mixing drums

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jbodner246

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ok i know everyone is gonna say this is bad, but what about this idea. To save space on my multitracker, i am gonna run all my drum mic's into a seperate mixer and then into my 16 track on 2 tracks. I know the levels and any effects are stuck, but i can get more mic's on the drums and save some track space.... opinions?
 
Id be more inclined to record each track onto separate tracks and then from there mix down to 2....at least that way, if the drummer nails the perfect take, it wont be ruined for example if the hihat came out to loud....youll have the chance to kinda play with the mix a bit before you commit......
 
You should be tracking drums first.

Try the boham technique use 3 mics, or mic the snare and use 4.
 
true gidge. I was thinking of just trying a few quick scratch tracks with the mixer. but maybe you r right. will try both ways. wont i lose sound quality by mixing down to the two tracks that way? ( like ping ponging )
 
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You could save yourself a lot of headache by using 4 tracks and just keeping it that way.

You COULD use a track for kick and snare.

Then, do a "submix" of your toms and overhead mics to two tracks. You need to of course be very careful about mic placement in this case. Make sure that your toms and sounding the way you want....etc.....

Trying to do 3 mics like suggested earlier is a great idea IF you have a great sounding room. If you are dealing with your normal ol' "plaster and/or drywall" room, with 7-9' ceilings, and no treatments to balance RT times in the room and kill low mid phase cancellation, well, I can assure you that your overheads you would use in a 3 mic setup are going to sound very odd. The bad room IS GOING to create comb filtering on the overhead mics, and the resulting sound will be rather dull and inaccurate. This is a ROOM PROBLEM, NOT A MIC PROBLEM.....You can move the mic's all you want, and with a LOT of attention to detail can move the phase cancellation problems (these contribute to the comb filtering effect on the mics...) to a low frequency, but I can assure you that you will never get phase cancellation to a low enough frequency in a bad acoustical environment to be able to have a good sound with ambiant micing (that is more or less what a 3 mic setup for drums is.....).

You can however move that phase cancellation down low enough to where you can use your overheads for more of the "top end" in the sound. But, you will need close up mics now to compensate for the lack of low end the overheads will provide. On Toms and even the Snare in many styles of music, that low end is of course important!

Hmmmmmmmmmm....I can tell you straight up, if you can't get a good demo recording out of 16 tracks, you are probably having many OTHER problems with your recordings. I seldomly use more than 16 tracks for anything other than bands I record that will be distributing this recording via music stores, etc.....and have a pretty good following.

If you have grand designs of "double tracking" many guitar parts, etc....you might have much better luck bouncing those tracks than you will trying to economize on your drums. Drums are important in a mix, and they are also very hard to deal with in a mix. So, it stands to figure that you will want the most versatility while mixing them. You have NO WAY of knowing how to mix your drums ahead of time to try bouncing them all down to a stereo mix and have that mix hold up well for the rest of tracking/mixing. You should looks to cut down on tracks somewhere else.

Good luck.

Ed
 
i actually intend to do alot of double tracking on guitars and stuff. as for the room, its convoluted foamed all over the place. What i neglected to mention is that the drums set that i use ( and I use all of it ) is pretty large. lotsa toms, octobons, cymbals etc.. so its hard for me to use 4 mics. I am trying to surpass demo quality on a budget at this point. ( always trying to improve the sound i get ) sub mixing the toms is not a bad idea though b/c thats where the mass of the drums lie. Thanxk god i have reduced the set to a single bass drum with a double pedal. As for the ping ponging, like i said b4, isnt that going to lower the sound quality? thanx again
 
the argument i have against this is thatyou will only really know exactly how the track sounds once all the tracks are put down. you can have an idea in your head thouh.

once all the tracks are down, you may want to move that hi hat down to create a softer drum sound, or give the kick drum more click, etc etc etc.the list goes on. you're loosing all that flexibility. any eq you make to the drums, you make to all the tracks. not ideal.

Romesh
 
Well heres how i am thinking of doing it. just throw down a scratch drum track ( short to save time ) and play it back to see how sounds are, fix em, go back etc etc. I do have someone who helps me when i record also, so he can monitor directly out the headphones from the mixer( away from the drums obviously to hear what it sounds like in the h.p.'s and not in the studio ) and he can set everything up to save time. Only after that last mixed that i was satisfied with ( after e.q.ing, levels etc ) would i set it in stone on 2 tracks. I agree with all of you that it limits your flexibility with the drums, but i think it makes recording other stuff easier ( more tracks ) I wouldnt really do much ( if any ) e.q.ing or adding effects after that b/c of what longwave stated, i will be only able to effect the whole set. thanx for all the help
 
reverb is where you'll wish you had the multi track version. try adding reverb to just the snare, but you'll have the bass drum having loads of verb too.
unless you buy one of those frequency concious reverbs. that stillwont work that well.
 
Hehe....I KNEW there was more to come!!!

You don't need recording hints/advice duder, you need a freakin' PRODUCER! ;)

Ed
 
heres how I woul do it: record your massive kit to 6 or 8 tracks. (kick, snare, 2 OH, 3 toms, hat) you could use more tracks if you really want. anyways, record some other stuff afterwards, like bass, guitar and maybe vocals or keys. LEAVE 2 TRACKS FREE!!!! then mix your drums down to 2 tracks applying verb and EQ as needed. i have found that recording some other instruments THEN mixing down the drums helps the drums to sit better in the mix. now you have freed up the tracks that were occupied by the drums. as for the quality issue, make sure your drums are recorded pretty hot (but watch for clipping). one bounce wont really reduce quality much, but it might get a bit noiser. you would loose alot of quality if you started bouncing previously bounced tracks (eg if you mixed your drums from 8 tracks to 2, then bounced them so the bass was with the drums)
hope this helps
 
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