Hey I just got a dynamic mic (SM57) for Christmas and have been trying to record my band's drums with it and a condensor (NT1-A), to somewhat mixed results. I'm not big on the technical stuff -- we're kinda just figuring all that out as we go along by trial and error -- but we run the mics into a mixer and then into my Tascam Pocketstudio 4-track. A band that recorded us over the summer used two mics, an overhead condensor and a dynamic by the kick and they got a pretty slick, studio sound out of it. Ours is an upgrade from when we just used the one mic, but it still has this damp, dingy sound with lots of room noise. We've tried turning the gain on the mixer down and moving around the condensor-- last we tried it, we hung it really low on the right side of the drumset. The sound still wasn't great, and since I'm not incredibly knowledgeable I've been wondering if the difference between what we get out of 2 mics and what the band we recorded with got was their laptop program in contrast to our 4-track. I know most people recommend more mics, but we'd like to see if we could get better results with what we have before we explore that option. I don't even have incredibly high hopes-- if anyone's familiar with Slanted & Enchanted by Pavement, if we could get a drum sound like that I'd be psyched. But the sound we're getting now isn't even good lo-fi. I'm bad at describing it so I'd be best just providing a link to the song we were working on:
http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=download&ufid=D1EB1C7C3A097533
I realize the guitars aren't so great either, BTW. I think thats cause they weren't loud enough though, cause I really cranked the amp for the overdub around 2:40 and it came out great. If anyone has any advice on that too, though, it'd also be appreciated.
Really I'm just trying to get a really good lo-fi sound out of what I have, and if that's possible (or not possible, for that matter), I'd lappreciate any help or advice anyone had to offer. Thanks in advance.
http://www.yousendit.com/transfer.php?action=download&ufid=D1EB1C7C3A097533
I realize the guitars aren't so great either, BTW. I think thats cause they weren't loud enough though, cause I really cranked the amp for the overdub around 2:40 and it came out great. If anyone has any advice on that too, though, it'd also be appreciated.
Really I'm just trying to get a really good lo-fi sound out of what I have, and if that's possible (or not possible, for that matter), I'd lappreciate any help or advice anyone had to offer. Thanks in advance.