Help me with real drums... eventually you'll get some killer samples :)

Morgan C

Morgan C

MAX LOUD PRESETS¯\(°_o)/¯
Apr 23, 2008
3,672
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Sydney, Australia
www.myspace.com
Right so I'm finally getting into the live drums. Room isn't great, and I'm considering building a semi-sound-proofed, decent room to track in. Its a garage.

Anyway, I was wondering if you guys could help me with my mic'ing techniques. Of course, at the end I'll hopefully be able to upload a bunch of awesome samples.

I'm using:
Pearl Brass Freefloater Snare, 14" (SM57)
Export Drums (Beta52 on kick, thats all for now)
Various (good) cymbals.

Unfortunately most of the heads are pretty old.. I/ll get em replaced soonish..

Pics are coming soon, but for now here are some samples: raw and 'mixed'. There aren't any overheads, because, long-story-short, I only have one overhead mic atm. So just focusing on getting my kick and snare top notch.


http://files.getdropbox.com/u/324723/KickRaw.mp3
http://files.getdropbox.com/u/324723/RoomRaw.mp3
http://files.getdropbox.com/u/324723/SnareRaw.mp3
http://files.getdropbox.com/u/324723/Roughly Mixed.mp3


Would appreciate input from anyone who's good/experienced at tracking drums - any advice: drum setup, tuning, heads, mic'ing technique, etc. is very welcome.

I really wanna get my snare sounding better.. its kinda tubby, kinda dull and has a lotta bleed (me trying to move the mic away to make it less dull).
 
Try and move the hi hat a bit further away from the snare to help with the bleed, and if anything move the mic closer if it won't screw the sound. As long as you have an obvious snare transient that is obviously louder than any hi-hat hits, you can just gate it.
 
Yeah thanks for this. Been experimenting with some stuff.. I've noticed I can't really use much parallel compression on my snares like I usually do (even if I sample replace it with the same snare), just straight up compression seems to work better.

Kick could definately be tuned lower. Unfortunately, old-ass skins mean lower tuning = flubby, messy tone. I've found a mild amount of distortion on it, while not making much of a difference solo'd, makes it pop out of the mix really nicely. I'll try get it a little lower tomorrow tho, and play with snare mic positions.

@Xrated
Gating is fine, the problem is that you get hihat/cymbal bleeding whenever the snare is hit. Most of the time its fairly unnoticeable (with vocals and guitars over the top), however.
 
Sounds cool man!
From my experience it takes time ,to develop good drum miking skills but the more you do it the more you'll find what works with the tools you have.
As you have already mentioned good drums with good heads followed by the mics and pre's and most importantly drummer usually yield descent results,but i have encountered it on many occasions when i have left a kit set up overnight and come back the following day and for some reason things do sound different.
Air temperature is a consideration to take into account.
When i track drums i usually leave the air con on so that the room is constantly around 22/24 degree's.
Anyway i feel your excitement and wanted to share my reply.
Keep on at it my friend.
As a final note,i don't have a rule of thumb except to pay attention to phase as best you can.Experiment and have fun.
 
My eyes popped out at your temp setting in the room til I realized you're in Australia and are going by Celsius instead of Fahrenheit! Haha

A good rule of thumb for a snare is to position it pointing completely away from the hi hat, about an inch off the head pointing in towards the attack point of the drum. Do not point it at the rim of the snare ever unless you're for some reason trying to ruin yourself before you start by recreating Lars' tin can snare on whateverthefucktheywerethinkingonStAnger Metallica train wreck that I almost threw myself off a building after hearing.
 
An update:

downtuned the kick as far as it would go. Unmuffled the snare a tiny bit (perhaps too much... need to get some moongel). My Beta52 is spazzing out at high SPLs, need to send it in to get checked.
changed the snare's mic position - closer, and more pointing downward. It's a bit pingy but its got a lot of the highend back. Still a lot of tubbiness and junk around 200-400Hz.

Everythings mono with some verb here. +some samples that I think sound pretty good but I've just mixed them on my new $30 2.1 system... So, they could sound fucking terrible. They remind me of the Paramore Live album.

http://files.getdropbox.com/u/324723/Samples.wav

http://files.getdropbox.com/u/324723/Mixed2.mp3
http://files.getdropbox.com/u/324723/KickRaw2.mp3
http://files.getdropbox.com/u/324723/SnareRaw2.mp3
 
I think the click on the kick is a little too middy. It would sound better if it clicked more around 3-5khz. Are you using a plastic beater? Some sort of click pad?
 
I think the kick sounds a little weak for some reason. What mic/where in the drum are you putting it?



EDIT: Nevermind, totally works well for the mix.
 
llanafreak44 said:
I think the kick sounds a little weak for some reason. What mic/where in the drum are you putting it?



EDIT: Nevermind, totally works well for the mix.
Click to expand...

No please, do say. I have to do quite a bit of work to get it sounding that good. Split highs and lows, some distortion and compression and EQ.

Its a Beta52, just in the reso hole, pointing at the beater. Will put photos up tomorrow.
 
Morgoe said:
No please, do say. I have to do quite a bit of work to get it sounding that good. Split highs and lows, some distortion and compression and EQ.

Its a Beta52, just in the reso hole, pointing at the beater. Will put photos up tomorrow.
Click to expand...

I think it just sounds a little muddy. You should try taking the reso head off and putting it up close to the batter head, pointing down at it to ensure there is no heavy cymbal bleed. It gets more clicker and it's a bit less honky. Are you planning on triggering, or just using a live drum sound? I think it would be interesting to see how a live only sound would go with the mix, I'm kind of getting sick of triggering :loco:
 
llanafreak44 said:
I think it just sounds a little muddy. You should try taking the reso head off and putting it up close to the batter head, pointing down at it to ensure there is no heavy cymbal bleed. It gets more clicker and it's a bit less honky. Are you planning on triggering, or just using a live drum sound? I think it would be interesting to see how a live only sound would go with the mix, I'm kind of getting sick of triggering :loco:
Click to expand...

I used to put the mic right up near the beater but it just doesn't sound very good up there.. Beta52's aren't designed for that I don't think. I'll work at it a bit more :S

Preferably I'm going to use a live-only sound. All my favourite drum sounds are purely live, and I'm also getting pretty sick of triggered/programmed drums.
 
Wow, this sounds really good dude, considering what you've got to work with.

I have never gotten a good kick sound by putting it up against the batter head either. But then again, I have left the reso head on while doing that... maybe it sounds much better without the reso head when putting it so close to the batter head. But the thing is... a microphone is just a tiny dot of shit compared to a kick drum. Putting it up against the batter head would only yield a small portion of the overall kick sound, wouldn't it? Like, all you'd get would be massive attack, a ton of fucking yucky mids and like no lowend beef. That's my experience from it atleast...
 
Erkan said:
Wow, this sounds really good dude, considering what you've got to work with.

I have never gotten a good kick sound by putting it up against the batter head either. But then again, I have left the reso head on while doing that... maybe it sounds much better without the reso head when putting it so close to the batter head. But the thing is... a microphone is just a tiny dot of shit compared to a kick drum. Putting it up against the batter head would only yield a small portion of the overall kick sound, wouldn't it? Like, all you'd get would be massive attack, a ton of fucking yucky mids and like no lowend beef. That's my experience from it atleast...
Click to expand...

How did you put it up to the batter with the reso on? Did you put in on the drummer side? I've never made a hole in my reso, so it always just sounded like s*** up against it, lol. So I've always done it that way because I had no choice, and I liked the results!

Technically, there would be more beef since the proximity effect is going on. :err:
 
Ok here are some pics of the kick mic's position. Its kinda hard to see whats going on though :/ Tips are much appreciated. Ignore the duct-tape-residue and the blue/red thingies, I got it 2nd hand and it was missing the rubber thingie that makes it hold in place.
IMG_4528.JPG

IMG_4527.JPG


Both skins are literally tuned finger tight. The first clip, the reso was about fingertight, the batter about 1 turn up from fingertight. Old heads = looser :(
 
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