the bass drum.
 
I will re-assert my comments.

keep this in mind when you are listenng to commercial drums. they ARE MIXED.

Compressed, gated, EQ'd etc..... Drums, unless recorded by bright unnatural sounding mics DO NOT naturally sound bright. Even your cymbals have a darkness to them. This is something you will find as you develop your ear. When you MIX you MIGHT wind up brightening the kit up.

The Age old venerable Drum mics are not bright Mics. Even the glorified 414 which we used a LOT on Overheads was a dark mic compared to the newer stuff. be sure you know what you are hearing when you do your comparing.

THE #1 GOAL in recording is to RECORD it as it sounds. PERIOD!!! Everything Else is the sugar. Never be dismayed because your Recorded drums dont sound like John Does MIXED drums. Just be grateful you got the natural sound of the kit down. :) And of course start with a great sounding kit 1st!!!!
 
Just to give you a pedigree I have been at this for 23 years and have worked with some top names. (I dont name drop so dont ask) and these Old Scool players taught me well. Dont get caught up in the hype. get a nice natural sounding kit recorded and then Mix the HELL out of it to get the MIXED, Processed sound you want so bad.
 
Simply put.

Recording drums can be a total pain in the ass!
But man im tellin' ya'.
When you finally get it right.
Itll have you smiling ear to ear.

Sounds a little corny i know....
But i was :eek: FreaKin" OuT :eek: when i got my first badass drum kit sound.
 
It's actually easy to tell... if you listen in the room when the drummer's playing and you go back to the control room and it doesn't sound as clear, then you haven't got the signal chain right (in this case, signal chain including mics and mic placement, along with the rest of the path.)

When I capture the sound of a kit in the studio, it sounds like the kit in the studio - clean and clear. If I were to replace the mics I normally use with cheap, colored ones, I would not get the clean clear sound I have now.....

Naturallly, if dark and muddy is the sound one is going for, then fine... but in drummerdude666's case, that is definitely NOT the natural sound of a well-mic'd drum kit. It IS the sound of drums captured in a poor acoustic space, using badly-colored mics......

YMMV
 
i agree giles117 - thats why i realised the drum sound i have isnt good enough for me. I listend to some very open and live sounds records by the drive by truckers and then some jeff buckley and they sound like a drum kit - mine doesnt. period. I retuned the drums and the snares sounds much much much nicer - nice and crisp with a good thwak. Kick drum is sounding nicer (now ive retuned it without the reso) and it's a lot fuller. Still haveing some trouble putting it to tape (figure of speach - im using cubase). The toms .............well ive decided it mostly down to the heads the heads are g2 coated and g1 clear (batter and reso respectivly). The g1s are fine but im thinking of getting something a little brighter. Maybe a g1 coated. becasue theyre sounding v v v muffled and its made worse by the mics i hav. 1 problem - im skint. soooo i think some scrubbing money off m8s may be in order - after all the band hav just got a studio for free! i ca at least get sum new heads. :D Ill keep you updated on the progress im making - thankyou very much for the time you've spent helping me. i might post some updated tracks 2morrow nite.
 
Now we are getting somewhere.

Note this as BB said the toms sound will come from the entire room 9so basically it is a cmbo of the close mic on the head for definition and impact and then the OH mics for overall tone.

So placement of your overheards to capture cymbals and the rest of the kit is crucial.

I'd even toss in a couple of room mics at least 6' from the kit on either side to enhance the overall sound of the kit.

The rest is your room.
 
I hear guys all the time whining about bleed in drum mics. But they forget, you dont hear a drum kit as individual elements you hear it as a whole cohesive unit.
 
"The rest is your room."
o dear- well from what my ears are telling me - my room aint so good. i can hear fluttering and also there must be something acting as a bass trap in the room because usually theres too much bass in my mixes - ive now learnt to mix less bass but its not a good way of doing things. Do you think i should set up a curtain running in front of my drum kit - would this improve or make things worse? i'm going to be treating the room as soon as i have some cash in my back pocket. No acutally im spending that on some Krk Rokit 8s . OK so after the Krks THEN once i have some money ill treat the room. But the curtain a good idea or am i going ot get shouted at? ill post some pix showing where the curtain could run. Then the curtain can act as a bk for vocal recording and can help when recording other things. ermmmm and its directly behind the control desk which could help the monitering problems. what you guys think?
 
Here is a technique I used to find the NULL point in a room and set my kit in that spot. Walk the room do ye olde clap for loud flutter and of course the olde "check one two" when you find the deadest sound spot, build your kit in that spot.

I have a track that wound up on the tribute album "Conception: Musical Tribute to Stevie Wonder" (2003) where the drums were recorded that way. :) In an upstairs living room of a TownHouse.

Here is a reviewers quote: "Dave Hollister shows up with "Love's In Need of Love Today". If you recall BlackSteet redid this jam when he was a member. This version is more relaxed, more mature. Right out of the gospel choir."

No Comment saying the drums sucked. LOL.

Here is a cheesy sample clip

http://www.musicrebellion.com/sample.jsp?AL=27761&4=734840&FMT=WMA
 
nice recoding - damn u. lol. But no drums! thanks for your help. The room isnt big enough to move the drums around in without causing major problems but nice tip - thanks. Curtain idea? (prevoius post)
 
yeah them drums dont show up till the end of that ceezy sample

Curtains are nice, they'll help calm down the midrange
 
erm i might give it a go. ill see what i can do with it. I think im going to have to change the heads the g2 coated arent working.
 
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