Recording Drums - Triggered + Mic'ed

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destiny rec

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hey everyone,

i'm new to the forum and have a couple questions. i'm going to expand my horizons and shift from primarily acoustic guitar/vocals to start recording drums. on most of my favorite records, the drums are triggered, and i love the sound that comes from a chest pounding kick, and an in your face snare. for that, i want to use a trigger module (perhaps a roland tmc-6?) and use drums samples via reason and pro tools. with the basic kit triggered (kick, snare, toms), i think that i want to mic the cymbals to keep it feeling natural, rather than completely programmed and unrealistic. so my questions are these:

1. does this set up sound good? is triggering common?
2. if so, what mic's would you use on the cymbals? - not the most expensive, but still good enough quality to create a presentable product and not have to upgrade till later down the road.
3. are the only mics that i need two for overheads? or is the hi-hat mic'd separately?

i think thats all for now. my first post, and its a long one. but im looking forward to being active in the forums. any help is greatly appreciated.
 
You could mic the hats yeah. I always mic the hats but rarely use them in the mix. I would set your overheads quite high up and also your cymbals quite high up to try and get rid of a little kik/snare/tom bleed. Not too sure about decent cheap OH mics, but the C1000s spring to mind. I use Rode NT2s and sometimes AKG C414s.

When micing the hi-hat, mic from underneath pointing up at the hats to try and get rid of some bleed from the rest of the kit. Try a hi pass filter on the hat track so get rid of the other drums.

I aint used trigers before, but im sure it is common so that their is less spill and you get a bigger drum sound. Well for metal/ alt rock anyway.
 
All current drum triggers use midi to conduct the trigger from the pad to the sound module, so you need a basic understanding of midi to continue with your transition.

Here are links to two good articles on midi basics - part one and part two. They may be a little basic for you, but we can all use a refresher course now and then...

Reason and protools are fine if you're in the studio, but keep in mind that you may not want to lug a computer to a live show. Even a laptop, while easier to lug, is fragile and quite steal-able. Using a dedicated sampler would probably your life much easier -- you won't need to much memory since all you're going to use it for is drums and drum samples don't take up much room at all. Look for something with as little as 4 of memory on the used market. That doesn't mean going way back to the Akai S900, but anything made by Akai, Emu or Roland in the 90's should suit your requirements just fine.

As far as overhead mics go a matched set of small diaphram condensers from any reputable manufacturer would do for now until you know better what your specific needs and preferences are. It's up to you if you want to mic the hihat separately - it all depends on your playing style, what kind of stuff you play and how hard you typically hit it.

And welcome to the board!
 
thanks for such good replies. they really helped a lot. im sure it depends on the engineer, but in my head i always see the overheads being mic'd with small diaphragm condensers. however, some have suggested large diaphragms. any opinions? and how would a matched pair of sm57s do on the overheads? thanks in advance,

brandon
 
I wouldnt use 57s if you have matched condensors.
You can always try but im sure they wont even be anywhere as good as a set of C1000s.
 
Well, I've gone the trigger route, and gotten some good sounds doing so. Despite the purists who are against it, I haven't found any other way to get certain sounds that I'd always been searching for (mainly the modern rock drum sounds you hear on the radio).

I like to blend mic'ed drums w/ a triggered sample (usually a sample taken from the very same kit by having the drummer whack the snare or kick or whatever and take that sound out of the overheads or some other mic or a combination of the two). The purpose is not so much to replace the sound of a mic'ed snare as it is to thicken and fill in. Just like layering guitars, there's just some sounds that require "more".

One other thing to consider going by the logic I just presented you with is the "speaker on a snare drum" trick where you play the snare track through a speaker on top of a snare drum and it makes that snare drum ring just as if it was being played.... and it you can mic THAT from wherever you want. I still haven't gotten a chance to try that, though... but might be worth giving a shot.


Here, give a listen to some tracks I've done using trigs...

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cf...ofile&friendID=2222264&Mytoken=20050703013634

Everything besides "ABCDEath" has triggered kick and snare mixed in with the original signal. ABCDEath relies more on room mics to give the snare tone. You'll notices that no triggers and no micing results in a very "simple" sound.
 
If you are using a DAW there is really no reason to use triggers anymore. Instead of triggering you can use programs like Sound Replacer (ProTools) or Drumagog (PC & Mac) to trigger sounds for you. This offers the same facility as triggering with the ability to map samples to input velocity easily.

Plus you aren't "committed" to the sample you chose to trigger when tracking.

Also helps you avoid sticky situations like mistriggers, or a drummer that changes their mind on what the end sound should be.
 
UberGawkman said:
Well, I've gone the trigger route, and gotten some good sounds doing so. Despite the purists who are against it, I haven't found any other way to get certain sounds that I'd always been searching for (mainly the modern rock drum sounds you hear on the radio).

I like to blend mic'ed drums w/ a triggered sample (usually a sample taken from the very same kit by having the drummer whack the snare or kick or whatever and take that sound out of the overheads or some other mic or a combination of the two). The purpose is not so much to replace the sound of a mic'ed snare as it is to thicken and fill in. Just like layering guitars, there's just some sounds that require "more".

One other thing to consider going by the logic I just presented you with is the "speaker on a snare drum" trick where you play the snare track through a speaker on top of a snare drum and it makes that snare drum ring just as if it was being played.... and it you can mic THAT from wherever you want. I still haven't gotten a chance to try that, though... but might be worth giving a shot.


Here, give a listen to some tracks I've done using trigs...

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cf...ofile&friendID=2222264&Mytoken=20050703013634

Everything besides "ABCDEath" has triggered kick and snare mixed in with the original signal. ABCDEath relies more on room mics to give the snare tone. You'll notices that no triggers and no micing results in a very "simple" sound.
Click to expand...

Sounds well good (Beer) man. Great guitars, fekin huge. Song reminds me of System of a down.
 
hey uber, thanks for the sound samples. it helps a lot to hear some of the proposed gear in action!

to cloneboy - the reason i'd use triggers rather than to replace a normal drum sample with drumagog or sound replacer is because im just on mbox and don't have the means to record a full drum set. with something like the tmc-6 and triggers, id be able to get each drum its own track in pro tools, then use the mbox pre's to record the cymbals. if i had a device with more inputs and more mic's, id be taking a different route.. but such is not the case..

thanks to everyone for your replies.
 
With those same sound modules, you could record the performance via midi. Then trigger the sounds with Drumagog or what ever soft sampler you have.
BTW Drumagog works with protools as well and smokes sound replacer.
 
destiny rec said:
to cloneboy - the reason i'd use triggers rather than to replace a normal drum sample with drumagog or sound replacer is because im just on mbox and don't have the means to record a full drum set. with something like the tmc-6 and triggers, id be able to get each drum its own track in pro tools, then use the mbox pre's to record the cymbals. if i had a device with more inputs and more mic's, id be taking a different route.. but such is not the case.
Click to expand...

Technically doing it your way would involve using MORE inputs unless you're saying to not close mic kick/snare/toms.

In all honesty a mic'd source beats a sampled one anyday.

However I'm admittedly spoiled with the setups I've owned and work on. It's been a long time since I've had less than 24 channels of pre/AD so I can't relate.

By all means go for what you think will bring out the best in your recordings using your system.
 
Thanks for the compliments! I could actually make you some soundclips and send them to you if you want some more examples, I'm working on a mix right now that I'm adding in triggered samples to thicken.


destiny rec said:
hey uber, thanks for the sound samples. it helps a lot to hear some of the proposed gear in action!

to cloneboy - the reason i'd use triggers rather than to replace a normal drum sample with drumagog or sound replacer is because im just on mbox and don't have the means to record a full drum set.

thanks to everyone for your replies.
Click to expand...


I also wanted to add that I actually did use Drumagog for those samples. I've always just referred to "triggers" as "sampled drums where the stick hit is".

Something I wanted to try was what complexprocess posted on in this thread (basically using a drum trigger module to make a track to be replaced by Drumagog or Sound Replacer).

https://homerecording.com/bbs/showthread.php?p=1514736#post1514736
 
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