Please critique my drum sound...

  • Thread starter Thread starter Rickson Gracie
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Rickson Gracie

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OK, ive had my ludwig accent for about a week and ive been messing with the mics ever since. the track you hear is dry. no effects.

i have a shure sm57 on the snare.

sennhieser e609 silver on the bass drum

2 mxl 603s as overheads

the little yamaha 10 channel mixer into the digidesign mbox.

i also put some acoustic treatment on the walls and ceiling to try to control the sound.

please give me your honest opinion on the sound, tuning and whatever else...THANKS!!!!

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I am not a drummer, but am playing with drum set MICing. The whole mix (even though it is dry as you say without f/x) is a bit on the bassy side...but it is clear. Now I know what to shoot for!

The high-hat and cymbals sound great. Are they taped up or natural?
Which high-hat cymbals do you have?
The ride echoes to the opposite pan very well. Nice ambiance.

Which MICs are on the toms? How many MICs total?
The stereo spectrum (in my opinion) overall for the toms is very good.

What are you recording into?
Digital to PC?

Thanks for the sample and happy recording!
 
sounds pretty good

It looks like you have 4 tracks ??? 2 OH mics, 1 snare, 1 kick.

I would say as a first dry mix you have a pretty well balanced sound. I'm thinking you'll probably want to take this as a first mix. lets just call it tracking.

I would suggest taking this mix and and running back through your board a few more times, slowly eq'ing, cutting or adding what ever freq's you need to brighten it up a bit, one step at a time. If you have the capabilities of haveing those 4 track seperately, it will be easy to do, but if you only have what I listened to, "the whole kit" to do alltogether, it may be a little more difficult since one adjustment will effect the whole kit as apposed to being able to just hone in on say, just the kick drum. I might suggest starting with eqing the lows a little, maybe a cut there around the 100-200h(its hard to tell on my computer monitors), not too much, just to get ridd of the rumble, but dont loose your kick in the process or the tone of your snare. then re-record that mix, then go and do the mids, then again for your highs, or even find a different low freq to boost, and listen to what your mix sounds like riding the overhead mic faders a little, maybe that will take some rumble out and clear things up. push them a little on your tom rolls, and bring them down on your core rythm parts. Your cymbols should still cut through enough with the faders lowered a little.

If you do only have the ability to eq the whole kit, i would try a few sample recordings and really lay off the crash a little more, and really try smacking that snare and toms a little harder, not alot, since when your trying to brightening the drum kit as a whole those higher freq's can make your drums/snare really sound better, but it will also boost all your cymbols as well making them overpower the kit as a whole if you know what i mean?? (all this because of just having your overheads, not micing each drum individually)

Overall you have a good starting point to go on your way to a great sounding recording. I would also stress getting a compressor to even out the dynamics a little,especially on the kick, but of course dont over do it with the comp, dont squash too much. It (copmressor) should also help you get a few more db's out of you recording without it distorting and let you kick stick out with out overpowering the whole thing.

Just some ideas to mess with, im sure others would have better, but just a few things that i might try, hope it helps somehow.

good luck, hope you really do well with it.

metalJ
 
It sounds too muffled. It's like listening through heavy curtains.
Is there a lot of carpet in the room?
I've never used those mxls, so I don't know if you can get any more air out of them. Where do you have them positioned?
 
i actually rearranged some of the mics and i got a new kick mic too (Audix D6) and i also picked up a 3 pack of Sennheiser e604s for the toms. i will post a new sample in the next day or two.
 
Rickson Gracie said:
i actually rearranged some of the mics and i got a new kick mic too (Audix D6) and i also picked up a 3 pack of Sennheiser e604s for the toms. i will post a new sample in the next day or two.

Just got the D6 too. I used it in a 3 mic setup the other day when my band was writing (I roll tape so as not to miss anything.) It's a damn fine mic let me tell ya. I can't wait to get some serious recording done with it.
 
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