Recording drums with bass player in the same room

Martn

Martn

New member
I'm willing to record some demo's with my band, but we have an issue.
We agreed that we don't want to record the drums to a click track, because the natural flow of our music will be gone.
It's because of the style of music we're playing (symphonic rock), that we need to look at each other when the drummer falls in in certain parts.
Once the drums are recorded, the other instruments will be added.

How do you guys solve a problem like this? We can't just play the song, and record the drums because all the instruments will be in the drum-mics, but the bass player and drummer have to be in the same room so they can see each other while recording drums.
Some equipment we have (don't know if really useful):
- Roland octacapture
- protools
- enough microphones to 8-mic the drums
- 2 Sennheiser headphones
- mixing table

Or do I need to convince my band members to record to a click track, or to a pre-recorded bass part.
 
The project im working on we did the following: The bass player and guitarist played thru practice amps, we flipped them away from the drums, I stuck a condensor in front of them, for a scratch track, and away we went.There was some bleed thru but i was really surprised on how minimal it was. Mind you we are dong this in a basement and their amps were no more than 6 foot from my drums. I could hear them they could hear me, didnt have to use headphones, it worked great. Im sure if we would have thrown a blanket over the amps the bleed would have been almost eliminated.

As far as a click track thats up to you guys, there are no rules.
 
I'm working currently with a band with similar issues. The drummer and bass player play together all the time because their guitarist is unreliable. I used 4 mics on the kit, and recorded the bass through a DI. Out of the DI I ran the bass into the bass players amp and had him turn the amp down as low as possible so that the drummer could still hear and they could play off of each other as they were used to doing. It sounds fine. The DI'd bass is uneffected by the kit playing, and the kit mics didn't really pick up much of the bass coming from the amp. Now, whenever the guitarist gets around to it I'll play the bass and kit in his headphones and let him record his guitar parts. I didn't use a click at all.

Another thing to try would be recording everything together live. You can get a good kit sound without using all 8 mics. Or you could also get two DIs and record the guitar and bass with them and have them play with their amps as low as possible to hear what they need to hear to feed off of each other.
 
Martn said:
I'm willing to record some demo's with my band, but we have an issue.
We agreed that we don't want to record the drums to a click track, because the natural flow of our music will be gone.
Click to expand...
Lol. This is a common excuse for folks that can't play to a click. You do realize that you don't have to stay on the click, right? It's just a guide.

Once the drums are recorded, the other instruments will be added.
Click to expand...
So in essence you are using a click track for everything but the drums.

How do you guys solve a problem like this? We can't just play the song, and record the drums because all the instruments will be in the drum-mics, but the bass player and drummer have to be in the same room so they can see each other while recording drums.
Click to expand...
Why?

Or do I need to convince my band members to record to a click track, or to a pre-recorded bass part.
Click to expand...

Click track. Learn how to use it, then use it.
 
What kind of space do you have to record in? If you have enough headphones to go around, you could have the bass go direct and lose his speaker. You could put your guitar amp in another room. Or have the guitar do a scratch track through a POD or some such beast.
 
I record kit and bass in the same room. Some clouds over the kit, sone fairly large gobos around the kit and between the kit and bass amp.
The 'rule/understanding is if the kit plays strong in the room, bass at min, good to go.
Yes there's some bleed. If you have to have it perfectly isolated.. Do it the other ways.
 
I agree, you did say that you agreed to do a demo. Does sound like you're a little put off by the idea of perfection from others. To make something good a band must sacrifice something, thats the main part in decision making. Put it to them, live recording, or multitrack recording? Doing it in a way that is comfortable for you is the best way, you'll get better results and you'll be happy about it. Whats not to try anyway and experiment?

Hope this helps

Cheers, Mark
 
Sorry I am new to this but I agree with what Greg_L said

I agree, you did say that you agreed to do a demo. Does sound like you're a little put off by the idea of perfection from others. To make something good a band must sacrifice something, thats the main part in decision making. Put it to them, live recording, or multitrack recording? Doing it in a way that is comfortable for you is the best way, you'll get better results and you'll be happy about it. Whats not to try anyway and experiment?

Hope this helps

Cheers, Mark
 
Greg_L said:
Lol. This is a common excuse for folks that can't play to a click. You do realize that you don't have to stay on the click, right? It's just a guide.


So in essence you are using a click track for everything but the drums.


Why?



Click track. Learn how to use it, then use it.
Click to expand...

I don't want to start a war here, but Greg_L, there is another kind of music than the straight through 'rock'n roll' in 4/4. Gates of Delirium -Yes-, for example. Can't record that one to a click track.
Anyhow, thanks for the professional advice/experiences you other guys gave me. I will experiment with it. Thanks!
 
Martn said:
I don't want to start a war here, but Greg_L, there is another kind of music than the straight through 'rock'n roll' in 4/4.
Click to expand...

No one said it had to be that way. In fact, I'm pretty sure I said to just use it as a guide. You don't have to be dead-nuts on the click. Also, most click tracks are totally programmable. You can set markers in your DAW to speed it up, slow it down, change the tempo gradually or quickly, and change the time sig all together. It's pretty easy and any competent drummer shouldn't have any trouble playing with one. I've heard every argument against click tracks except for a good one.
 
Martn said:
there is another kind of music than the straight through 'rock'n roll' in 4/4.
Click to expand...

Mark Jordan said:
Whats not to try anyway and experiment?
Click to expand...

Greg_L said:
This is a common excuse for folks that can't play to a click. You do realize that you don't have to stay on the click, right? It's just a guide.
Click track. Learn how to use it, then use it.
Click to expand...
I'm of the opinion that this subject has become one of the internet's inherent war causers and there's really no need for it.
As far as I'm concerned, all musicians should be able to play and record to a click/metronome. And all musicians should be able to play and record without one. That way, you're useful in all eventualities.
When people say that they can't play to a click, they are in essence admitting that they can't play in time consistently because all a metronome is is a steady time keeper.
Think about it.
As has been said many times, they do not suck the life out of a performance or make it robotic. If either happens, that's to do with the musician. A few weeks back, my drumming friend and I were tracking a song and I'd had to start it with a click because I wanted to put in a piano part to act as a melody guide before the bass and drums were to be added. Now, I don't often use a click because I'll lay down initial tracks with the drummer, whereas he, as he puts it was "brought up with the metronome" {he plays perfectly well without one, incidentally}. On this occasion, we did pay too much attention to the click and at first, we weren't playing together as a bass and drum team. There's no guarantee that playing to a click yields the desired results. You still have to concentrate and play skilfully. For us, it did get better.
It's only a timing guide. If you use one, it's easy to play within and around the beat ~ same as it is without one.
 
The simplest answer to this (I don't believe anyone has mentioned yet) is to have the bass player and the drummer record together, but have the bass plugged DI (with no amp) but have the drummer and bass player hearing a mix through headphones. The most you'll get is the very faint sound of the occasional strumming of the bass strings (un-amplified) through the drum overheads in the drum track and maybe, just maybe some bleed through the drummer's earphones and that will completely disappear in the mix. Problem solved.
 
I can and have always been capable of playing to a click. Before I started really working on my studio when my band recorded their last EP, we did it in a local studio. The engineer was too much of an idiot to even know how to set up a click for us to record to (he's old school, but still not an excuse), so we had the whole band (bass, 2 guitars, scratch vox in control room) go DI into the board for me to play along to and we used them as ghost tracks later. We're a "groove rock" band, so it was fine since my tempo was pretty dead on for each tune.

Drum sound quality was awful (due to poor and lazy mic placement), so the engineer had me come back to redo EVERY track because he couldn't "fix it later" with his old outboard rack gear. Due to lack of availability, the only member I could get to come in was my bassist to be a new guide for me. It went perfectly fine.

But get this! The engineer was so #!@$#@ awful, in the semi-final draft of the mix he provided, he didn't even delete/erase the ORIGINAL ghost tracks the rest of the band had laid down when I first recorded! Since there was no click and the bassist and I just started on our own terms when he pressed record, of course, the ghost tracks from the rest of the band during a different take didn't line up (which is to be expected, hence why they should be deleted). He couldn't even hear that they were there and had them all mixed in there even after the guitarists and singer came in to do there actual takes (somehow he mixed them back in there after they were done their real takes). It was very embarrassing when we actually had to tell him to take those out.

This is why I started my own personal studio. :)
EDIT: Also, because he took 6 months to provide us with that garbage (with ghost tracks still in there). Meaning he didn't listen to anything or actually "mix" anything at all. He got lazy and realized we'd been hounding him for months and just burned the disc of what we all recorded into his board that day. Funny thing was, he wrote "final masters" on our disc. I think he thought he forgot exactly what he was lying about. How confusing and discouraging that there are people out there actually charging money for service like this.

Sorry way off topic.

Yeesh, I'm bitter on a rainy Monday morning!
 
RecordingMaster said:
....Sorry way off topic.

Yeesh, I'm bitter on a rainy Monday morning!
Click to expand...
Yeah but what story. :)

Hey Greg I'm curious what you meant where you mentioned not having to follow the click exactly. I'm not doing a lot of real great players for shure.. But all I've seen is once they drift- they're screwed :D
Maybe a few drummers where they caught back up'.

I switched to using an old Alesis HR16 through the mixer mostly so I could control the damn bleed -end fades, ride it during breaks etc.
Since I can just tap a start (restart') I've had luck on occasion where they've drifted in an otherwise good take and actually restarted to their new time.
 
mixsit said:
Hey Greg I'm curious what you meant where you mentioned not having to follow the click exactly. .
Click to expand...

I can only speak for myself, and I'm not a great drummer, but it's pretty easy to either lock on to the click, or shmooze around it in the general vicinity and come back to it whenever you want to. I do that occasionally. I prefer to be dead on the click though. I know I'm really on it when it just disappears in the headphones. If I can hear the click, I'm off. When it vanishes, I'm on.
 
Im not afraid to admit that I use to hate click tracks..why? Because i was listening to the click instead of playing to the click.I fought the damn thing the whole time. When I finally figured out that a click makes everything easier, because its keeping the time for you, my playing went to the next level.

Playing to a click track is drumming 101.
 
I can play with a click easy enough. It's never been an issue with me. I'd rather not when tracking with my band but that's more of a function of some other personel.:D
 
As a band, if you never play to a click, it can be tough. Especially when it's songs you're already very familiar with. When I track my band's songs that we already have written and have played a bunch of times, recording them to the click really brings out where we normally drift faster or slower. It's not anything drastic, but often times I'll lay the drum tracks for a song and get to a part where we do a change, and the click track tells me if we've been speeding up or slowing down in that passage. I've got my natural rhythm from playing it live, but the click is telling me to do otherwise. I always defer to the click. I'll track it to the click and the other guys don't even notice. They just follow along to the drums. Then when I get back to our next practice, I'm more comfortable with the song after having tracked it, and it makes us all sound better. Those parts where we drifted aren't there anymore because I know where things needed to be corrected. Fuck drifting. We aren't some sloppy jam band. I want us tight and steady.
 
I find that a MIDI version of the track can help people who don't like clicks.

A quick midi bass and chord part with hats on what would be a click can do wonders.

It is time consuming
 
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