Recording drums friday... tips?

[DeviusMetal]

Hello everybody, the drummer of my band is going into the studio soon and i could use some tips and advice.

We are after Gojira, Oceano, Whitechapel drum sound...

I need advice on how to sample the toms and snare to use it later in combination with other samples to replace the hits (but leaving the ghost notes and little dynamics rolls).

Also tips on how to mic the kit (for deathmetal)... how you mic the cymbals? i heard it is different as the usual 2 OH or at least the OH are closer to the cymbals... or do you mic each cymbal? what mics do you prefer?

Do you mic the toms up and bottom?

Any other advice you could give me i will appreciate it!
Thank you!

 

[rfahey86]

Whatever you do..... just crush the shit out of it with a compressor and you will probably get the sound your looking for.

 

[DeviusMetal]

hahaha if it was that easy....

 

[dale_a_smith]

Hey.

did you read this..

http://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/production-tips/217656-acoustic-drums-metal-guide.html

Loads to get through, but its very very good.

 

[DeviusMetal]

Yes i had readed it... but his approach is more "old school" i wanted more advise for death/extreme metal drums... is a good guide, dont get me wrong!

 

[Sloan]

Pay attention to nasty overtones and subdue them accordingly

 

[DeviusMetal]

nice one... any more? mic placement for cymbals?

 

[-Noodles-]

If I am feeling like I want to go crazy and not use samples;

Kick-in (beta 52)
Kick-out (LDC of some sort)
Snare-T (57)
Snare-B (57)
Snare-side (SE2200)
Hats (AT2031)
Tom1-t (421)
Tom1-b (57)
Tom2-t (421)
tom2-b (57)
etc
Ride (AT2031)
OHL (SE2200 or Neumann pencil)
OHR (Se200 or Neumann pencil)
Any spot mics with LDC or pencil.. about 12" from cymbal. Sometimes under mic'd depending on position.

Room stereo - binaural mics

 

[crillemannen]

If you are gonna spot mic the cymbals, place the mic about 30-40 cm to the left or right from the cymbals center. Can take away alot of the harshness.

 

[KHE]

some things i`ve learned after my last drum-recording-session
- make the drums sound kick-ass in the room before you mic the kit. new skins, good tuning, good cymbals, no ratteling hardware ect.
- listen for bleed-problems on the shell-mics!
- check for phase-problems
- check the tuning of the shells after every few hours of tracking and re-tune if necessary
- if you use room-mics, i would sugest you to isolate the kick-drum with some blankets/broadbandabsorbers. (on fast kick-parts i had to edit the kick seperatly, and now my room-mics are pretty useless)

moste important lesson i`ve learnd:
better spend 1 or 2 hours more with the set-up of the drumkit than countless hours of editing-work / polishing a turd...
the sound of the source and a good drummer is the most important part!

cheers!

 

[Damage, Inc.]

moste important lesson i`ve learnd:
better spend 1 or 2 hours more with the set-up of the drumkit than countless hours of editing-work / polishing a turd...
the sound of the source and a good drummer is the most important part!

cheers!

+10000

Record it the way you want it to sound, and you are most of the way there already. If you have the means, put triggers on all the drums, that way it's really easy to gate or add samples if you need to.

 

[OneDaySky]

A simple thing to remember....secure them mic stands so they don't move or fall over! Boom parallel with a leg and/or some weights.

 

[DeviusMetal]

Great advice, thanks!

 

[Sloan]

put some weights on them stands n shit

 

[AEL89]

How much experience do you have recording drums? If its not a lot then I'd say program your drums then play cymbals. 3 overheads, hat and ride will be enough - probably even for large setups.

If you don't have experience, your source will be shit, your editing won't be up to scratch and you'll be thinking "I wish I'd programmed these fucking drums".

If you know how to tune a kit perfectly, you have loads of great mics, great mic amps and ideally some compressors available (as well as a great sounding kit with new heads) and an amazing drummer - then go for it.

You probably won't get anywhere near the sounds your aiming for without very heavy sample replacement anyway. If you're careful with fucking around with your midi you can get a really great sound anyway!

All the best with it though, post your drum mix when its done!

 

[Kessler_Audio]

Quick one that worked for me when i was engineering my band. We used an ORTF mic pattern behind the drummer and a standard A-B overhead pattern. With the ORTF you want to EQ it and Compress it, don't crush it but make it push in time with the snare. Also push them down in the mix and use the A-B overheads as your main sound. The ORTF will pump up the drums by quite a bit.

 

[KHE]

How much experience do you have recording drums? If its not a lot then I'd say program your drums then play cymbals.

imho the wrong approach. how should you become better and gather experience if you choose the "easy way"? sure, the end-result may doesen`t sound as "good" and "clear" if he track real drums for the first few times. but over time, you will become better, because you learn all these little things the hard way (reading and learning the on the internet is nice, but practise-it is a complet different story!)

i`m a newbie at recording, and doing my first record at the moment (real human-players ). i did so much worng but learned soo much. these experiences are unpayable.

but thats just my opinion.

cheers!

ps. sorry for the bad english

 

[Trevoire520]

How much experience do you have recording drums? If its not a lot then I'd say program your drums then play cymbals. 3 overheads, hat and ride will be enough - probably even for large setups.

If you don't have experience, your source will be shit, your editing won't be up to scratch and you'll be thinking "I wish I'd programmed these fucking drums".

If you know how to tune a kit perfectly, you have loads of great mics, great mic amps and ideally some compressors available (as well as a great sounding kit with new heads) and an amazing drummer - then go for it.

You probably won't get anywhere near the sounds your aiming for without very heavy sample replacement anyway. If you're careful with fucking around with your midi you can get a really great sound anyway!

All the best with it though, post your drum mix when its done!

Though in a sense you're right, you won't get any better at tuning/micing and generally recording drums if you just choose to program them every time due to lack of experience.

 

[DeviusMetal]

Thanks everyone, yes i have some previous experience with acoustic drum recording... I think its better to learn and gather experience rather than get stuck with fake drums because "you dont have experience"

Anyway, we have started today seting up everything, we are using 2 57 on the snare, 421 on toms, sm81 on hihat and ride, and the OH are AKG C414 XLII.
The pres are avalon, api and universal sound... i dont recall the models and there was another unit also, something like channel... dont remember, tomorrow i check it out and tell you.

We tune the drums and had to tape a little the skins of the toms to make them more "dry" with less sustain.

Had some problems with one of the two triggers on the kickdrums, but it was solved by replacing the damaged unit.

PD: i have to say that this is not a home recording, we are in a pretty nice studio here and working with a good engineer, i am the guitarist of the band and aficionado to recording, but this guy really knows what he is doing.

 

[DeviusMetal]

Drums came out really nice! soon i will post a clip...

Now its time to edit the tracks... and a question rises: How do you mix blast beats? the fast ones where the volume drops a lot... our snare cannot be entirely triggered by the way because there are many dynamics going on that cannot be supressed...