Suggestions For A 2 Mic Drum Track

[Suicide_As_Alibi]

Hey guys,

I've just been offered the job of mixing a local band's demo - it's a home recording so it's probably going to be an uphill struggle, but anyways...

My biggest issue is that the drums were only recorded with two mics - I would guess they were set up like overheads, but I don't know for sure yet. So I was wondering if any of you have any suggestions on how I should handle them and what I can actually do to them. They aren't very metal (though they have their moments), so things like the a clicky bass drum aren't important. Are there any tricks to getting the drums to sit well in the mix? And how about fitting the bass guitar and vocals over it, is it any different to normal?

Any help will be greatly appreciated!

Steve

 

[MKS]

Man, that's going to be a tough mixing job.

I have had moderate success with a two mic setup on drums. I set two mics on both sides of the kick drum about 1 foot off the floor pointly slightly upward. It turned out better than expected.

Perhaps you can isolate some of the key hits and trigger them. My guess is you can probably hear everything but the kick if the two mics were overhead.

 

[JeffTD]

Have fun with a multiband compressor.

 

[LSD-Studio]

i've made/heard great recordings with just 3 mics, but it wasn't metal,though .

with 2 mics it really depends on the situation, either spaced pair (stereo) in front of the kit, or i would just put 1 mic into the kick and one above the kit pointing towards the snare but high enough to catch OH etc.

so you won't have stereo but you're gonna capture the most important (kick and snare) very good and oh will be ok also (mono, though).

 

[Suicide_As_Alibi]

Man, that's going to be a tough mixing job.

^This^ is exactly what I didn't want to hear thanks

I'm hoping (read: praying to every god I can name) that they were far enough in front of the kit to pick up the 'thud' of the bass drum - essentially like stereo ambient mics in a tiny room. The guy that actually did the recording seems to think the kit actually sounds okay, and the drum patterns in most of their stuff are pretty simple which I think will help.

I'm thinking I might make several copies of the stereo track, and try to bring out a different area in each (cymbals on one, thuds on another, snaps on another etc), then bussing them and multiband the crap out of that.

If not, I might try programming them in MIDI (or at least the kick) and shifting them to fit (it's only a couple of tracks so it shouldn't be much work).

Ah well, looks like it's going to a loooong process of trial and error to see waht works best

Steve

 

[LSD-Studio]

I'm thinking I might make several copies of the stereo track, and try to bring out a different area in each (cymbals on one, thuds on another, snaps on another etc), then bussing them and multiband the crap out of that.

will probably cause you serious phasing issues.

 

[JeffTD]

Yeah, I'd take one track and use a multiband compressor on it... bring the kick out of the lows, try to get it out of the higher end of things, leave room for cymbals, etc.

 

[Suicide_As_Alibi]

will probably cause you serious phasing issues.

You reckon? I'm talking about band passing an area and concentrating on that, not just gentle eq'ing - so rather than several full copies, there would be several chunks of the spectrum with minimal overlaps. My only concern phase-wise was the the cymbals because they're not so discreetly placed.

Anyways, it was only a last resort idea if normal eq'ing and multiband compression don't do the trick - you can't just write these things off because logic tells you it won't work, you'll never learn anythign that way!

(Just don't quote me on that when it blows up in my face )

Steve

 

[LSD-Studio]

You reckon? I'm talking about band passing an area and concentrating on that, not just gentle eq'ing - so rather than several full copies, there would be several chunks of the spectrum with minimal overlaps. My only concern phase-wise was the the cymbals because they're not so discreetly placed.

where's the difference to a multiband, then?, that's basically wgat a multiband comp does

 

[Mato Barla]

You can try this:

Make som duplicates of tracks. One for kick, one for snare. May be also so for toms. Filter each track with EQ to hear only desired drum (kick or snare) and then use Drumagog or SoundReplacer.

This situation happened to me and I solved it this way. But it will be little bit longer