Small clip of my Drum kit - Suggestions?

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WERNER 1

WERNER 1

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Hey guys, let me start off by saying that I'm not a drummer ( I'm the dreaded "Guitarist"! :) ), but in the process of setting up my home studio I ended up with a set of drums (CB Max SP series) Through the help of you guys here, I ended up re-heading the kit with Evans G2 coated heads and an EQ 4 on the kick.

Basically I used a 4 mic set up, two over heads (SP B1's) set up in one of the ways that was described here - One directly over the snare (4 ft.), and then the other over the right shoulder of the drummer (in this case it was me :eek: ------> Sorry! ) pointing directly at the snare - 4 ft from the snare and 4 ft from the other overhead mic.

I had an SM 57 on the snare, and a Beta 58 on the kick just out side of the sound hole.

Anyway, it's a very short clip of me just whacking around. I ended up doing some EQ'ing and adding just a bit of verb as well.

Signal chain ---> Mic(s) ---> DMP-3's----> B1's through 2 DBX 163x comp. ----> Delta 1010 -----> AA 1.5

From what I can tell everything sounds ok to me, but when I listen to it in my car stereo the snare sounds a bit too crispy or even maybe harsh.......but it sounds great on my monitors :( (Wharfedale 8.2a's)

Any thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated....

My goal is to decided whether to use loops such as Fairview and BetaMonkey, or to just bite the bullet and try and get the best I can with my "Live" kit.

Thanks, and here's the clip: http://www.soundclick.com/bands/songInfo.cfm?bandID=410286&songID=4615569

Rick
 
I think the snare is way too low. Tune that shit up my good man. One of your toms needs some work, but otherwise, good if transparent, timbre.
 
Snare too low?? In tuning/pitch, or in the mix of things??

I tuned them acording to the Tuning bible that I found on line, and they are tuned rather low.

Resonant heads on the botton have not been replaced.......I just did the tops. (Cash flow and all...)

I also forgot to mention that I didn't have my hi-hats as well......a friend had borrowed them :(

So mix, tone, EQ'ing, efex..........OK??......or not??

Thanks,
Rick
 
WERNER 1 said:
Snare too low?? In tuning/pitch, or in the mix of things??

I tuned them acording to the Tuning bible that I found on line, and they are tuned rather low.

Resonant heads on the botton have not been replaced.......I just did the tops. (Cash flow and all...)

I also forgot to mention that I didn't have my hi-hats as well......a friend had borrowed them :(

So mix, tone, EQ'ing, efex..........OK??......or not??

Thanks,
Rick
Click to expand...

How far down the rabbit hole do you want to go?

You're a guitarist so try to relate it to a guitar. Change the strings, clean the pots, set the intonation, etc. Do you want to record your guitar if it's out of tune or needs intonation adjustments?

My ears tell me the drums "sound" like you need to replace bottom heads. Some of the drums sound "close" while others don't. But the way I try to record is to treat kit as a whole especially when using that mic set up.

MAYBE- If you can't afford to rehead the bottom heads yet, REMOVE them, and treat the drums as "concert" toms. You're better off that way until you can afford them. Just Maybe.

I wouldn't start trying to get a good mix, tone, eq. etc. until the drums "sound" good in the room with just your ears. Get the drums up to snuff first, then we can get to the room, mic placement, etc.

The snare needs tweaking, maybe tighten the snares up a bit and see if that helps. It's also buzzing when you hit the toms. Not so much the floor tom, though. The floor tom sounds the best to me out of all your drums so far.

The brightness you describe on the snare could also be caused by the reverb you are using. Also remember the kit will sound different depending on who is playing it.

The kick sound will depend on the type of music you're doing. That sound could work for certain songs.

Not bad for a guitarist.
 
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"Not bad for a guitarist" :D

Thanks for the imput.......I'm not really sure how far down the hole I really want to go at this point. As much as I love learning about the drums and recording them (I've been researching it for quite a while now).......part of me keeps thinking that it would be a lot less of a pain in the butt if I just used some good loops and samples. At least the quality/sound of the drums would be top notch right out of the box (??)

I guess the down side to that would be the right feel and groove that a good drummer could bring to the table..

I totally agree with getting the drums up to snuff first (that was sort of my goal in the beginning)...But this kit being what I would consider a low end kit (???), I didn't really want to start pouring money and time into a use less cause so to speak.

The tuning of the drums is such a preferrence type thing un like a guitar where there are no real "grey" areas. Right now my resonant heads are tuned basically the same pitch as the batters......and that's very low, maybe a turn to a turn and a 1/2 past the point where the drum head is actually making a "tone". --- I have no idea if this is ideal or not, but that's where I'm at.

........ah, what to do...

Rick
 
WERNER 1 said:
........ah, what to do...
Click to expand...

Get a drummer, Rick. One that has a good kit, and knows how to tune and play it. Otherwise, get a good machine with some decent samples. Your drums will sound like out of tune crappy drums played by the guitar player if that's what they are.

Go ahead and have fun, and learn as much as you can. The first engineer I worked with taught me more about tuning my kit than anyone else ever has. Maybe even consider a good teacher and a lesson or two just on tuning.
 
I do play with plenty of great drummers who all have real nice kits........and there's no way I"m going try and play the drum tracks my self :eek: ----> That would be BAD! :)

I've researched the drum tuning thing until I couldn't take it any more......I did the best I could and obviously I fell short...

My goal was to have a middle of the road kit here on site that a drumer could just come over and I could lay down some tracks "real quick" :rolleyes:

The more I've been playing around with loops and samples, I think this is going to be the easiest way for me to get a decent sound with minimal work..... I know I'll loose the aspect of the "Human Touch", but that's a price I'll have to pay at this stage of the game.

Thanks for all of the input guys..........we'll see what happens...

Rick
 
Not all that bad really.

Snare - loosen up your snares and tighten the heads. I can hear an overtone of the snare when you hit it which is telling me the snares are too tight and the bottom head is too loose. If you like the tension of the top head, some moongel on top will help.

Toms - seem fine, hard to tell with the miking. The first tom is more present and bassy than the others, probably need to play with positioning. This is my big beef with the Recorderman method...it skews the image of the kit tonality-wise. Try ORTF, X-Y, and spaced overheads.

Kick - sounds like it's tuned a little high, I'd try detuning the batter head, and maybe even the resonant head a little as well. You'd definitely want to EQ this for more attack and suck out the mids for most pop/rock stuff. Also, try putting your mic further inside the kick pointed at the spot where the beater hits the head.

Overall, it sounds pretty good! I wouldn't be discouraged because you actually tuned the drums a lot better than most actual drummers I've heard. With cheap drums, you won't get fantastic tone and you have to muffle more. But you're on the right track.
 
Yareek said:
Not all that bad really.

Snare - loosen up your snares and tighten the heads. I can hear an overtone of the snare when you hit it which is telling me the snares are too tight and the bottom head is too loose. If you like the tension of the top head, some moongel on top will help.

Toms - seem fine, hard to tell with the miking. The first tom is more present and bassy than the others, probably need to play with positioning. This is my big beef with the Recorderman method...it skews the image of the kit tonality-wise. Try ORTF, X-Y, and spaced overheads.

Kick - sounds like it's tuned a little high, I'd try detuning the batter head, and maybe even the resonant head a little as well. You'd definitely want to EQ this for more attack and suck out the mids for most pop/rock stuff. Also, try putting your mic further inside the kick pointed at the spot where the beater hits the head.

Overall, it sounds pretty good! I wouldn't be discouraged because you actually tuned the drums a lot better than most actual drummers I've heard. With cheap drums, you won't get fantastic tone and you have to muffle more. But you're on the right track.
Click to expand...

sounds like solid advice to me. werner 1, i think yareek has just given you the best advice you can get at this point.

if i had the space and a real kit, there's no way in hell i'd use loops and samples, even if the sound was'nt quite right with the real kit. considering the drums that you're working with and your experience with drums/drum recording, i don't think it sounds bad at all. if you take yareek's advice, i think you'll be alot happier with the overall sound: the first things i noticed in your clip were the ring in the snare drum, excessive snare, and the high pitched kick. tune that kick lower to make it like what it is: a big drum.

i would keep working at it if i were in your shoes.
 
Oh great! .........right after I broke down the kit and stuck it in the closet! :D

Hmmmm.....

When I initally tuned the drums, I had both heads off, started with the bottom head and brought it 2 1/2 turns past the head making contact. Pressed down in the center of the head pretty firmly to "seat" it., I backed off the head in 1/4 turn incriments until the head no longer mad a good resonant sound (All of this turning was done in a criss crossing pattern by the way..) I then began to tighten the lugs back down agian 1/8 of a turn at a time until I got a good resonant tone (Which was typically about 1 full turn) . I repeated this process on the batter heads as well. .... This was the process I used on all of the drums. I forgot to add that once I got to that resonant area I then tuned each lug to each other by gently placing a finger in the center of the head to mute the head a bit, and then tapped with the tuning key about 1" in from the rim of the head.........and made sure all the tones were the same...

I just wanted to throw that out there to see if I'm doing anything wrong in that process (I must have read about 15 different tuning guides and all of these points that I used kept coming up over and over again.

I'll retune the kick drum and see if I can get it any deeper (I thought I had it pretty low to start with(??)

Snare - I was really lost on this one........ I asked 10 different drummers and I got 10 different answers! (Both heads the same , top tighter, top looser, top real tight, snares this and snares that...........who knows??

I'll try your suggestions on the snare and see what it yields...

Mic'ing - I was using a beta 58 on the kick, and I had it placed just out side of the sound hole on the resonant head. I originally had it inside the drume pointed at the beater, but it sounded like crap to me... I have a Beta 57 as well, I may try that once as well as a Sennhieser e609 original black face.....see which one sounds the best for that application. (Unfortunantly I cant afford a Beta 52 or AKG D112 right now...:(

I do have a small blanket rapped up inside the kick, and it's just barley touching the resonant head.........just enough to take some of the ring off of it.

I also have a set of Aquarian Studio rings, but I wasn't using them on this test clip....

On the flip side, I did a clip made up of loops taken from AA's Loopology CD. .......actually all of the music on there except for the lead guitar solo was put to gether from those loops.......the lead section was all mine! :)

Here's that clip if you're interested: http://www.soundclick.com/bands/songInfo.cfm?bandID=410286&songID=4621876

Thanks again!!!

Rick
 
Rick

It sounds to me like you are getting some phase cancellation. It might be the overheads not spaced correctly. The overall mix seems just a bit lacking IMO.

I would strip things down to the OH's and check for phasing there.

Other than that how have you been?
 
Hey how's it going!?! ... Me - well I'm not working at the moment so that's given me a bit of time to mess with my recording stuff (It's wierd, I've not been without a job in 25 years.....it's kind of nice :o ) -- but that's causing more headaches than anything else at the moment.. :(

I had the overheads (SP B1's) spaced exactly 4 ft from the snare and from each other (From what I understood about phasing, this was an acceptable methode of cancling it out ? ) My DMP-3's have phase switching on them, so I'll have to try that out when I get a chance..

Good hearing from you!

Rick
 
Wow not working? I would like to be in that situation but unfortunately I can't afford it right now. :D I've been spending a lot of time recording, Probably more than I should but it's a bit addicting.

;)
 
Yeah, being Mr.Mom his not too bad, and fortunantly I've been able to offset me not working by not having to pay a babysitter and I've been doing a little side work from home... :)

Recording addicting?? ........you don't say! :D

Rick
 
WERNER 1 said:
Yeah, being Mr.Mom his not too bad, and fortunantly I've been able to offset me not working by not having to pay a babysitter and I've been doing a little side work from home... :)

Recording addicting?? ........you don't say! :D

Rick
Click to expand...
Good deal. :D
 
Mmkay... let me see if I can bring anything to the table that hasn't already been mentioned.

First, rerecord that clip and really HIT those suckers. Cymbals especially. It's tough to make any modifications when another drummer will change everything.

Second, are you concerned about the tuning necessarily, or are you just concerned about the RECORDING sound? If you're concerned about the latter, I'd say boost the snot out of the snare and kick drums. When I record this way, I start with only the kick and snare mics on. Then I play and figure out how much of the rest of the kit I need (that 57 on the snare picks up a lot). I then mix in overheads to taste. Nudge the kick's EQ around 100 hz. Then you'll have to search to see what's a good snare "nudge"... you want to help the mid-low range of the snare to cut through, but you'll just have to search to see what works with your snare. When you find it, cut that freq a bit in the kick (the Beta will pick up the whole kit as well).

If you're concerned about the acoustic sound, I'm a big fan of a little ring on the snare. What head do you have on it? If you say anything besides a coated 1 ply, I'd suggest going to a coated 1 ply - Remo Ambassadors are great. The reason I like my drums to be a little "ringy" is that the mix will cover a lot of that. If your drums are dry at the recording phase, however, they tend to get lost in the mix.

Kick drum. Crank that bad boy down as far as she will go. What kind of reso head do you have on it? I like Evans EQ resos as well - I'm a big fan of drums that have nothing else done to them. No studio rings, no moon gel, no pillows, nothing. Anyway, I like to take my kick heads down to zero tension and just BARELY put any tension on them at all. Oh, and I really like having a little kick pad on there - puts a little more click in... or you could just change beaters - I have a plastic one that I use sometimes.

Toms - I like those bad boys pretty low, too. My floor tom gets cranked down lower than the kick (if possible). The high tom usually sits in about the middle of its range, and the middle tom finds a place inbetween - usually closer to the high tom.

Of course, this is with a rock drum bent, so take it with a grain of salt.
 
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