Recording drums

ManInMotion711

ManInMotion711

New member
Any tips or tricks anyone may wanna share about recording drums? Mainly how to cut down on the ring out from drums that already have an e-ring, and how would I get a clicky tight bass drum sound with recording
 
Hey dude...
as to the ringing...I'd probably start at tuning...the batter and the reso.

For click in the kick, what I do is get my kick mic up close to the beater (on the inside of course) and then blend that with my subkick.
A general rule is... the further you pull the mic away, the more boom/oomph. The closer ya get, the more click.

what's your mic setup?
 
My bass drum mic is going to be a KM212 dynamic cardioid kick drum mic, im actually going out sometime this week and buying a CAD PRO-7 drum mic kit, im a fresh newbie when it comes to recording mostly everything
 
The key to a great drum sound is ALWAYS the source - the drums, the tuning, and the room. Put new heads on your drums and spend some time tuning them to the best of your ability. Mess with the mic placement as needed too, make sure the mics are capturing the best possible sound out of each drum.

The key to click on the kick drum is, as dogbreath said, putting the mic closer to the batter head. Carve out the low mids HARD and boost a bit in the 2k-4k area in EQ as well. Extra dampening on the batter head and a plastic beater will also add a ton of click. But be careful that you don't add too much click, just add enough so the kick will cut through the mix sufficiently :)
 
another thought is to google up the "Glyn Johns" and the "Recorderman" techniques for drum miking. Worth the time.
Not sure if Greg mentioned that in his write up (up there /\)... been awhile since I read it.

:drunk:
 
Well thank you for responding to my joke like asses, and thank you dogbreath and guitarplyr82 for your advice, all very helpful :)
 
ManInMotion711 said:
Jesus I guess knowledge and experience really can turn someone into an arrogant prick
Click to expand...

So can ignorance and and a lack of experience!


Calm down, holmes. Just do some reading......and then put what you've read into practice. No one can just tell you how to record drums. You have to learn the fundamentals, put them into practice, and then tweak and trial-and-error things to suit your specific needs.
 
ManInMotion711 said:
Jesus I guess knowledge and experience really can turn someone into an arrogant prick
Click to expand...

I manage to be an arrogant prick without it. :)

Really though, the stickies aren't from some corporation or tutorial company. They're from experienced users on here who took the time.
They're pretty much designed to save you a few years of trial and error, and it's all free, so soak up as much as you can.
 
I understand that, I appreciate that you took the time to write out the sticky, I have read it and it actually answers every question I had and some others that I thought of
 
For the kick drum: Click drums need a vent hole in the front head. If you are using a big poofy better, swap it out for a hard one. Mic placement sort of depends on the Mic you use, but the closer to the better, the more click.

For the snare: An sm57 pointed at he top head should just work, as long as the drum is tuned. If the drums sounds bad to you when you play it, it will sound terrible when you record it.

For the toms : If the drums are still ringing with a ring on them, the tuning is way off. My guess would be that they are tuned way too high.

Take some time to look up some videos on how to tune drums on YouTube. The reality is that if you have a well tuned drumset in a decent sounding room, it is pretty hard not to come away with a useable recording. If you are going for a specific sound, that is another kettle of fish.
 
Clicky kick:

Wood beaters, something like a falom slam pad is good as well (or anything like that), one or two pillows in the bottom of the kick touching the bottom of the batter and the reso (you really don't want very much resonance with a tight clicky kick) and mic pointed directly at the beater off axis. Reso should be ported or removed if you must (ported is preferred IMO)

The only issue with the above is the low end tends to get lost so a subkick or another mic out front is good if you can do it.
 
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