Mixing Drums

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Greykitkat36

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Ok, so I recorded Drums with one mic overhead in front of the kit. I recorded it directly onto one track. Now, it sounds decent, but I have snare distortion and the drums don't sound that great. What can I do to make them sound better? Would EQ'ing help? I have a tascam 424MkIII Portastudio, which is a 6 channel mixer. For example, would more mid help? more lows? i dont know and i need some help.
 
To be honest, you're going to have a hard time making not so good drums sound good, and not so good drums usually makes for a not so good track.

You can try to control the sound of each drum by playing with EQ, but you'll never be able to undo distortion on that snare. You might be able to mask it with EQ or reverb/echo, but undoing something like that is tough.

Try a noise reduction filter to see if it'll clean up the track a bit...

If you only have one mic to work with, you're probably going to have pretty bad sounding drums. I suggest picking up another mic (even a $40 job would do) and putting one near the snare and one in the kick drum. It won't be perfect, but it'll probably be a hell of a lot better than what you're working with right now.
 
are the drums tuned decent? that should be your starting point.

If you've only got one mic (been there) you'll probably get your best results putting it right by the drummers head, a little above and to the side kinda. The idea is that you record what the drummers hearing (not literally of course).
the results won't be stellar, but you might get a better sound.
Then you could play with EQ and possibly get something going.
The more mics you record the drums with, the better they'll sound.

The important thing is to play with your gear!
if you want to know how the eq will sound, then start twisting knobs! try takes with the mic in different spots, experiment.

you might stumble into something cool.
 
Well my snare i think is in tune, but I can never tell! Thats the only drum I have trouble tuning. Should the lugs be tight so I get a high pitch, or lower. I dont think my heads are tight enough, however im too afraid to tighten them because I do not want to choke the sound.
 
Why'd my post get deleted? It may not have been amazingly insightful but geez do we have to censor like that?
 
Greykitkat36 said:
Ok, so I recorded Drums with one mic overhead in front of the kit. I recorded it directly onto one track. Now, it sounds decent, but I have snare distortion and the drums don't sound that great. What can I do to make them sound better? Would EQ'ing help? I have a tascam 424MkIII Portastudio, which is a 6 channel mixer. For example, would more mid help? more lows? i dont know and i need some help.
Click to expand...

I agree with ryanlikestorock,.....thats a rough one. With only one mic,..the only thing you can do is move it around and see where it sounds best. You can add eq but you can pretty much gaurantee that any eq you add to help one drum it will muck with another element in the kit.

By the way,...I bought some Remo pinstripe heads for my kit over the weekend. I guess they have oil between the layers of the head. I dont really know why(I'm not a drummer,..i just like to play) but,...holy shit!!!! They sound great!!!!!
Anyway,..my point is,...I was talking to the guy at the music store he said to tighten the bottom heads pretty tight and the top heads a little less,..that will give them a rich tone.
I'm not sure if thats common knowledge or way stupid but it works for my kit. I got my snare tune really really tight,...doesnt sound choked at all. Sounds really full in the mix.

Take 'er easy,..
Calwood
 
ryanlikestorock said:
To be honest, you're going to have a hard time making not so good drums sound good, and not so good drums usually makes for a not so good track.
Click to expand...

Couldn't have said it better. Spend some time figuring out how to tune those things. Then, and only then, move the mic around in the room to get the best overall balance of the kit, prob overhead somewhere or out in front. Make sure the signal is as hot as it can be without overloading the input (avoid distortion). Then, if there is something you can't seem to correct with tuning or mic placement, use compression, eq, whatever to help. But tune those drums first!

Good luck
 
I think the next item you should buy would be another mic though. Even two mics is 10x better than one mic when recording drums. You can do a really good job with only 3 mics (add one to the floor tom). Overhead mics will usually get too messy. If you have one mic, I suggest putting it between the snare and bass drum. The overhead thing has never worked for me when I had a really simple recording method.
 
as far as tuning the snare goes...
Okay so I'm not a great drum tech but a guy taught me this:
You tighten the top head so it's snug and give you a good response when you hit it.
You tighten the bottom head to get the tone/note you want.

I'm not saying the top head doesn't affect the tone, but i guess the important thing is it gives you the feel and response and the bottom head seems to have move of an affect on the note.

I'm not saying this is the absolute best approach, but it seems to work for me.
 
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