What do drummers expect

F

Fret

New member
I am in the process of making my studio a little more public. I am concerned what the drummer’s reactions will be to my delta 66. I am concerned that most drummers are going to expect to use more then 4 tracks. Is this a valid situation? Any suggestions on how I handle this (how to appease/educate the drummers or do I just need to upgrade my soundcard)? Is this even a valid concern?
 
If you're opening to the public, then 4 tracks is VERY inadequate. For the average rock/pop type drums, I use 7 tracks at a bare minimum.
 
For me being a drummer....when I go into a studio I would expect to record with all the drums miked. Maybe just get a decent sized mixer so they don't see the sound card and bus the mics to the 4 channels. Or upgrade the card :p Maybe just tell them...all you really need to mic drums well s 2 over heads 1 bass 1 snare. Show them a example of something recorded like that. They should like it...
 
Yeah, I agree 4 channels is way too less. As a drummer myself, in my studio I have 2 echo layla 20s, so I have 16 channels to work with. If you're going public with stuff, you should at least have 16 channels, especially if everyone wants to record together.
 
I recorded a album with a Aardvark Q10 and I was using all of the 8 channels for the drums and sometimes the keyboard and drums wanted to track at the same time and it just wasnt possiable.
 
as a drummer with a standard 5pc kit,i expect to get all 3 toms,snare top and bottom,bass drum inside and outside,hats,2 overheads,2 room mics-12 in all. if i had to let go of some of those mics than id get rid of the outside kick mic,snare bottom and room mics and hat mic.
 
You can do just fine with 8 inputs

1 Kick
2 snare top and bottom submixed
3 hats
4 & 5 toms submixed to a stereo pair
6 OH Left
7 OH Right
8 Band scratch track (or bass)
 
I agree with many of the comments. While it is very possible to get a good drum recording with 4 mics (snare, kick & stereo overhead) most drummers/bands expect that the drums will be close mic'd - which for a 5 piece kit would suggest 7-8 mic's.

Naturally, you can get an eight channel sub-mixer and then bring a stereo mix into your Delta, but that limits your final mixing ability (which could be viewed negatively by a client).

I would expect a "for hire studio" to have a minimum of 16 track recording - and I stress that this is the minimum.
 
Look, if you're just doing this casually and recording other friends for some money to cover expenses so you can get experience, then you work with what you have. The moment that you start charging REAL money, I agree with Mikeh completely, you need 16 tracks(channels) minimum and 24 would be preferable. You also are going to need really good mics, processing, monitoring, editing, high speed burning, etc. And a GREAT engineer.

I just came back from a rather long and grueling recording session in a real nice commercial studio. They mic'ed the 5 piece kit with 8 mics:
3 Sennheisser 421's on the toms, an old AKG D12 on kick,SM57 on snare, a pair of AKG C3000's as overheads and an SM81 on hi-hat. They had a massive Scorpion board (over 30 channels) about 4 large racks of very impressive pre's, compressors, efects, you name it. They record onto digital audio tape,send to pro tools afterwards and burn. It was a "live session" recording wth a drummer (me), a sax, bass, piano and a vocalist. Seperate isolated drum room and an isolated vocal booth, bass was DI, piano and sax were close mic'ed. The producer paid $75.00 per hour for all of this.
The engineer (the most important piece of recording equipment) was top notch and a pleasure to work with.

This will be what you're competing against. This wasn't even a "major" recording studio, it's a rather "run of the mill" but good studio. No fancy waiting lounge, just a couple of soda and snack machines.
 
A little perspective

I am a one man show running out of my basement. I will probably never be competing with professional studios. My only competition is someone down the street doing the same thing. My concern was/is that if I publicize that I can only do 4 simultaneous tracks people won’t call me to begin with. Of course I knew that I couldn’t tell a drummer this after he set up his set because he would kill me. When you are first starting out everyone will tell you that four tracks is ok but I am feeling that I am growing beyond this and y’all have really confirmed this. When you combine my space limitation it seems that 8 tracks is going to be plenty. Anyone really requiring more then this probably isn’t going to bother with a one room studio.

Thanks for your help
 
I run a one room studio out of my basement. I offer 24 simultainious tracks (HD24 clocked with a GenX6, decent mics and stand alone mic preamps). I'm not the only guy operating at this level. This is what you'll be competing against.
 
Fret said:
To some extent I think its going to depend on what you charge.
Click to expand...

Just tell the drummer the reason you're only using 4 mics is because you're going for the raw, gritty, powerful garage band sound. Then when he's not looking, throw a few drumagog samples on
 
i do basement studio stuff too. shit, i cant compete at all. i can do 24 tracks at once than move it to pro tools to mix but the guy down the street that has the sony dmx r-100 gets all the business. just that alone is a lot to compete with.
 
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