live drums to 8track hard disk(I'm new)

[Stwomstone]

Hi
I recently purchased a zoom mrs1044 8track recorder and made my first attempt at live recording the other night. On this recording unit I can only record 2 tracks at the same time so I mic'd each of the 5 drums and used an over head to pick up the cymbals etc.; I ran all this through a $300.00 6 channel peavy mixer which I took home to see if it would do the trick. After some minor tweaking of each channel I was off and running. The result was a usable but dry drum sound, and the cymbals lacked integity. How can I beef up my drum sound without going crazy and how important are gates. I must have a good sound but sepatation isnt an option. What should I do?
Thanks for taking the time to help me.

 

[Shailat]

First of all you'll need to find a good room were the drums will sound good, or else your wasting your time.
With the gear you have and the options, the room will play the most important part !

Stick to a stereo configuration as Overheads and not a single mic
as you choose to do. for a more realistic cymbal image.

There are more then 10 different ways to mic a kit. Search this site and others to learn and study how. I think Harvey Gerst posted even some pics on a thread in the mic forum.

Since acording to your post, you dont have the ability to use processing (compression-gates-Reverb) then use one of your mics to record the ambience of the room and slowly fade it in to beef up the sound.
As for specificly using gates.... It depends on what kind of a sound your after. Some like gated drums others don't.

 

[Gidge]

sell the zoom and Peavey and get an ADAT...its going to be heck getting a good drum sound with two channels...if you have to, make sure your overheads are getting a well balanced sound of the whole kit......

 

[Henri Devill]

I dont know that machine..ButIf it has digital "ins" and "outs" you might be able to record 4 tracks at once ..Look in the manual.Some of the machines like the Fostex Dtm8 allow for this..Basicly what you do is record 2 tracks thru the analog {mic/lines} and you get the other 2 from the didgital ins..useing a dat deck/minidisk ect.for your extra set of converters..Look in the manual...and see if they mention any thing about this..Good luck


Don