advice on drum recording needed! :-)

[bosone]

Hello to everyone...
With my band (No Direction i play italian rock-melodic hardcore (with some punk,metal, ska influence...). We are about to start to record our second album, and i will handle all the recording session and production. probably in december we will start, and in these week we have time to test the drum recording and to optimize the sound.

Our instruments are the following
kick: akg D112
Snare, 2 toms: shure SM57
2 floor toms: mics for rent... still to be decided!
overhead: samson C01

then we have 2 condenser mics: behringer C1 and a roytek CM200WB.
For this first test, i used the behringer on the hat, and i didnt used the roytek, but i think that was a big mistake!
The drummer brought a small voice-clip mic, and at the end of the session we mounted it in front of the kick beater. It's not so good, but it was just a try...
Next week i will use the Roytek on the hat and the behringer on the kick beater

For the PC interconnection, we have a Roland ME16 mixer with direct out that come to a Fostex VC8, are converted in ADAT and finally arrive to a cramware Pulsar (24 bit, but in the foloowing files they are dithered to 16 bits)
In the future i will bring a presonus tubepre, and i plan to use it either on the kick or on the snare... which one is the best??? ^_^ )

Some photos of my setup:
PHOTOS


In order to optimize the sound, the drummer worked also on the skin tension, and he achieved a sound that better suited his tastes by loosing a bit the kick front skin.. in order to get a bit more "tail".
In the following files the drummer first plays all the pieces of the drumset (kik, snare,hat, cymbals, a single tom) and then improvises a bit.
I prepared a mix where i only putted some gate on kik, snare, tom and rolled off the bass frequences on the hat and overhead, nothing else.
then, i have the single tracks in mp3 or in wav. they begin all at the same point, you should be able to load them in the seqeucner without problems...

MIX mp3
MIX wave
Tracks mp3
Tracks Wave


The tracks are: kik, snare, kik beater, hat, 1 tom, overhead L, overhead R.

I hope that someone has the some time to listen to them and give us some hints!!

I mostly dislike the sound of the hat and, obviously, the beater... i hope to get better results with the roytek and the behringer on the beater.
regarding hat mic position... i feel that it's correct... what do you think?

On next weekend we will return to our reharsal room and we will made all the corrections according to your suggestions... then we will start!!!

[garyb]

it all sounds pretty good. it really depends on what sound you want....

one thing is that, unless your drummer is left handed, the highhat seems to be panned to the wrong side, at least on the mp3...or maybe the point of veiw is from behind the set.

i would get a pair of pencil-type condensor mics and put them about head hieght or so, pointed towards the drumset in the best sounding spot in the room. arrange the mics so that the heads are about 45 degrees to each other as close together as possible without touching. this will give you the drumset in stereo with the best mix in the room. you can then use the other mics to help add definition. you probably won't need the overheads, but you might want the toms, kick and hihat/snare(could possibly be the same mic). simpler is generally better, easier to balance and has less chances of phase cancellation, but micing each component will give a sound with more presence and detail.

actually, i see in one picture that you have a pair of overheads kinda like this, but they are pointed awy from each other at a 45 degree angle instead of towards each other, this is backwards and makes a stereo image with a hole in the middle. if those mics were much further back from the kit, they would get a nice recording. most classic rock recordings were stereo miced drums, sometimes miced from down the hall in mono even.

[katano]

have a look at the sae reference section, some good starting points:

http://www.saecollege.de/reference_material/index.html
http://www.saecollege.de/reference_mate ... cement.htm

i think the recording you did is a good starting point to work with. i'd consider not to pan the hats fully left or right, same with the overheads. as mentioned above, i'd try another placement for the overheads...

in most cases, there's no need for a beater mic on the bassdrum if you place the one inside right (just my exp.). put it towards the beater skin will give you more attack, and the opposite will give you more boom...

consider to gate bassdrum, snare and toms. lowest attack time on the bassdrum and or snare will give you a nice click sound, if wanted...

greez
Roman

[tgstgs]

there seems wrong position of the BD mic!
you can hear SD over it to loud;
shoud be like you hear BD over SD mic;
for me BD is muffled (gedämpft) to much maybe you cut the high frequencies?
overhead: i would like to hear cymbals for mean but i hear all other louder;
-----------------
i would record drum for at least with 8 mics! or lets say 1 mic for 1 instrument;
for a better postprocedures separation;
-----------------
better 2 bad mics for 2 instruments than 1 good mic for 2 instruments;
----------------
if you rec with 1 stereo mic as told aboth you have to final the sound live;
postprocedures or afterwardstweaking is very limitted;
----------------
for scope i like the vinco mono one for each BD SD hat;
----------------
if you can rent or borow mics i would take c414 akg i like them a lot very flexibel;

thats all just my taste you asked for it so dont be angry

good vibes from vienna

[wayne]

I've been getting musical results by facing the kit into a corner and sticking a large diaphragm condenser over the top

Useless comment, i'm sorry

[ChrisWerner]

I´ll put some things together, from that I hope it can help you.

Take care that the drummer tunes his drum kit, you will have less work later to eq bad resonances. Also watch for unwanted noise from the foot machine of the kick and hihat.

You can decide to record the room with additional microfones if the sound of your room fits to what you want.
Two small condensers for a stereo recording and mix these tracks to your close micing tracks.
You can choose between some methodes.

X/Y, two equal small condenser mics, kidney, with their capsules spoted on the same place.
The on axis of the mics faces the middle of each side of your drum kit.
The dihedral angle is 105 degree. For the distances of the mics,
the ratio of x to y is 3 to 1, for example, if your drum kit is 3 meters wide your mics stand 1 meters away from it. Pan the left mic to left and the right one to right of course.

A/B, the same mics max. 1.5 meters distance between each mic.
On axis is direct to your drum kit 90 degree.
Same distance away from the drums as in X/Y.
You can support the side mics with an additional mic for the mid to avoid a hole in the mid. Just level the mid mic till the hole dissapears.
Pan is like the mic positions.
The mics must stand on the same line otherwise you´ll get running time problems very quick, means sound discolorations.

Best would be a M/S stereo micing.

A small codenser with an eight for the side signal and a second with a sphere or whatever for the mid signal.
Turn the eight mic 180 degree towards the mid mic, so that they both are one upon the other without touching.
When you look over the mics to the drum kit the positive side of the eight shoud be left.
Place both mics in the middle of the drum kit, same distance ratio.

You can record the mics on single tracks(mid pan) and decode the side and mid signal later in your mixdown.

In the mixdown, level your mid mic track (ch1) as usual and mute it.
Mirror the side mic (ch2) to a second track, output from (ch2) to input of (ch3) and invert the phase on the mirrored track, stay on mid pan, first.

Turn the level of ch2 up and put ch3 to unity gain.
Now try to adjust the input gain of ch3 till you reach a complete cancelation of ch2 with ch3.

Once you reached a complete cancelation turn ch2 pan to left and ch3 to right. Then never touch channel 3 again, you mix ch3 with channel 2, too.
And never change the pan of the side tracks again.

Now you should hear a perfect side signal, left and right, turn up ch1 for the mid till you are satisfied.
M/S is frequency stable, a better picture of the mid, and simply sounds better than X/Y or A/B.

For the close micing:

Bass Drum

Mic positions, inside from the middle 3cm to the right.
You can try to vary the distance of the mic inside the drum, more attack or more sound from the kettle, or two mics and mix both together.
Don´t start to tape something on your BD it will kill the sound.
Don´t put a whole quilt into the kettle just a small blanket is enough, it must fit closely to the skin to dull the overtones.
You can use a brick to fix the blanket, also this will give you a higher inertia, sounds more dry.

A third mic position can be in front of the BD, for natural, Jazz and a forth 0.5 up to 4m away from the BD as support to record the low end boom extra, you have to filter cut the highs of course.

Frequencies of the BD
Overtones at 10 kHz, pressure zone 40 - 250 Hz, Kick at 2.5 to 4.5 kHz.
That´s all only a small guide of course to get you started.
You have to find the sweet spot of each instrument for yourself, move the mics a bit here and there, mm or cm for cm. (phasing). Take care of your hearing when you do that, headphones!

In general, record everything first and start to edit in the mixdown only, if you kill something before the recording it´s lost.

Mics
the D112 (the eye) is a good one for a Zeppelin style.
the predeccesor, the D12 E sounds more like Beatles, Vintage, Jazzy

These times the Shure Beta 52 is well used, with a deep low bas sound, bad on the highs and a weakness around 7-8 kHz.

A small tip, the Sennheiser E602, much low bass a good kick

Snare:

position, left edge go 5cm up and 5cm in. Same for the toms.
To dull the snare you can use GAFA formed to a small stamp just 2 cm wide and paste it on the overtone zone.
To record more skin sound you can use a second mic from the bottom, don´t aim for the carpet, a bit beside it. Set a low cut on the bottom mic to kill the BD.

Mics

SM57 or Beta 98 or Sennheiser E903 also MD 421 or MD 441 are a good choice.

Toms:

Same as the snare but the MD 421 is mostly used for micing.
Other mics can be the Sennheiser E604 or E 904.
Clip mics are not so good because they transport the noise from the rack, use mic stands.

Overheads:
Condenser mics, Shure KSM 44 or better small condensers like the AKG C451, Schoeps CMC5

As for the HiHat position, face it more towards the Hihat from the top not from the side only, but that all depends on what sound you want.

For the overheads you can use a A/B or X/Y as Gary already said or as it is shown on the SAE links.

Finaly, trust your ears and use as many mics as possible but only as many mics as necessary.

Good luck.

[Gordon Gekko]

wayne, i just spilled beer through my nose

bosone i don't have anything intelligent to add, but the night before you start recording, read this. It's a compilation of some of the stuff late Steve Gursky posted on prosoundweb.com. This guy lived the sound engineer experience and was cool enough to give all his knowledge to anyone interested, check it out here:

http://marsh.prosoundweb.com/index.php/t/13254/