2 Gear Questions

[Viral_Tyler]

I’m contemplating on ordering a couple items for my next project and future projects, would they be worth it?

I don’t have a preamp of any sort, so I was thinking about buying a NADY PRA-8 Mic Preamp. http://www.musiciansfriend.com/pro-audio/nady-pra-8-mic-preamp
But I’m not sure if it will be worth it because I’m afraid that the raw input with DAW plug-ins will sound better, and I’ll be $100 sort.

(I'll just be preamping the snare top, snare bottom, and toms)

I was also thinking about getting an Auralex Xpander kit; I’d mainly be using these on the top snare mic and the tom mics, it would make it easier for me to EQ and compress stuff with these I think. These things look nice since they’d minimize a lot of bleed from everything, [ame]http://www.amazon.com/Auralex-XPANDER-SET-Aural-Xpander-Sonic/dp/B0002CZZ7Y[/ame]

 

[Jack Pirate]

I don't know about the specific piece of gear that you are trying to get, but I've used a few things made by Nady in the past and they all sucked. So my advice would be for you to get away from Nady gear.

 

[Chainsaw Calligraphy]

What kind of audio interface are you using? I doubt you're going to see an improvement over its built in preamps with that Nady. I've never used one but at ~$100 for 8 pres ($13 per preamp ) I wouldn't hope for much.

 

[Trevoire520]

Nady won't be an improvement over the preamps you already have in your interface.
Auralex expanders can help but to be honest if you have spill problems it's 90% down to how the drummer plays and the way the drums/cymbals/mic's are setup.

 

[Viral_Tyler]

What kind of audio interface are you using? I doubt you're going to see an improvement over its built in preamps with that Nady. I've never used one but at ~$100 for 8 pres ($13 per preamp ) I wouldn't hope for much.

Thanks, I kinda figured as much. I'm using a Tascam US1800.

Nady won't be an improvement over the preamps you already have in your interface.
Auralex expanders can help but to be honest if you have spill problems it's 90% down to how the drummer plays and the way the drums/cymbals/mic's are setup.

For sure man, my band and I are getting ready to do a project in a garage so I thought they might help lol

 

[mva801]

From the sound of things buying this stuff won't help you much at all. You should be concentrating MUCH more heavily on making sure the drums/ drum heads/ your drummer sound fucking amazing all by themselves. How hard he hits and how they're tuned are going to make WAAAY more difference than a piece of foam in there. Always start at the source....

 

[Fox Mulder]

As said before, you're better off losing sleep over how the drummer sounds like. What mics are you using? Don't you plan on sample replacing or blending? How're you guys tuning the drums?

 

[meanmrmustad]

Why not buy it? you get 6 extra mic inputs for your tascam using the line ins 10 to 14

 

[mva801]

Why not buy it? you get 6 extra mic inputs for your tascam using the line ins 10 to 14

You mean line ins 9-14...

But he's right, if you specifically need a few extra channels, it'll be of use. But if you're only going to record 8 channels anyway, skip it.

 

[Viral_Tyler]

This is for my pop-punk band, I'm drumming, as well as recording myself and the rest of the members, mixing the projects, etc.

What mics are you using? Don't you plan on sample replacing or blending? How're you guys tuning the drums?

Yes I plan on replacing the toms and the kick, specifically I'm using drumagog through reaper on windows. For the kick I don't know what I'll end up doing; the DW demo kick drumagog has sounds decent to me. But for the toms I know I want to do a top / bottom / room mic on drumagog using natural kit samples.

I have XLR to 1/4" TRS converters, so I'm covered in the input section.

Also I'm only using 10 inputs, the 10 mics I have are:

2 - MXL v93m (LDC)
2 - Karma K10 (SDC)
1 - Audix D6
1 - Audix i5
4 - Shure sm57

I also have a Sennheiser e825 vocal / instrument mic. But I don't see myself using it unless I use the Audix D6 on the floor tom and just replace it with the e825 since the kick is getting replaced most likely anyways.

I have a new drumdial that I tune the drums with, the demo we last recorded I used EC2 heads and I didn't really like them. I tryed Hydraulics too and I didn't really like those either; so I'm gonna try out the G2 coated on the toms this time around.

Snare is 90 batter / 75 reso
Toms are 73 batter / 73 reso
Kick is 75 batter / 80 reso


My drum kit is a new ddrum basswood 5 piece with Gibralter Avenger II pedals, I have 2 more toms but I really don't need them now(4 extra heads, 2 more mics, 2 more cables..).

I have pretty entry level cymbals as well, but its not like I have the best of mics either, plus I've spent over $3,500 for a full drum kit plus studio gear so my budget isn't to hot (as in I'm broke; but I will order new heads, I'm not that cheap).

My planned heads for this project are:

Snare - HD Genera Dry / Hazy 300
Toms - G2 Coated / Genera Resonant
Kick - eMad / ReMad

 

[mva801]

I really dislike evans heads besides maybe the g2 clears on toms. I'd go with Remo clear emperors on toms, coated ambassador on snare with moon gels, and powerstroke 3 on the kick. Just never had much luck with evans. I used to play all evans till i started engineering, now I'm a Remo man for life....

 

[Viral_Tyler]

I really dislike evans heads besides maybe the g2 clears on toms. I'd go with Remo clear emperors on toms, coated ambassador on snare with moon gels, and powerstroke 3 on the kick. Just never had much luck with evans. I used to play all evans till i started engineering, now I'm a Remo man for life....

How come you prefer Remo? I'm just curious because I'm was having a really hard time getting a good tom sound out of either Evans EC2 and Evans Hydraulic through the sm57's the last time I did a session when I was drumming.

What would you use on the resonant sides? I've been playing with Evans for about a year and haven't used anything else, I'm unfamiliar with Remo.

 

[Viral_Tyler]

Hey I found 2 mic pre combo's that I'm interested in, what do you guys think about em?

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/TubeOpto8/

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/OctoPre2/

 

[ZanetheVocalist]

Hey I found 2 mic pre combo's that I'm interested in, what do you guys think about em?

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/TubeOpto8/

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/OctoPre2/

I've checked out your interface and it has 8 phantom powered xlr inputs.
You don't need to get any preamps bro. Preamps are a very subtle thing, mic choices and placement will matter infinitely more. Hell, the weight of sticks you use will matter more than preamps. Your stock preamps are already high quality.
Also, you don't need to mic everything separately. Thats a disaster waiting to happen.
Give each shell its on mic, and a pair of matching condenser overheads.
If you have 2 toms, that will be:
Kick
Snare
Hi tom
Lo tom
Overhead Left
Overhead Right
=6 mics.
If you have 3 toms you could mic that and mic the high hat or use a room mic if you want, although not important.
Regardless 8 inputs is more than enough.

Whats really important as far as gear goes is your mics.
I recommend sm57 on snare. You could use these on toms too, as it really doesn't matter since you're replacing them anyway and dynamic mics have the least bleed problems.
You're gonna want to use a matching pair of condenser mics for the overheads. Anything else will sound weird. Preferably a small diaphragm set but you could use LDCs. I suggest the karmas.
Doesn't matter for kick as it'll be sampled but generally a mic that has an extended low frequency response and is tailored for kick is best.
The D6 should work nicely for that.

 

[Viral_Tyler]

I've checked out your interface and it has 8 phantom powered xlr inputs.
You don't need to get any preamps bro. Preamps are a very subtle thing, mic choices and placement will matter infinitely more. Hell, the weight of sticks you use will matter more than preamps. Your stock preamps are already high quality.
Also, you don't need to mic everything separately. Thats a disaster waiting to happen.
Give each shell its on mic, and a pair of matching condenser overheads.
If you have 2 toms, that will be:
Kick
Snare
Hi tom
Lo tom
Overhead Left
Overhead Right
=6 mics.
If you have 3 toms you could mic that and mic the high hat or use a room mic if you want, although not important.
Regardless 8 inputs is more than enough.

Whats really important as far as gear goes is your mics.
I recommend sm57 on snare. You could use these on toms too, as it really doesn't matter since you're replacing them anyway and dynamic mics have the least bleed problems.
You're gonna want to use a matching pair of condenser mics for the overheads. Anything else will sound weird. Preferably a small diaphragm set but you could use LDCs. I suggest the karmas.
Doesn't matter for kick as it'll be sampled but generally a mic that has an extended low frequency response and is tailored for kick is best.
The D6 should work nicely for that.

Thanks man! I wasn't really sure about the preamps on the us1800, because I got a weird sound from the toms sometimes, but it could be due to poor mic placement since I'm just a novice.

In previous projects..

I've been using the 57's on the snare top and toms, and been using the audix i5 for the snare side of the snare, flipping the phase on the i5. I also try to check for phase issues on the toms while the overheads are on when the toms are being played, I guess this is a good reason to have the toms as flat as possible, and like you said, bigger sticks may make a huge difference. Normally I just use 5A, but I have a couple pairs of 5B, and a couple pairs of Travis Barker sticks, they are similar to 5B I think.

The karma's I've been using as the overheads, I guess I'm just not sure how I'm supposed to mic the kit exactly. Should I be trying to align the cymbals to fit the overheads? I have been doing a spaced pair, measuring with a friend holding out 2 drum sticks sitting on the throne, I'm also trying to keep the overheads flat, as in pointed to the ground(not really sure if it matters).

I've also been using the D6 on the kick, it works awesome for the replacement. I also tried using two vocal mics on a double bass kit, pointing 'em right at the beaters, it worked but sounded awful raw.

So.. I kind of thought about the room mic the other night. The room mic could be mudding up the mix, and it is raising the noise floor. So I may not even need to use one.

So instead of investing all this money in stuff that I don't need..

Would a better investment be, buying some isolation headphones so I can have a friend play the drums so I can hear the mic's while placing the mic's?