simplicity...

R

rightbrainnow

New member
Due to financial reasons, I usually mic my drums with one decent quality condenser in the middle of the room...almost an "ambience" mic. With some eq I usually got good results. Im not a very good drummer, but most of the beats I make in my music are geared towards being relatively simple. I recently bought 4 mics for drums to take it to another level of quality and control. Two overheads, a snare, and a kick. I researched a ton and ended up with the D112, sm57 and two mxl 993's for the overheads. I spent a long time yesterday recording some drums tracks, and to be honest...I almost liked my original approach more. Not only was it less headache, but I also thought it sounded better. Maybe its my lack of education and experience to really get a great sound out of more mics, but its very tempting to return everything and get my money back. Should i stick it out? Is it worth it?
 
Thats really weird.... The only explanation I can offer is that now since you up'ed the quality in your mic's its picking up your drums with much more detail. That extra detail will make the true sound easier to hear... and that true sound is not the sound your looking for. I'd say mess around with your drums more... Even take them apart and play them individually and retune. Do everything you can to make the kit itself sound better first, and if it doesn't work then take the mics back.
 
yea i dont really consider myself a drummer. I can just kinda play them, and dont know too much about tuning them....maybe i should look into learning how to tune them properly.
 
rightbrainnow said:
Due to financial reasons, I usually mic my drums with one decent quality condenser in the middle of the room...almost an "ambience" mic. With some eq I usually got good results. Im not a very good drummer, but most of the beats I make in my music are geared towards being relatively simple. I recently bought 4 mics for drums to take it to another level of quality and control. Two overheads, a snare, and a kick. I researched a ton and ended up with the D112, sm57 and two mxl 993's for the overheads. I spent a long time yesterday recording some drums tracks, and to be honest...I almost liked my original approach more. Not only was it less headache, but I also thought it sounded better. Maybe its my lack of education and experience to really get a great sound out of more mics, but its very tempting to return everything and get my money back. Should i stick it out? Is it worth it?
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What about the sound don't you like?

How much experimentation on OH placement did you do?

You could try moving the overheads in front of the kit, if that sounded better.
 
ive got the o/hs panned hard left and hard right...didnt work too hard on mic placement. The drums sound like they are dominating the mix. They sound "too up front". Ive got bassline that i made with a synth (triton) and ive got that panned hard left and hard right, and its just not blending well with the drums...but the synth sound is just about perfect for what i want. When i bring the mixer down on the drums, I lose the nice bottom end im getting...so when i try and eq some back in, it clips. recording drums is a bitch.
 
Rather than trying to add bass, try this.

Set up your mix of the overheads.

Cut the mids some (I usually cut -12db's to -15db's centered at 750hz. Just my preference for the kit I have.)

Then slightly raise the kick and snare tracks so that you can hear them better in the mix. Then EQ those two tracks.


You need to spend some time making sure the drums are tuned so that they sound great. You should be able to record a track, have everything flat on playback, and have the drumkit sound good. If not, you need to make some adjustments in either mic selection, placement, tuning, or a combination of the three.


Also, I wouldn't pan them totally hard left and hard right. That normally gives you a spread of the kit that is kind of unnatural, I normally pan them at 3 and 9 o'clock or less.



Tim
 
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Yea I see your point with the 9/3. Im keeping the kick and snare centered. Ill mess around with the overheads to see if I can get a better sound. The overheads pick up the snare almost as much as the snare mic does...so i feel like if i mess with the eq of the snare mic, im only manipulating about 33% of the sound because the o/h's have the same amount of decibles as the snare mic...so then if I eq the o/h's to get the right snare sound, I end up making my cymbals sound too thin.
 
Tim Brown said:
also, I wouldn't pan them hard left and hard right. That normally gives you a spread of the kit that is kind of unnatural, I normally pan them at 3 and 9 o'clock.



Tim
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Never really considered that, but it makes sense!
 
personally, i think that OH panning is going to depend on what kind of configuration the mics were set up in...an X-Y config. gives a much different stereo spread than a spaced pair or whatever else you want to use
 
Ironklad Audio said:
personally, i think that OH panning is going to depend on what kind of configuration the mics were set up in...an X-Y config. gives a much different stereo spread than a spaced pair or whatever else you want to use
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That's true. I haven't used an XY pattern in 10 years. Ever since I saw John Sayer's "diagonal" split of the drumkit

http://www.saecollege.de/reference_material/pages/placement.htm

I've used that ever since - it gives you a great "true" stereo split of the drumkit that seems to sound so much better to me.



Tim
 
Hey thanks for that link. That's good stuff, I gotta try flipping the phase on my kick and see how that works out.
 
rightbrainnow said:
So in that diagram the mics are facing directly down?...making a 90 degree angle with the floor?
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Yes. That's the way I've always done it - and the split of the drumkit is killer.


Tim
 
ez_willis said:
...................
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EZ,

What I mean by a "True" stereo split, is you wind up with the Kick and the snare being dead center, and the stereo image is spread out from there.

If you use other configurations, you get an image where the kick and snare are not dead center when you pan the tracks.


Tim
 
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Tim Brown said:
EZ,

What I mean by a "True" stereo split, is you wind up with the Kick and the snare being dead center, and the stereo image is sporead out from there.

If you use other configurations, you get an image where the kick and snare are not dead center when you pan the tracks.


Tim
Click to expand...

Bro, that was some real good advice you gave out. Killer link, too! I just set my drums back up and was getting ready to mic them up, and I have yet to get results that I am satisfied with as far as my drum sounds go, probably for some of the reasons you listed as well as some stuff covered by that link. I learned something, seriously.
 
ez_willis said:
Bro, that was some real good advice you gave out. Killer link, too! I just set my drums back up and was getting ready to mic them up, and I have yet to get results that I am satisfied with as far as my drum sounds go, probably for some of the reasons you listed as well as some stuff covered by that link. I learned something, seriously.
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...and I'll let you know if this round of drum tracks yeild a better result!

In the past, my drum tracks have just not seemed right to me, for reasons I couldn't point my finger at. Probably phasing and polarity issues coupled with improper overhead placement and panning.
 
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