Kick/snare Recording

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wjgypsy

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PLEASE HELP ME GET A BETTER SOUND OUT OF MY KICK AND SNARE DRUM! I HAVE A SHURE BETA 52 ON KICK AND A SHURE SM57 ON SNARE NOW, FOR MY KICK DRUM....

I HAVE TWO PILOWS THAT I PUT IN MY KICK TO MUFF. AND I
THINK IT SOUNDS GOOD BUT WHEN I RECORD IT ALL I GET IS A
BIG POOF! OR BONG! I HAVE TRYED MICING IT INSIDE,ON THE BACK ON THE FRONT BUT I STILL GET THE SAME THING!

AND FOR THE SNARE....

I'M TRYING TO GET THAT REAL SNAPY RIMSHOT SOUND. HOW CAN I GET THAT?


THANKS!!!!!!!!!!!
 
resist the temptation to buy new mics...make sure you are not eq'ing anything while your tracking...two pillow sound a little bit too much for a bass drum...i mic mine with just a small blanket and towel in there up against the head where the beater hit...tighten the heads on the snare, make sure when you are up close to these individual instruments they sound good...then fool around with maybe a little high end on the snare and cut the high end on the bass drum???
 
Do you have a good drum set properly tuned in a decent sounding room?
 
post a small, but high quality (192kps) mp3 of your kick and snare.....
 
I recommend you get the best sound you can from your kick,not very tight and without the damponing then put a LITTLE in (i hate the soung of a killed kik drum) to stop the over tones.

Try tightning that snare ,aim the mic to the edge and whack the thing with a level stick.
 
pillows are for making love to, not sticking in the bass drum, my bet is youv'e over tightened your b.d. heads to compensate for the pillows, so take 'em out and try and tune that bass drum to get a nice tone alla naturale then whack a few layers of some nice thick material (corduroy etc.) on the bottom to kill any excessive over tones.....

with the snare, just keep that mic a few inches from the rim, never right on it if your gonna hit it really hard
 
i agree with the DR.

take one of those pillows out. you've probably got them heads too freakin tight. loosen em up almost all the way, esp. the resonant head.

when tracking kick...cut 15db at about 250hz BEFORE compressing. Play around with this idea of making holes in the kick. It will take out the mudd, it'll be easier on your compressor and you'll get more click without having to increase those click frequencies.
 
ive got great focused bass sounds by making a tunnel out of foam sheets and putting the mic in the tunnel. it's very...focused is the only word i can think off. you will get a tight sound, rather than a loose one though. depends what you're after.
 
LongWave, will you elaborate on this? That sounds interesting.
 
well a band came into the studio a few weeks ago to do a track. i put the drummer in the tracking room and just stood infrnt of him while he played the kit. i hated the bass drum. after hearing the demos, the track needed a tight BD. so he started filling the bass drum up with cushions and stuff but i didin't like that, sounded too dead.

so i kept a couple of cushions in there, but i got a sheet of foam and rolled it up and made a tunnel, got the mic stand to go right into the tunnel and aimed the mic off center of the beater. the result was a tight, full bass drum sound with nice click. play with the midrange on the bass drum, you should be able to get rid of the cardboard sound on a lot of bass drums by playing with the mids with a nice parametric.
 
For a picture of what Long is talking about click here. This is a picture of Dave Bottrill micing up Danny Carey's kit (Tool). As you can see, the front heads have been removed, and they've formed a tunnel with what looks like pieces of carpet.
 
i use that carpet trick aswell, to stop vibration/bleed getting into the BD mic. BUT...that's not what i meant. inside the actual bass drum, i make a tunnel.
 
Ah...I see. Well, if it's good enough for Danny Carey, then it's good enough for me. I plan on trying out the exterior tunnel next time I record my drums.
 
you should try out the interior tunnel. it can work wonders if it's the sound you're looking for
 
I wonder how the two methods compare, as they are somewhat similar. How you described the bass drum sound using the interior tunnel is pretty much how I'd describe Danny Carey's kick sound. It may have a bit more of an open sound, using the exterior tunnel, which is something that may be harder to control in less than ideal studio environments (ie, my house). If I remember to do it, I'll try an A-B comparison of the two methods.
 
i think the main purpose of the exterior carpet is to stop bleed for the bass drum mic. not sure if im right, but im not exactly sure if carpet over the bass drum will make that much difference to tone.

the interior tunnel with foam sheets will dramatically affect the tone of the bass drum recorded. if it's not the thing you're looking for, dont use it. there's only a certain amount of sounds available with the foam tunnel thing.
 
for your kick maybee you could try a m3 power stroke head from remo they need no damping (in my opinion) the carpet tunnel works well . also the biggest problem with over all drum recording is a good constant hitter trying to be consistant means the compressor dosnt have to work as hard on trying to control dynamics and can be used more to shape the sound without sucking the gits out of your hard earned drum sound.
 
rocky outcrop said:
also the biggest problem with over all drum recording is a good constant hitter trying to be consistant means the compressor dosnt have to work as hard on trying to control dynamics and can be used more to shape the sound without sucking the gits out of your hard earned drum sound.
Click to expand...

a good pedal will also improve consistency.
 
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