Drum recording, thoughts?

[hippietim]

I'm working on some original material and I've never recorded acoustic drums myself before. This weekend I mic'd the kit up with my drummer and took my first shot at it.

http://www.moppingjanet.com/recordings/DrumTest.wma

Any thoughts, tips, suggestions, criticisms?

[Newc]

Downloading now.

What mics are you using, and how many?

[Newc]

Crashes sound a bit thin and weak. Are you using one overhead to catch all the cymbals?

Sounds like a compressor on the snare, maybe the kick. Try with and without, maybe set it for Limiting instead of Compression.

Are the mics running into or through anything besides a mixer and/or recorder?

Toms are a bit forward in the mix; are they sharing a mic?

[hippietim]

Crashes sound a bit thin and weak. Are you using one overhead to catch all the cymbals?

I agree. There were two mics - CAD ICM417. They just aren't very good. I picked up a pair of Rode NT5's which will hopefully improve things.

Sounds like a compressor on the snare, maybe the kick. Try with and without, maybe set it for Limiting instead of Compression.

No compressor on the snare. The snare sounded like butt to begin with. I used a parametric EQ to dial out a couple nasty frequencies. The drum itself is not dialed in quite right yet so that's not helping.

There was compressor on the kick. What we discovered after we wrapped up is that the kick drum mic got knocked out of position while we were placing other mics - it was about 8" away from the front head. D'oh! I think proper placement next time should do wonders.

Are the mics running into or through anything besides a mixer and/or recorder?

The overheads were running through a Trident S20 preamp to try and smooth them out. Everything went into a Presonus Firepod.

Toms are a bit forward in the mix; are they sharing a mic?

I noticed that later too. They all have separate mics, I just made the same mistake boosting the two mounted toms too much.

Mics:

• Kick - AKG D112
• Tom 1,2,3 - EV N/D 308
• Snare - Sennheiser MD504
• Hi-hat - SM57
• Overheads - CAD ICM417

In addition to what you pointed out, the hi-hat is lacking the crispness/sizzle I like - an SM57 isn't going to deliver that so I grabbed a Shure KSM-109 condenser when I grabbed the NT5's.

[jackson1]

and I've never recorded acoustic drums myself before.

In that case, your recording sounds great. Yes, the toms are too forward and clicky, yes, the bass drum needs definition (click), yes, a 57 is not refined enough as a studio hihat mic (use condenser), but taking all this into consideration, it's a beautiful result.

The one thing I value the most, is that you seem to know how to NOT squash and inflate the sound, thru overuse of compression. At least it sounds like you know.

How it will sound in a full mix is another question completely.

[levantin]

I agree with the comments on the kick and the crashes, They need a little work. What snare drum were you using? It sounds like it's lacking in the quality department. I got the impression that the recording was ok but you could do with a better quality snare drum.

How it will sound in a full mix is another question completely.

That is the $64m question Hen. Depending on the music and mix I think the toms might work fine. Depends what you're going for. Overall, I'd say I would be proud If my first drum recording sounded like that!

[hippietim]

The snare drum needs some tweaking. It rings way too much. We just replaced all the heads and we took out most of the dampening materials that were in before.

Hopefully I'll have a chance to correct most of the problems technical problems soon and get our drummer back over to do some more recording.

[rjohnstone]

If they are new heads, you should have your drummer break them in pretty good before recording with them. Then re-tune. Just like guitar strings, they need to be stretched.
My dad has said this time and again when recording kits. (He's a pro drummer btw)
Also, try adding tension to the damper on the lower head of the snare (if it has damper, some do some don't). Should help knock the ring down. There are a few other factors as well... how deep is the snare, is it made of brass/steel/wood.
Experiment with different head tension too.

I'll run the recording past him tonight and see what he says.

[Endrik]

proper drumheads and tuning is a must, I'm not sure what you are using but I would recommend Remo's coated Emperor or coated Emperor X or even coated Controlled sound for snare top, clear Hazy Emperor or clear Emperor for snare bottom, clear Pinstripes for tom's tops, clear Ambassador for tom's bottoms, coated or clear Powerstroke 3 (you can also try Powerstroke 4 and Ambassador) for kick drum's batter and clear Ambassador for kick's resonant.

Of course you can test with all different types, depending how bright or warm tone you need, there's many different types... clear/coated/smooth white/renaissance etc. but the snare top should still be coated.

Use a pillow inside the kick drum so it gently touches both drumheads.

Tuning should be done constantly.

Use two mics for snare. It's important.
Use Shure SM-57 on top and for the bottom you can also use SM-57 or SM-81.
You can put the bottom one directly in the middle and about 4 inches from the head.
You get the attack from the top and body from bottom. And off course you have 2 separate snare tracks and you can put them to phase cancellation. Phase cancellation is mostly a horrible thing, specially for the drums but for the snare it's a must.

Also for the kick drum I'd use 2 mics or even more. There's a cool mic from shure, SM-91, put it inside of the kick.
And then you need BayerDynamic M 88 TG, it's a must have (or if you can get some GOOD knock off) and put it at the hole of the front drumhead.

You definetly need better overheads, maybe you can get advice from stores or studios where to get some decent sounding mics with reasonable price because usually they are very expensive.

And if you need more room ambience, more power etc. you can allways use shitloads of room mics, specially near the kicks drum or cymbals or on the ceiling or on the corners of the room. But then again most of the good room mics are ridiculously expensive. Some good german made mics cost more than boutique guitar amps.

Good mic preamps always help a lot. Go everything through the preamps. These days there's many Neve knock offs available with a very good price.

And get some good compressors, DBX would be a good choice, good sound and good price.

[Endrik]

but right now it's kinda hard to tell what to do, because the drum sound has to be something wich fits to a particular song... the sound can be lively or over produced, 60's cardboard box sound or huge early 90's sound, natural Nashville sound or cheesy 80's delay/limiter sound etc. it all depends of the song.

btw. what do you use for recording?

there's so many things to do, today's rock sounds are very compressed, zeppelin sound relies on room mics and room ambiance and character, metallica's sound is a mix of zep-esque old school and modern technology....
there's so many techniques.... how you eq, hoq you use the compressors... where to do you use them... is it done with parallel buses or whatever.
or things like...umm... you doubletrack all the drum tracks, the first ones you leave natural the other ones you over compress and then blend together.
there's so many things

[hippietim]

The recording process was pretty straightforward I think. I busted out a bunch of mics and stands and hoped for the best

Mics:

• Kick - AKG D112
• Tom 1,2,3 - EV N/D 308 (one each)
• Snare - Sennheiser MD504
• Hi-hat - SM57
• Overheads - 2 CAD ICM417

The overheads went into a Trident S20 preamp. Everything went into Sonar 7 via a Presonus FirePOD.

Once recorded, I used the Para-Q to cut the lows on the overheads and hi-hat. The snare sounded like crap so I used a Para-Q to dial out a couple really annoying rings. I put heavy gates on the kick and toms to reduce bleeding.

The reverb is the Lexicon that came with the Producer Edition set to Room - I just tweaked one of the presets - no reverb on the kick drum.

What I'm not happy with:

• the cymbals are a bit harsh to my ears - I went out and got a pair of Rode NT5's for the next session
• the hi-hat is lacking the crispness/sizzle I like - an SM57 isn't going to deliver that so I grabbed a Shure KSM-109 condenser when I grabbed the NT5's
• the kick drum is lacking the attack punch I like - after we were wrapped for the day I noticed that the kick drum mic had gotten knocked out of position - it was a good 8" away from the front of the bass drum. Putting it inside the kick drum properly should fix that next time - D'oh!
• the snare sounds like butt - part of it is the drum itself isn't dialed in properly, we'll see after it's tweaked. I'm thinking of micing the bottom head as well

[Newc]

Good points: define the style of the band first - will you be changing guitar tones drastically (Metal to Jazz) and thus need to adjust the drums each time?

But far be it from me to say you can't use a given drum sound with a given style - you get some interesting stuff when you mix it up.

And definitely experiment with under/over mic placement. My old drummer had mics running everywhere and experimented with mixing the top/bottom mics on everything.
Can't recall all the mics he used, but I think he had Sennheiser e604s on his Toms and the AKG D112 on his kicks, and if I remember right he put one of the 112s inside the kick (though the kick was 48" long - two 24" bolted together).
But that was his Metal setup.

[J Norman]

I think you're off to a good start. I,d like to hear it again with the other mics ,and the kick mic in place. The ping in the snare may not be as noticeable once the other insterments are mixed in. you may even like it. If not ,you can tape a small piece of cloth to the top head ,near the rim. this will kill the ring without killing all of the tone. Also you can try a sound replacement program to mix in sampled trax along with the live trax .You can copy and import extra kick and snare tracks and use sound replacement on them and mix them with the existing trax. Try drumagog.com. I think they have a free trial. It's great for kick and snare emergencies. It may or may not be for you. Also try changing the phase on one of the kick trax. You can do this on Sonors mixing console after it is recorded.Good luck! Looking forward to hearing another take. J.N.

[yard dawg]

Snare - 57 use one of the sticky things to remove the ringing sound. I forget what thyere called

Hi hat - small cap condenser pemcil mic. Best quality you can find. SE makes decent ones

Kick - AKg D112 for outside kick and use a large cap condenser mic such as a Audio technica 3033 I think its called as close to the beater as possible on the inside of the drum. You can get great tones from that mic. Its good to blend them both and see what ya get. beater freq is around 2.5k or so..

Toms - use MD421s on each.

Over heads - Experiment with different stereo techniques. ORTF etc. My preference has always been AKG414s . Awesome mics.

I wouldnt use any EQ or compression going to tape.You never know what youll need in the mix. Always fix problems in mixing. I have used a compressor to tape but it was a SSL and a Neve compressor and I doubt you have one of those.

Another thing you can do is use room mics. Large cap condenser mics placed in the
room to get ambiant sounds. When you mix pan the drums for either drummer persepctive or audience perspective. I use audience.

If you dont have a gate on each mic then you can tune the drums in pro tools or whatever you use. Make a grid and line up all the hits so you arent getting any phase issues. This will tighten up the drums alot. Drum editing sux but it helps alot. You get alot of bleed from mic to mic if you dont gate the mics. Anyway my 2 cents if ya have any questions PM me.

[hippietim]

ok, but you didn't provide any feedback on the recording.