
carlosguardia
New member
Ok, I've been a musician for a very long time and have recorded in a number of ocasions in different studios, from small home studios, cassette four-tracks, and very large important studios and for a while I've been working on setting up my own little home recording facility. I've had very good results with all my midi (which is quite easy to make it sound good) and have had pretty outstanding results recording guitars, basses, and vocals. Now, I'm working on recording drums, I bought a pair of ECM 8000's, and a Shure PG 52 and in my studio (which is a rectangular room that measures roughly 2.5 mts by 3.5 mts with gypsum walls and the ceiling is about 3 mts high) I set up a friend's drum set. The set is a very nice sounding Pearl Export series with nice cymbals and it was tuned by a pro less than a week ago. I covered the walls and corners with blankets that I nailed to them, and put a twin sized mattress on the wall that's kind of in front of the set (the set was placed kind of on an angle, not straight in front of one of the walls). Finally I moved on to placing the mics.
First step I did was to place the ECM 8000's with the capsuled almost touching each other, head high on a 100 degree angle (give or take a few degrees) and checked to see how that sounded, I wasn't pleased so I went ahead and tried placing each one, just a little lower and on the sides of the drums, one on top of the Hats and the other on top of the floor toms, I made sure that they were at the same height and distance from the snare. This sounded quite better to me. Then I placed an SM 57 on the snare (a tight 13" piccolo) that was no brain surgery, I placed it about 5 cm from the side, pointing towards the middle of the snare and with it's back towards the Hats. Finally, I placed the PG 52 inside the kick drum (we removed the front skin of it) and I put it half-way in, pointing towards the spot where the beater hits the rear skin but in an "down and right" angle so that if I was to draw a straight line from the mic, it would end up touching the floor on the side of the floor tom (did this for two reasons, one, to avoid bleeding from the hats and snare, two, to avoid the boominess having it right in front of the beater).
Now, to why I need help:
I just don't seem to find this set up to sound the way I thought it would. Maybe that's vague or very novice-like. Let me explain, first of all, it sounds quite dirty, not as "pure" as I expected it would. It just plainly sounds dull to me. I haven't played with any EQing or effects yet, I intend to gate the Kick and Snare mics and maybe EQ a little plus add just a tad of a large-sounding reverb, but I don't know where to start to fix this so that what I want can be acheived. I want the bass drum to sound "heavier", and the OH's to sound a little more dry. Here's an example of how it's sounding to me... maybe some of you can give me pointers on how to improve this. The fact that the mp3 has to be really compressed in order for me to attach it to the post compromises the quality of the recording but if any of you want, I can email you a better, longer file. I appreciate all your help in advance.
Carlos
First step I did was to place the ECM 8000's with the capsuled almost touching each other, head high on a 100 degree angle (give or take a few degrees) and checked to see how that sounded, I wasn't pleased so I went ahead and tried placing each one, just a little lower and on the sides of the drums, one on top of the Hats and the other on top of the floor toms, I made sure that they were at the same height and distance from the snare. This sounded quite better to me. Then I placed an SM 57 on the snare (a tight 13" piccolo) that was no brain surgery, I placed it about 5 cm from the side, pointing towards the middle of the snare and with it's back towards the Hats. Finally, I placed the PG 52 inside the kick drum (we removed the front skin of it) and I put it half-way in, pointing towards the spot where the beater hits the rear skin but in an "down and right" angle so that if I was to draw a straight line from the mic, it would end up touching the floor on the side of the floor tom (did this for two reasons, one, to avoid bleeding from the hats and snare, two, to avoid the boominess having it right in front of the beater).
Now, to why I need help:
I just don't seem to find this set up to sound the way I thought it would. Maybe that's vague or very novice-like. Let me explain, first of all, it sounds quite dirty, not as "pure" as I expected it would. It just plainly sounds dull to me. I haven't played with any EQing or effects yet, I intend to gate the Kick and Snare mics and maybe EQ a little plus add just a tad of a large-sounding reverb, but I don't know where to start to fix this so that what I want can be acheived. I want the bass drum to sound "heavier", and the OH's to sound a little more dry. Here's an example of how it's sounding to me... maybe some of you can give me pointers on how to improve this. The fact that the mp3 has to be really compressed in order for me to attach it to the post compromises the quality of the recording but if any of you want, I can email you a better, longer file. I appreciate all your help in advance.
Carlos