Recording Process Advice (Real Drums)

[Bob Gren]

Hello recording gurus!

Bit of a recording noob here looking for advice

I am in the process of recording an album and have just finished tracking drums at home. I have a few questions regarding the order in which to continue and how you guys would approach the situation.

Here's one track, scratch guitars and vocals, no bass and not yet mixed:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/52806001/Ode to the sea 14 07 14.mp3

These are the very raw drums recorded without any performance edits or any processing.

Ideally I'd like to have the drums sounding as natural as possible.

Would you guys edit the drums at all in this situation? I have a hard time imagining a tighter human performance and am reluctant to alter what has been played.

This is my first time working with real drums and my mind still cannot "see" what difference processing drums will make to the overall sound. Is this an acceptable raw sound or will we need lots of sample replacement? The snare sounds good to my ears but the kick is a bit woofy. Will clever EQ fix that?

Finally, do you guys start by getting a good drum sound and then tailor the rest of the tones around it or do you just track everything and then mix together? Should I worry about mixing later and track first or just get each element sounding good as I go?

Any insight appreciated

 

[inertia]

INteresting question! Personally, I think your drums sound pretty good but they obviously need further processing. I would definitely be inclined to try at the very minimum a kick replacement using Drumagog or Trigger or whatever program you can get your hands on. You are right about the snare, it sounds good but again, I would also be inclined to at least try. I think your overheads sound good but I would also retriggering the toms in this instance. At the very least, see if you get it working and blend the samples with your original sounds. I think EQ might fix your kick but I would definitely try triggering.

In my mind, replacing drum samples is purely about the sound, not to get a tighter performance.

 

[Bob Gren]

Cheers for the input mate!

Thankfully we had the idea of sampling the whole kit so I will definitely give that a try

I don't have the session files just yet, so far I'm only making a checklist of things to try and get a proper workflow in place for when I do get them, enough time has already been wasted trying to get a real drummer to play the parts haha.

 

[bryan_kilco]

Not bad, but blending some samples would make it sound way bigger.

I always shoot to get my drums sounding huge with processing before recording anything else, to sort of give the rest of the members a bigger feel and an overall better mix to track to.

 

[inertia]

Cheers for the input mate!

Thankfully we had the idea of sampling the whole kit so I will definitely give that a try

I don't have the session files just yet, so far I'm only making a checklist of things to try and get a proper workflow in place for when I do get them, enough time has already been wasted trying to get a real drummer to play the parts haha.

I think using another kits samples would be more beneficial but it depends of course how your samples sound of the same kit.

 

[xplanet2112]

Speaking as some one who has been balls deep in editing drums recently I can say that this drummer's performance is excellent.

Personally, I wouldn't edit 99.9% of it but to my ears there may've been the one or two places in the mellow part from 4:00 where some of the double kick work sounds a bit awkward.

Kick replacement seems standard practice and I would give this serious consideration.

Did you record this to a click track? Do you have a tempo map so that you can correctly make edits if need be?

Excellent work by the way, reminds me of the first four Opeth albums, especially "Still Life".

 

[Bob Gren]

Bryan_kilco: Yeah I see what you mean, I could see having big epic bombastic drums being more inspiring than someone hitting on pots and pans. I'll definitely track once the drums are all how they're supposed to be. Kind of like tracking with just a DI as opposed with amp/sim when I come to think about it, makes sense

Inertia: What I meant was I could use the actual kits samples as a base to then improve upon with other samples where it's lacking. Bear in mind I've never done this so my understanding might be flawed, but I thought that it was good using the original samples as a base, that way it doesn't get awkward once the overheads meet the new improved shell. Do you usually replace the kick completely and try to get rid of the "old" one by eqing it out of the overheads?

I hope it doesn't have to come to that as the drummer is very tight and I would hate to replace his awesome double kick skills...

xplanet: Yeah thanks for confirming my thoughts! Recording with that guy has been a blast. I see what you mean for the slow parts. Now... in your opinion, is the "awkwardness" big enough to warrant edits, or could it be seen more as a "nice it's a real drummer actually playing" kind of feeling?
And big thanks for the kind words, I've loved Opeth for the longest time, Still Life being my favorite . I didn't mean for the album to turn out like that but I guess there are worst things to be influenced by!

You'll have to excuse all the questions but I've been at this by myself for so long that I've lost all perspective and it's nice to get 2nd opinions, so thanks guys!

 

[xplanet2112]

Good question, for you it may be the feel you're after but personally I would edit those quick kicks in those sections. Sometimes I find just getting rid of one kick during a fast burst is more natural than actually trying to edit what's there... And when I mean get rid of a kick what I'm saying is not triggering or inputting by hand a kick in that place. I like to input kicks and snare by hand (I like to punish myself) so my replacement technique my be different to other people.

I'm not surprised it was a great experience recording that guy, did you do it in sections? Use a prepared click synced to a tempo map etc? (Is this like asking your mate who smashed some fit woman's box in what it was like lol?)

I'd be careful uploading quality tracks like this, you'll have all this mix whores asking for raws, and I wouldn't blame them speaking as a recovering mix whore!

 

[ccc187307]

Whatcha got against mix whores? Haaa!

 

[slo77y]

if those drum takes are unedited, kudos to the guy. really good playing.

 

[Deathmetal616]

Awesome!
Go and edit everything that needs it. Listen through and correct those parts, you feel are a bit off and you are good to go.
To have a better point of view go and alter the sounds (especially the kick) so they sound more like the finished product,
then you will hear where the problems are, easier.

raws would always be awesome with real drums, haha!

 

[Bob Gren]

Xplanet - Yeah it was tracked to a tempo mapped click track, recorded in sections. It took us about one hour for 2.5 mins of music to be tracked, not bad considering that he hadn't practised any of the patterns. However he had it all written in sheet music and was just reading along as we recorded. We spent about 30 hours setting up and tracking total. So yeah a pretty fantastic experience mate!

slo77y - Yep that's entirely unedited and yeah that guy is insane... We felt forced to film most of the final takes with a gopro because we knew that no one would believe us haha! Which is why I'm slightly reluctant to edit you know, it feels like the playing is tight enough, even with todays ridiculous standards.

Deathmetal - I know what you mean, I finally got the tracks over the weekend and am in the process of scrutinizing every second. Even a bit of EQ on the kick works wonders

For all of you mixwhores asking for raws I'd gladly feed the addiction - do you want just the drums or vocals DIs and shit too? How to share more than 2gb of files on the intrawebz?

Once again thanks for the input.

 

[inertia]

Inertia: What I meant was I could use the actual kits samples as a base to then improve upon with other samples where it's lacking. Bear in mind I've never done this so my understanding might be flawed, but I thought that it was good using the original samples as a base, that way it doesn't get awkward once the overheads meet the new improved shell. Do you usually replace the kick completely and try to get rid of the "old" one by eqing it out of the overheads?

I hope it doesn't have to come to that as the drummer is very tight and I would hate to replace his awesome double kick skills...

Personally, i've never used kit samples from the same kit as the recording. But there is no rule. Do what sounds good. If I replace kick and snare it's because I want a different sound , usually. Usually, I blend them though so i dont need to worry too much about the kick bleed in other channels.

Try your ideas and see what works for you.