creating our own ep step by step

hoehlentroll

Member
Mar 15, 2007
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Mannheim, Germany
1. DRUMS
the time has come to record my first ep with real drums. since it's the first try I really need your help here guys. I did my best to contribute to this forum so far, I'm sure someone is giving me something back. blabla. you get the point ;) lol.

Ok first we did the drums. the room situation and the mics we got is kinda fucked up; hope the result is still kinda usable. please give some hints how the sound can be improved. the sound's quite dry to my ears, what parts of the drums would you add some ambience and how?
thanks a lot

http://www.servoserver.de/ep/first_dry_drums.mp3


Update:
2. Guitars

http://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/...ating-our-own-ep-step-step-2.html#post7533632
 
first off, i like the kick drum sound a ton! sounds really punchy and natural. imo you are already off to a good start for a good drum sound. tell us what kind of room you recorded the drums in and what mics you used where so we can point you in some directions for mixing.

off the bat, if you are looking for more ambiance or room sound and you didn't use any room mics, get a good convolution reverb plugin. then download some reverb impulses and load them into the plugin. impulses that would probably work well could be called any of the following; drum room, studio a, or plate. i would say that the snare benefits the most from the ambiance, as well as toms, and you may want to use just a touch on the overheads and kick, if any. hope that helps.
 
thanks a lot. for those diggin it or find it funny to have ;) I have here the samples http://www.servoserver.de/ep/hatchery_kit.rar
We recorded in our rehearsal room. which is basically a rotten cave ;) it has carpet on the walls and floor, on the ceiling there some basotec (I don't the English expression, it's a kind of foam). the kit is in the middle of a longer wall (the room isn't quadratic). the mics were 2 sm58 for overheads and one sure b2.1 on top of snare. the rest is cheapo mic-kit for drums: http://www.thomann.de/gb/t-bone_dc_1000.htm. the bass drum microphone was used for bass and 4th tom (we have two of those microphones). three of the snake wired mics were used for 1st,2nd and 3th tom. the 4th snake wired mic was fucked up already. lol. I think that's all. I tried to set up everything according to the fader guide (thanks ;))
I'm not happy with the kick, dunno

edit: the room size is about 4x5 meters and 2.8 high (13.1x16.4 feet, 9.1 feet high)
 
The snare is definitely going to need some more presence and attack. Mess around with the 2-8khz region to find that attack. Dominion would be a good plug to mess about with too. Does great for adding attack to drums.

And I typically use a healthy amount of verb on the snare, a bit less on the toms. I usually have the verb totally wet and bus it in so I can get that fat room sound without it being overbearing.

With the kick, try taking out some of the muddy low-mids. Somewhere between 250-600hz
 
I still don't hear any reverb on the snare/toms.

Overheads sound somewhat mono, except for the china.

I'd say the kick sounds a little chubby. Shave off some of the low mids.
 
I'd cut around 2-4khz on the cymbals and add 12khz a bit. If you haven't already, cut below 400-500hz on the overhead mics. that should clear things out a bit
 
Much better now. Snare and kick should cut through in a mix very well like that.

You may end up needing to beef up the snare a teeny bit around 250hz, but I'd say try waiting till you have some guitars to see how it sits.

Oh, and overheads can come down some.
 
Less OH, and get some parallel compression on that snare.
Sounding pretty good so far dude.
 
ok I lo and hicut the guitars raised the paralles compression a bit (already had some) and lowerd the OH a tad. I know "modern" production have quite low OH, but I try to keep it up a little bit, though I hate hihat ;) I LOVE cymbals. http://www.servoserver.de/ep/drums_third_guitartest_second.mp3
Do you have strong clippings by the way, cause I have about +6 for the hole production. I tried ultra maximizer to get to 0db, but then it's not loud enough. raising the threshold will only make it sound clipping. long way to go ...
 
ok I lo and hicut the guitars raised the paralles compression a bit (already had some) and lowerd the OH a tad. I know "modern" production have quite low OH, but I try to keep it up a little bit, though I hate hihat ;) I LOVE cymbals. http://www.servoserver.de/ep/drums_third_guitartest_second.mp3
Do you have strong clippings by the way, cause I have about +6 for the hole production. I tried ultra maximizer to get to 0db, but then it's not loud enough. raising the threshold will only make it sound clipping. long way to go ...

It's sounding better man. Something about that snare I'm still not digging. It sounds consistent and punchy enough.
A bit too roomy though? How's the snare track when soloed? Distant? In your face? Details bro ;)