Recording drums on saturday need some help

  • Thread starter Thread starter punkrocker
  • Start date Start date
punkrocker said:
Ok drossfile, I will try recorderman again and see if somethings up. Maybe you could listen to the song "Crash and Burn" on my bands myspace and see what you think of the overheads it was done in recorderman form.
www.myspace.com/themedicationband

or a high quality mp3
http://files.filefront.com/Crash+And+Burnmp3/;13388974;/fileinfo.html

Thanks everyone for all of the advice. Oh and second skin this is what I am using:

Interface is presonus firepod
mics are:
kick - cad drum kit (going to be sample replaced)
snare - sm57 (mixed with samples)
toms - cad drum kit (going to be sample replaced)
HH mxl 991
ride mxl 990
OH akg 451's
and I have an extra input slot and a pg48 to do something with if needed.

Again, what do you guys think of spaced pair? Any tips for setting it up? Thanks so much.
Click to expand...


whenever i do a spaced pair i place one over each side of the kit. then listen to make sure the kit sounds balanced in the spaced pair and adjust the gain on the two preamps so that they are even on your meters. i'll also have the drummer play kick and snare nice and slow so that i can make sure that they fall in the center of the stereo field. if they don't you will have to move one of the mics around.

no matter which method you use the important thing is to get the kit to sound as good as you can in the room. once the kit sounds nice then you can find the overhead approach that you want. get it sounding good in the overheads and everything else is secondary from there.
 
punkrocker said:
Ok drossfile, I will try recorderman again and see if somethings up. Maybe you could listen to the song "Crash and Burn" on my bands myspace and see what you think of the overheads it was done in recorderman form.
www.myspace.com/themedicationband

or a high quality mp3
http://files.filefront.com/Crash+And+Burnmp3/;13388974;/fileinfo.html

.
Click to expand...

What have you done to those drum tracks already? Be honest.

The overheads and snare sound compressed and thin. The ride cymbal sounds terrible. Did you try your mic-the-cymbal trick on this already? The overheads just sound weird.
 
punkrocker said:
Ok drossfile, I will try recorderman again and see if somethings up. Maybe you could listen to the song "Crash and Burn" on my bands myspace and see what you think of the overheads it was done in recorderman form.
www.myspace.com/themedicationband

or a high quality mp3
http://files.filefront.com/Crash+And+Burnmp3/;13388974;/fileinfo.html

Thanks everyone for all of the advice. Oh and second skin this is what I am using:

Interface is presonus firepod
mics are:
kick - cad drum kit (going to be sample replaced)
snare - sm57 (mixed with samples)
toms - cad drum kit (going to be sample replaced)
HH mxl 991
ride mxl 990
OH akg 451's
and I have an extra input slot and a pg48 to do something with if needed.

Again, what do you guys think of spaced pair? Any tips for setting it up? Thanks so much.
Click to expand...

currently it tells me that the song is unavailable, not sure what's going on there.

in any case, those 451s are a fine choice for OH.

i used to use the spaced pair, and it was decent; i'm just happier w/ recorderman. when i did the spaced pair, it was pretty much what second skin is suggesting.
 
Okay, the current here is WAY too fast for me. I'm just gonna' go sit in the corner and watch.
 
What does the recording sound like without the samples?

Since we're talking about drums here, why not let us hear a mix of just the drums without samples?

I personally like to use spaced pairs...But I'm increasingly shortening the distance of the space. I think XY with small condensers is the best way to go for bedroom recordings.
 
sounds really compressed.


also, i don't consider this punk at all.:p
 
if that is the snare sound your after then I would suggest hitting the rim as well to get more crack out of it. like others mentioned it sounds thin and the cymbals and hats aren't clear. point your snare mic across the snare towards the hats I can hardly hear them...... and you should only compress your kick :)

I don't get the "samples" bit when you mentioning the mic? are you swapping out sounds... if so then like other mentioned, get the placement right and sample some single hits of the sounds you like. if you do some layering you get a much better sound then compressing everything.

im not an expert btw but do listen to the others, these methods are the only way :)
 
Hey everyone thanks again for the all the great replies. To Greg_L, like I said in my previous post that song was done in recorderman form. Yes they are both very compressed, the overheads have a high pass at 200ish, and snare is sampled (I take no shame in cheating:D). To Second Skin, Thanks for that explanation of setting up spaced pairs I will try that. To Drossfile, that is weird everything is ok on my end.

So to summarize:

1. Get drums sounding as best as they can in room.
2. Try an overhead placement, don't worry so much about phase, put more emphasis on balance and sound.
3. Add spot mics as necessary.
4. Compress less and only use samples for blending not replacing.

Anything else I need to add to that list? This thread has been extremely helpful for me. Thanks again to everyone.
 
Greg_L said:
I can't stress enough how important it is to have your drums sounding good to begin with. You'll never get a good recording from drums that sound like ass.
Click to expand...

This is the issue we've had recording at our home studio over the last few months due solely to laziness. Finally, I was like hey, the drums keep sounding bad, we're not getting anywhere with this... the heads are three years old, and they aren't even in very good tune at all, the toms ring all day long and are mic'd with some clip-ons that love to capture that extra resonance. 100 bucks on new heads, a good tune, and some tone rings for the kit.... It's like a whole new ball park now.:D
 
punkrocker said:
Hey everyone thanks again for the all the great replies. To Greg_L, like I said in my previous post that song was done in recorderman form. Yes they are both very compressed, the overheads have a high pass at 200ish, and snare is sampled (I take no shame in cheating:D). To Second Skin, Thanks for that explanation of setting up spaced pairs I will try that. To Drossfile, that is weird everything is ok on my end.

So to summarize:

1. Get drums sounding as best as they can in room.
2. Try an overhead placement, don't worry so much about phase, put more emphasis on balance and sound.
3. Add spot mics as necessary.
4. Compress less and only use samples for blending not replacing.

Anything else I need to add to that list? This thread has been extremely helpful for me. Thanks again to everyone.
Click to expand...

Do worry very much about phase. Out of phase overheads will sound like ass. Overheads in-phase will give you nice balance and sound.

For this type of music, I do personally recommend tom mics, but definitely not cymbal mics. And way less compression.
 
good luck dood, im sure it will all work out for you
 
punkrocker said:
2. Try an overhead placement, don't worry so much about phase, put more emphasis on balance and sound.
Click to expand...

as greg said you absolutely should worry about phase in your overheads. one of the ways that you will find if they are out of phase is by listening. thats one of the reasons why i listen to see if the snare will sit in the middle of the spectrum. it's also good to flip the monitors to mono occasionally while checking the phase. that will reveal problems pretty quickly

greg is a great one to listen to on these matters though. have you heard his drum recordings?
 
http://www.myspace.com/inmydemise
http://www.myspace.com/Inabliss
http://www.myspace.com/dustup1
http://www.myspace.com/totheriverred

These are all spaced pair overheads with CAD M177s, SM57s and Audix I5s. The kicks and snare are all varying combos of the original close mic and a sample. NEVER completely sample replace, always leave some of the original sound. You need to make sure you don't get triggering where it shouldn't happen or miss triggers too, that'll immediately ruin the illusion.

DEFINITELY stay away from space pairs with large diphragm condensers. You'll get too much crap in them and they'll be useless for adding top end and 'realism' to a drum kit. I say an XY will treat you better because it's stereo field will be based on amplitude instead of phase.

I think your overheads are the least of your worries though. Everything has already been said though and you have a good idea of what to do.

Your guitars and bass sound really good btw!
 
Thanks mrhotapples. Guitars were a gibosn sg and mid level ibanez thru dual rectifier and bass is direct thru an ampeg svx plugin. Yes I have heard greg's recordings they are excellent. Alright today is the big day so thanks everyone for the advice I feel much more confident now and I'll make sure to post back once the songs are finished.
 
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