Recording drums...
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Posted on Mar 21, 2006 07:49 pm
anewjosh
Member Since: Mar 21, 2006
Hi...I'm in a hard rock band and I'm trying to figure out why the drums on our most recent recording do not sound "right" to us. Here's the setup...we have a pacific drum set all maple, cad drum mic system, and one akg mic on the largest floor tom. When we recorded, it was in my drummer's living room. We draped bed sheets and comforters all over the place. I put one on top of the bass drum mic stand to avoid bleedthrough from other toms, snare, and cymbals. I also draped one in front of the drums. I still couldn't get enough seperation on the drum mics. They wanted to pick up the cymbals and snare. I was recording through my 16 channel mixer and using protools 001. Any help would be appreciated. I'll post a link w/the .mp3 on there.
Actually...my hosting is acting up...if anyone want to hear it...I'll email it or someone else can host it for me. Thanks.
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meltdown5Faze 2 StudiosMember
Since: Aug 15, 2005
Mar 21, 2006 10:50 pm yeah, the only thing i could think of is that all the drape's and sheets and stuff might have made the tracks all muddy. blankets and thigns liek that tend to take only hi end frequences, and leaves the bass to bounce around.
How many mic's did you have? becuase what i read i see 2. I read a kick drum mic and a floor tom. IF those are the only 2 mics you have that could/probably is the problem it doesnt sound "right".
-melty
Mar 21, 2006 11:19 pm Sorry...We have 2 cymbal condenser mics, 4 tom mics, one snare, one bass drum...one mic for every tom, snare, bass drum, and 2 mics for cymbals. If I could host the freaking .mp3 you could hear it.
meltdown5Faze 2 StudiosMember
Since: Aug 15, 2005
Mar 22, 2006 01:12 am are you gating each mic? gating is a HUGE part of it, could cure the bleeding issue.
they sound to me, besides the kick. The kick doens sound really like a kick to me. It sounds muffled to hell or soemthing... try eqing it. SOme reverb to the snare and symbols will help it sound better.. i dont really know what to tell you, becuase i have never gotten drums to sound good. just better then what they started ahaha,
Mar 22, 2006 07:31 am OK, here's my advice for what it's worth and based on what I heard from your stuff...
You could do with adding some compression across the board I think. Especially on your kick drum, snare and (possibly) overheads...
I done some drums recently using:
1 x SM58 (grille unscrewed positioned right in front of (due to no hole) of the bass drum
1 x SM58 (same - grille unscrewed) postioned between the hat and snare
1 x Studio Projects (or the Behringer B1 which I used for all the rest of my stuff) for overheads...
Thats it. 3 mics...but, with some compression, panning and some boosting of the EQ (specially on the bass drum and overheads), I feel I got a no bad sound for 3 mics.
Check out the tracks here and listen to the drums:
www.thedesmoinesriot.com/when.mp3
www.thedesmoinesriot.com/takeitall.mp3
Both these had:
Kick drum EQ'd towards the low end with a good boost down there and not much else on EQ.
Snare drum boosted in the mid just a smidgen
Overheads (which covered cymbals, toms and all else ;-) high end boosted
I compressed the bass drum using the Steinberg Compression plug that comes with CUbase using the (Kick Drum) setting and same for overheads using the drum set setting as a reference.
Finally, I panned the lot appropriately (double panned the overheads left/right using the stereo tracking feature of Cubase) and left the kick snare/hat channels in the middle.
Dunno if this helps but I reckon some good EQ and maybe some compression (experiment with that) will help, along with some verb.
I added reverb to my overhead channel (just a smidgen) and it gave it a nice live sound.
Thats it...nothing spectacular and the drums are what they are on this song but I reckon, they sound OK so...adds some comp, EQ and verb and see how ye go.
Coco.
Kaos62Kaos is only a form of insanityMember
Since: Feb 03, 2005
Mar 22, 2006 07:56 am Ok I have just had a listen. I would go with what the other guys are saying. You need to gate the toms snare & kick. EQ & compress. I here on the kick you have a harmonic coming through which will need to be eq'd out (parametric with a small q) before you compress otherwise it will be more pronounced afterward.
You have that gongy sound in the cymbals which make them sound a tad 'not nice sounding' I would look at around the 200hz on that.
look at the panning and placement of each track in the mix to give better definition and clarity.
It seems you have recorded in a very live room which gives the impression of the kit being further away in distance than the apparant volume is suggesting.
You will need to find a reverb that fits well with your room sound and try to blend them together. This may help with the room sound.
the reason I am suggesting what I am is because I am going through the same pain barrier at this very moment with the recording of my kit.
Mar 22, 2006 10:46 am I listened to your .mp3's. It's 2 totally different styles of music I suppose. I know our drum quality doesn't sound that great, but I believe it sounds better than in your demo.
When you say "gating" what are you saying? Is it something I could do in protools or on my mixer? I'm not a sound guy so bare with me.
Mar 22, 2006 11:10 pm The basic recording capture seems ok to me. Pretty good for a living room recording if you ask me. There are issues but they aren't major. Not sure what kind of sound you are going for, but to me (a drummer) the drum tuning sounds overly muffled. Compression tends to take away some of the natural ring of the drums. So if they are already very muffled in recording, they can get even more muffled with processing, killing the harmonics and sparkle of the sound. Gating probably won't help this, although it will clear up the image a bit. Gating may further shorten and muffle the sound even more.
Kaos62Kaos is only a form of insanityMember
Since: Feb 03, 2005
Mar 23, 2006 04:56 am The drums in my demo were frecorded a long time ago. My very first attempt at home recording with the real minimum and basic ac97 on board sound card.
I agree with Gamelan to a certain extent. Compression can reduce some of the natural tones, but for the style of music you are playing I would suggest it. if you are playing more jazz biased music then less compression would be used to keep the natural tones there to fit in with the music.
The princile of gating is to eliminate spill from other pieces of the kit being picked up by the individual mic for say the tom. ( for example if you gate tom 1 then you reduce the 'harmonic resonance' from when the snare is hit. This clears up the overall noise level of the mix, whilst not interferring with the natural sound of the tom when that is hit.) This is where mic placement and trial & error come into their own.
You should or may have a plug in on protools that would do this (I use adobe audition so i am ot sure if one is standard) in Pro Tools)
As I stated earlier i have the same problem and it is taking some time to get thins better.
Look at my thread "Reducing live sounding romm from snare" I have been given some good advice from other guys.
We are all here to learn (me especially) i am still new to this and unfortunately we cannot become proficient from the word go. it takes time, dedication and the willingness to learn.
meltdown5Faze 2 StudiosMember
Since: Aug 15, 2005
Mar 24, 2006 09:24 pm pro-tools does have a gating plug-in.
GregorMember
Since: Jan 08, 2004
Mar 26, 2006 01:25 am phase anyone?
Mar 26, 2006 03:02 am Gating is in audiosuite? Destructive?
sticadokid*sticado: short and LOUD!*Member
Since: Feb 25, 2005
Mar 26, 2006 01:41 pm protools better have a gate. thats an expensive program. gating allows no noise to pass until sound has reached a certain volume. i have every tom, snare, and kick gated so there's absolutely no bleed through. over heads (cymbals) should never be gated. gates also take off the extra hiss before the song begins and when its over.
compression boosts the sound to the top level. i use compression on my drum's overall mix and then the master mix of the song. but for each drum i use seperate gates, and EQs.
my setup on the sonar is: tracks 1-7. kick, floor, low, high, snare, cymbals L, and cymabals right. kick has a sub, the toms go to their own sub, snare to another, and cymbals to another. all those subs go to a "drums" sub. and that goes to the master mix.
using the inserts on mixers give u complete control over ur mix. but u have to have a sound card with enough inputs (i got 8 anolog and then the realtek stock card which is stereo for 2 more inputs.. total of 10... its pretty cool but expensive)
Mar 26, 2006 07:45 pm i like to dupe my tom tracks and gate one set and set a 'tom reverb' buss....that way, when your tom mic picks up the snare, you're not gonna accent it with the reverb meant for toms.
sticadokid*sticado: short and LOUD!*Member
Since: Feb 25, 2005
Mar 26, 2006 08:04 pm oh wow that seems pretty cool. i gotta try that out
