my drums suck

F

ffmada

New member
actually, my drums (yamaha stage custom) are decent, but my room sucks. Therefor, my recordings suck. Anyway I was wondering what someone might suggest as a setup with the following mics.

1 - NT3
1 - NT2
1 - ATPro 25
3 - SM57's
1 - AT KitPack (2 snare/tom mics & 2 kick/tom mics

the drums

1 - 22" kick
1 - 9" x 10" tom
1 - 10" x 12" tom
1 - 12" x 14" tom
1 - 14" x 16" floor tom
1 - 5 1/2" x 14" snare
1 - 3 1/4" x 13" snare

the cymbals (all cymbals are on drummer's left except 16" crash)

sabian 14" AA high hats
1 - 20" AA china
1 - 22" Zildjan Ride
1 - 16" Crash
1 - 18" crash

I can only record eight tracks at one, so don't go crazy.
P.S. I should have just taken a picture
 
I forgot

to say that I have already got the drums and room sounding as good as I possibly can, but I am definatly open to ideas there as well
 
its your tuning.

ffmada, first make sure the drums are tuned...evenly. May I recomend Bob Gatzen's "DRUM TUNING" video.
Also check your mic placement. I'm a fan of sm57's for snare and toms (clip-on's don't cut it), try to place the mic so the windscreen can "see" the point of the drumhead which is halfway between the middle of the drum and the rim...AND...so that the windscreen can "see" the top portion of the drum shell (providing they are wood), simultaneously. That is, all the regions I just Described should be within the polar pattern of the mic. So don't place the mic over the edge of the drumhead, but more of the rim pointing towards those two regions. Kick: D112 or the Shure sm52(kicks the akg's ass..higher SPL's), point this at the striking point of the beater. experiment with the distance because everybody has their preferences. Aim your Hi hat mic toward the back of the set so you minimize leakage from the snare. Place your overheads as far apart as you can stand for maximun imaging. try looking over you overheads...i mean try to "See" what your mics will "see". Also mic under you snare (you immediately hear the difference). GOOD LUCK, Hitman.
 
thanx hitman
I will try your suggestions immediatly. Do you happen to know what notes would be good to try and tune my four toms too? I have read that most drummers tune too low. As far as the bass drum goes, I beleive many people around here reccomend the Pro25 as well as the other AT for a budget mic. The bass drum actually sounds better then the rest of the kit once I started using my compressor on it while recording instead of after. The main thing is the toms and cymbals. I know the toms must be tuned horribly off. As far as the cymbals, I have trouble getting a good stereo image of them, most likely because of the two different overhead mics and the fact that the drummer plays with all but one of the cymbals on his left.
 
Ok since your drummer does not believe in symetry, try a room mic at various distances and at a good height (say 7-9'), pointed at your drummers head (the one on his sholders). as for your toms, since you're dealing with even size drums I wouldn't really tune to a musical note but tune the drum to itself. I mean take the drum off the stand because you cannot fine tune drums on their mounts contrary to popular belief, and go around the edges of the skin to make sure the tuning is Symetrical (there's that word again). "CIRCLES ARE SYMETRICAL" in case you hadn't noticed. Use the opposite lug tuning system, with very small increments...say 1/4 turns per lug then go to the opposite lug (symetrical lug), do the same turn, then do the same thing with the perpendicular lugs, then the adjacent lugs, then the perpendicular lugs to the last two. Repeat these steps until your drum is in tune with itself. Tune your bottom heads a little higher (maybe a third Musically) using the same technique. Try to aim for the same notes on the 10" and 14" toms, and octave apart. and do the same with The 12" and the 16". I am familiar with these drums and they sound best when you get the drum sounding like "DOOOOMMMM" not "DEEEENNNNNGG". Then you'll know they're in tune. Once you get the drums back on their mounts you'll have to tweak because their characteristics will immediately change. If you snare rattles from the first tom try tweaking the bottom skin with the farthest lug from you. GOOD LUCK. Let me know. Hitman.
P.S. Kick drum: Low and loose just before the wrinkling stage...single ply skin...heavy padding against the batterhaed about 30% up the skin or enough to stop the beater from chattering(double hitting). Floor toms are tricky especially the bottom heads. HITMAN.
 
wow, thanx hitman
I will try tuning tonight and I will definatly let you know how it goes.

BTW I guess it would be best to use the NT2 as the room mic huh? Then I could probably use the NT3 as a high hat mic. I'll let you know
 
try the sm57

on your hi hats and use the nt's as a pair of room mics so you can get some imaging. use the brighter sounding nt closer to your drummers cymbals and the darker sounding one on his crash side. remember to keep them pointing in diferent directions so you get "STEREO". hitman.
 
sound's like a plan to me;)

I have already tried a couple of configs with the two rodes but it is some what difficult to set up one side adress mic and one hypercardioid mic in a true xy or ORTF config.
Your idea of moving them back and apart sounds good to me:)
 
I tried moving the condensors back and apart and I got a relatively balanced mix, but only when I checked it in mono for phase problems. I guess I just need a pair of matched oktava's (soundroom;)) The good news is that I can take this out of the drum forum because I got the drums sounding much better by some more tuning. Off to microphones now ;)
 
Well I have already said this several times on this forum, but I guess I'll say it again:

There are two different philosophies toward recording drums - 1) close mic everything and remove the room from the equation as much as possible. Or 2) Use only a few mics and try to pick up a good overall sound, and close mic only the kick and snare.

I have used approach #2 if it is a small drum kit, and I have access to a lot of decent mics and noise gates. But for the most part I use approach #1 and get better results with less hassle. Particularly with a big kit such as the one you describe, close micing everything is liable to create more headaches (phase problems and the like) than benefits.

My tips on doing this can be found in the thread "Overhead(s)" on this forum, a few threads down. I got some flak from someone who doubts that it can work, but please listen to my MP3, then just try it and don't believe him. :) THEN if you're not happy try something else. Too many great records to even mention have been made with only 3 or 4 mics on the drum kit. Remember that a drum is a fully resonating instrument and sticking a mic up near the head is not really going to give a true representation of its total sound.

And for God's sake don't close mic the hi hat. That nearly always sounds terrible and gets all out of phase with the snare mic, and overheads should pick up the hat with no prob.

Also as you will read in the Overheads thread (and which I also caught flak for), it is not necessary to place your overheads in a "true stereo" configuration and in fact that may not even give you the best sound.

So, read up and give it a try!

--Lee
 
Great posting Hitman - you know when you get the tom perfectly tuned through circles, as you put it, I find if you then detune the lug nearest the snare you can get the dooooom to drop in pitch - tried it??

John
 
thanx John sayers

actually ithink i've tried every possible way of getting sounds out of a drumset. but you're absolutely right about the detuning one lug...just not necessarily the closest lug to the snare. all drums are diferent especially drums made of all wood shells. i don't think a perfectly round wood shell exsists. so the detune lug may differ from drum to drum. That's why i stated that the drums need to be retweaked once they're back on the mounts.
HITMAN.
 
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