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Post by Guitar on Apr 11, 2017 16:48:12 GMT -6
For the past week or two, I've been woodshedding on my drum sounds, and playing. More than anything like songwriting. Just playing a lot, and getting sounds, with no goal in mind other than that. It's actually kind of nice to just focus on playing and sounds. In a way, songwriting all the time can actually distract from that part of it. For overheads I was using some modified CAD $25 chinese SDC microphones and svart and drbill were totally right, don't waste your time with dirt cheap condensers, even with the noble upgrade path. Today I had a moment of realization that my drums just weren't sounding very good on disc, so I put in some work. I changed my overhead pair to some KSM137 and immediately I got a much more clear and cohesive picture of the kit. Without the loss of low end and smearing in the highs. The overhead mics in particular, I realized, are creating about 80% of my drum sound, even with close mics and room mics. The CAD and MXL mics just give too much peak on the cymbals, no matter what else you're doing down the line. I also realized the blumlein ribbon pair was not working in front of the kit, it was too close. The image was putting the snare in weird places no matter how much I fiddled with it. Moving back to the old standard, widely spaced AB pair for the room mics gave me a much wider and more relaxed picture of the kit. The XY SDC overheads don't give much sense of room or low end, so these ribbons out front are another big element in the total drum sound. They sort of work together as a pair of pairs to give the main sound. You could just use either one, but the combination of both pairs has generally been most ideal. After all this work, I realize the drums themselves still need some work. I changed a painfully bright 22" Zildjian Ping Ride to a K Custom Organic Ride and that really tamed a lot of the brightness of the kit. Now the 14" New Beat hi-hats are the brightest thing on the kit. I am thinking that some 15" hats might be the ticket to tame this last treble demon. Either A or K Zildjians, still not sure yet. But the mics can only do so much after what is in front of them. One "Pro Tip" that I can give is the Kush Omega Transformer plugins. For $29 you can give your super clean transparent mic pres the taste of either Neve, API, or Altec tube preamp flavor. I use the Apollo preamps and some Yamaha MLA-8 preamps for the basic capture, and then I put in the Omega A on the bus and suddenly, it sounds very much like I recored with a bunch of API preamps. You know, $7,000 worth give or take, for my 10 channels. I am a huge fan of one-knob plugins like these, and I would say that the Kush Omega series is the real deal, and smartly priced. Much cheaper than the UAD or even Slate options. A little goes a long way, and I can get this sense of excitement going that I don't want to turn off once I hear it. The N plugin is quite dark and bassy, and the A plugin is very punchy and bright. Haven't tried the Altec yet. The A is my quick favorite on drums. I guess there's no way around it, my wide open toms and snares need gating or editing. The sympathetic ring between drums can get out of hand quickly. I find that the stock Cubase gate plugin works quite well as a quick fix. In the mix, some SSL channel EQ can get the rest of the sound on individual tracks. Still experimenting with drum compression. Some of my best results have been treating the drum bus as a whole. But I have also gotten some exciting sounds with my DBX and Symetrix compressors on individual drums. So one of my questions to the forum would be, how do you like to treat drum close mic tracks vs drum bus tracks? I'm still feeling this one out. Also I really admire the drum experts out there. To me this is one of the most challenging areas of music. When the drums are banging everybody gets excited. |
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Post by drbill on Apr 11, 2017 17:15:13 GMT -6
70-80% of my drum sound comes from the OH mics (usually Gefell UM70/71's) and the front resonant head kick mic (UM70, fig 8). Beyond that, the rest of the close mics are just for balance and occasional punch. That said, I'm generally headed towards natural sounding drums. In other words, not very modern CLA style.
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Post by Guitar on Apr 11, 2017 17:37:38 GMT -6
70-80% of my drum sound comes from the OH mics (usually Gefell UM70/71's) and the front resonant head kick mic (UM70, fig 8). Beyond that, the rest of the close mics are just for balance and occasional punch. That said, I'm generally headed towards natural sounding drums. In other words, not very modern CLA style. Yes indeed! There seems to be a few different schools of more or less processed drum sounds. I find myself leaning in the natural direction also. One of the things I fight with is more or less saturation. Sometimes to the point of distortion, or turning back toward a cleaner sound. Compression also can feel that way when over applied. I guess those things head in the less natural direction. I am amazed at how clean or dirty different drums sound on various albums I listen to. None of them particularly sound in any way like what it feels like in the room with a live drum set. I guess translating that many instruments and that much dynamic range to a listener requires a huge amount of tomfoolery. |
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Post by ragan on Apr 11, 2017 17:49:23 GMT -6
That said, I'm generally headed towards natural sounding drums. In other words, not very modern CLA style. What, you don't roll with a default 12 db snare boost at 8k? |
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Post by drbill on Apr 11, 2017 20:35:09 GMT -6
LOL Not usually.  |
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Post by illacov on Apr 11, 2017 21:42:22 GMT -6
Try some of the tips I recommended in the thread about snare sounds.
Use some copper flashing on the back of some Gorilla tape inside the hi hats near the bell. It will not only choke the cymbals tail a bit it will also lower the volume of the hig hat. Do this for all the cymbals, move the tape around til you get a sweet spot, the closer to the edge of the cymbal you get the quieter it will become.
Same trick works for toms, snare top, snare bottom. Smaller pieces of flashing are recommended here.
For kick, front head, no head, kick tunnel, no tunnel, pillow inside, cinderblock inside, won't matter if your tuning is not on point. I can without a doubt attest to tuning (in context of your room) being the biggest pair of handcuffs to getting great drum sounds. Watch every damn video you can, master it or as best you can. Get seriously good at tuning.
Overheads over a long part of my time were like the kit image array for me. Over recent times, I've completely abandoned them in favor of miking cymbals directly or indirectly. I tend to leave the overheads (when I do set up some overheads) lower in the mix than I used to, relying heavily on the spot mics to develop the front perspective of the kit and letting the room mics offer some fill and bass/body with the overheads being the treble band for that same information. It helps especially if you're stuck with brighter cymbals.
BTW if you haven't get very very familiar with the used UFIP and bonzo Italian cymbals that are on the used market. They go pretty cheap compared to the classic Z and S brand stuff. Typically darker sounding, very smokey and they record really well.
Regarding your hi hats, try using two top hats if you have a second pair of hats that are the same size. Its a jazz thing, that coupled with the copper flashing helps a metric ton. Switching to 15"s is definitely a cool method, but its a major change going from 14" to 15" hats especially on open or slightly parted hi hat stuff. Stylistically it may or may not fit you. I use whatever the record calls for and I keep a nice collection of crappy on their own (but sweet when combined as hi hats) cymbals.
Try those ribbons down the diagonal spine of the kit (draw a line down the snare and the kick drum where they intersect and treat that as the middle of the kit, it looks bizarre but it works really well) and place them a bit closer to the floor. See if you collect more bass and less brash top end from the cymbals.
Thanks
-L.
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Post by johneppstein on Apr 12, 2017 0:22:08 GMT -6
70-80% of my drum sound comes from the OH mics (usually Gefell UM70/71's) and the front resonant head kick mic (UM70, fig 8). Beyond that, the rest of the close mics are just for balance and occasional punch. That said, I'm generally headed towards natural sounding drums. In other words, not very modern CLA style. I pretty much agree with this, except that instead of overheads I'm using a front of kit and (floor tom) side of kit. No close mics on the toms at all. No overheads per se. No hat mic, either, don't need it, the KM84 on the snare gets just the right amount of hat. And yes, I'm going for a more natural drum sound. Front and side mics are Pearlman TM-1 tube mics. Using front and side mics instead of conventional overheads gives a better balance between drums and cymbals without having to do extra fooling around. Using fewer mics reduces problems with phase interference. |
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Post by rowmat on Apr 12, 2017 15:40:41 GMT -6
That said, I'm generally headed towards natural sounding drums. In other words, not very modern CLA style. What, you don't roll with a default 12 db snare boost at 8k? Don't you mean 21 db?  |
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Post by Guitar on Apr 12, 2017 15:42:58 GMT -6
My UAD SSL maxes out at +15, hahaha.
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Post by rowmat on Apr 12, 2017 15:59:02 GMT -6
My UAD SSL maxes out at +15, hahaha. CLA's SSL doesn't! |
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Post by Guitar on Apr 12, 2017 16:31:06 GMT -6
My UAD SSL maxes out at +15, hahaha. CLA's SSL doesn't! Yeah I got this philosophy of mixing, plugins especially. All the way up or all the way down--it's all or nothing. It's a winner's game. |
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Post by jazznoise on Apr 14, 2017 12:25:50 GMT -6
I'm probably on the more elaborate end. My current setup is a spaced pair of ribbon overheads over the kit, an M/S set up out in front of the kit and then possibly a spaced pair of omnis if I need more ambiance + the usual spot mics. That said, the room I work in is big so I really play into the ambiance of the room rather than fight it. If I wanted it drier I'd lower the overheads and then try and use some baffling, maybe, but positioning does a lot of the work really. If you've never read about it, concepts like critical distance are useful to learn on your room. Depending on the space you might have pure reflections by the time you're 3 feet away, or not until you're in the corner farthest, at which point the reflections are just different. I think that's important to understand. Have you tried to do something with the room itself? I assume it's a modest sized space? I don't mean dampening, I mean experimenting with ventilating the room by opening doors or windows if you find the small room reflections + bass response are annoying you. Boundary mics can be a great way around comb filtering effects and don't require adding dampening that will dull the tonal quality of the room. Here's a clip from a recent enough live session. I had the overheads fairly low, as some songs needed to be quite dry, but some of the other stuff really did need a room-y vibe. What you'll hear is close mics + OHs, close mics + MS pair and then close mics + spaced pair and then the balance I used for the song. This one is a fairly Sonic Youth vibey one and so I went for a drier sound. Drummer was 17 and her kit hadn't seen new skins since she got it, I imagine, but I tuned it up alright. The processing is too tame to mention - some EQ, some delaying of the ambiance mics and a few dB of compression on the spot mics. Oh there's an instance of Ferric TDS on the drum bus doing some tape saturation too. www.dropbox.com/s/a806o9rq31lr3f9/Drum%20Sounds.mp3?dl=0 |
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Post by Guitar on Apr 14, 2017 17:16:14 GMT -6
jazznoise that's fascinating stuff. Right now my near/far room mics are just some figure 8 ribbons in 'sort of near' position, kind of doing both roles. Lucky enough the nulls in the patterns are facing some of the near reflection points. I should still read about critical distance, I am sure. I do have a giant sliding glass door facing the high hats, as well as a curtain rod that could potentially take heavy curtains, as well as a dropped ceiling that could potentially take 703 panels that haven't yet been made yet above the kit. The room is medium large and connected to a stair case, I am curious if opening the sliding door would make any difference. The XY overhead pair I have fairly close in, and you are right, it does give a pretty tight sound. The room mics are needed for the ambience and size. Even closely placed, my spaced ribbons are giving quite a large sense of space and width. I guess the room is pretty live. There is no sound treatment yet, but there is possibly some diffusion from the stone wall, and the other walls are wood panels. It sounds, at the very least, better than some drywall rooms I have been in. I have a gut feeling that some curtains and 703 over the top would add some needed tightness to the room. Just to control reflections mainly, I don't think bass trapping is too much a problem. Any time drums get backed into a corner those near surfaces just seem to be a problem to me. Thankfully it's not a painful sounding room, just needs a little finesse. Thanks for sharing that sound clip. I think that final sound you arrived at is quite nice. And it illustrates exactly the kind of subtle nuance that I've been chasing in choosing mic placements and mixing choices down the line.
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Post by Guitar on Apr 14, 2017 17:20:50 GMT -6
70-80% of my drum sound comes from the OH mics (usually Gefell UM70/71's) and the front resonant head kick mic (UM70, fig 8). Beyond that, the rest of the close mics are just for balance and occasional punch. That said, I'm generally headed towards natural sounding drums. In other words, not very modern CLA style. I pretty much agree with this, except that instead of overheads I'm using a front of kit and (floor tom) side of kit. No close mics on the toms at all. No overheads per se. No hat mic, either, don't need it, the KM84 on the snare gets just the right amount of hat. And yes, I'm going for a more natural drum sound. Front and side mics are Pearlman TM-1 tube mics. Using front and side mics instead of conventional overheads gives a better balance between drums and cymbals without having to do extra fooling around. Using fewer mics reduces problems with phase interference. John your stuff sounds great, so I am taking note. That is a placement I have been very fond of in the past ast well, so I'll be sure to keep it in mind. Reminds me a little bit of mr John Bonham's engineer's strategy. I'm messing with close mics right now, but that big open sound is something I am sure I will return to. |
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Post by Guitar on Apr 14, 2017 17:32:48 GMT -6
Try some of the tips I recommended in the thread about snare sounds. Use some copper flashing on the back of some Gorilla tape inside the hi hats near the bell. It will not only choke the cymbals tail a bit it will also lower the volume of the hig hat. Do this for all the cymbals, move the tape around til you get a sweet spot, the closer to the edge of the cymbal you get the quieter it will become. Same trick works for toms, snare top, snare bottom. Smaller pieces of flashing are recommended here. For kick, front head, no head, kick tunnel, no tunnel, pillow inside, cinderblock inside, won't matter if your tuning is not on point. I can without a doubt attest to tuning (in context of your room) being the biggest pair of handcuffs to getting great drum sounds. Watch every damn video you can, master it or as best you can. Get seriously good at tuning. Overheads over a long part of my time were like the kit image array for me. Over recent times, I've completely abandoned them in favor of miking cymbals directly or indirectly. I tend to leave the overheads (when I do set up some overheads) lower in the mix than I used to, relying heavily on the spot mics to develop the front perspective of the kit and letting the room mics offer some fill and bass/body with the overheads being the treble band for that same information. It helps especially if you're stuck with brighter cymbals. BTW if you haven't get very very familiar with the used UFIP and bonzo Italian cymbals that are on the used market. They go pretty cheap compared to the classic Z and S brand stuff. Typically darker sounding, very smokey and they record really well. Regarding your hi hats, try using two top hats if you have a second pair of hats that are the same size. Its a jazz thing, that coupled with the copper flashing helps a metric ton. Switching to 15"s is definitely a cool method, but its a major change going from 14" to 15" hats especially on open or slightly parted hi hat stuff. Stylistically it may or may not fit you. I use whatever the record calls for and I keep a nice collection of crappy on their own (but sweet when combined as hi hats) cymbals. Try those ribbons down the diagonal spine of the kit (draw a line down the snare and the kick drum where they intersect and treat that as the middle of the kit, it looks bizarre but it works really well) and place them a bit closer to the floor. See if you collect more bass and less brash top end from the cymbals. Thanks -L. I have been playing a lot with tuning, and damping lately. All I have right now is a $5 pack of Moongel I bought 8 years ago or some long number, that I still have. I cut them into smaller pieces, thirds. On my big steel drum I just got, the Taylor Hawkins, I realized I needed 4 pieces all around the top head just to stop this buddhist bowl type of high pitched ring or whine that I was getting. As well, my floor tom is so live and resonant, it needed another 4 pieces of gel to stop the sympathetic sustain. The high tom is almost as bad, but not quite. I also realized some noise was coming from my hi hat stand, and I addressed that again. Regarding the hi hats, depending on the mic choice it's more or less bright in the recording. I think my main problem is that behind the drums, in the room, it still sounds quite bright so that I am considering larger sizes or darker types of hats. I think the 14" New Beats will always have a place, maybe paired with a brighter ride. But I would also like to have a darker option to pair with my darker hammered K custom ride cymbal. A couple of my favorite drummers are using 15" inch hats, so I feel pretty safe in going in that direction. It's fascinating to me the different sound at the kit, in front of the kit, and then in the mics. I will even have my brother come down to smash on the kit just so I can stand back and hear it in the room from some distance. It's a startling enterprise trying to get great drum sounds, I haven't quite hit the bull's eye yet but I am determined at this point to do so, so I'm going to keep up with the practice. |
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Post by jcoutu1 on Apr 14, 2017 18:15:26 GMT -6
Guitar, if you can find a pair of 13"K Mastersound hats, I can nearly promise that they'll give you a raging bone. I cracked my top years ago and switched to the 13 1/4" Hybrid (which I like), but the old pair I had were THE pair.
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Post by swurveman on Apr 14, 2017 19:30:02 GMT -6
I use overheads mostly for the hi hat and cymbals. Since I don't have a large room, have low ceilings an don't have a great mic collection I'm not gonna get anywhere near a pro drums sound without samples. So, I use samples for the close mics and ro ambience and blend the overheads. I use currently using a pair of lauten Atlantic 387's for overheads. I often send the overheads to my API 2500 to give them some sustain. The 2500 also has a loud thrust circuit if I want to tame loudness of crashes.
Being a great drum engineer and mixing in a great studio must be a killer gig. I find that drums are incredibly intriguing and there's a huge learning curve. The guys who are at the top of the game are really smart, talented people.
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Post by schmalzy on Apr 14, 2017 21:36:32 GMT -6
I love recording drums. I don't feel particularly GOOD at any of this producing/recording/mixing stuff but I absolutely love recording drums. Here's a bunch of info and details so the small, low-budget, "nothing" studio example is also represented. My view is from the bottom of the industry in a "can't get bands to even pay me $150 per song tracked/mixed/mastered" studio. Heil PR40 inside kick AT 4040 outside kick Beta 57 Snare top 57 snare bottom Sennheiser 604 rack & floor tom top Cascade FatHeads spaced pair Overheads (basically over the outside rim of the floor tom and outside edge of the hihat-side crash) SM7B Middle Overhead directly over snare Apex 205 (with thinner ribbon) in the hall outside my room Pair of AKG Perception 400 in figure 8 near the floor basically under the overheads then a little further away with the nulls pointing towards the nearest tom and snare as "room" mics My Pearl Export kit with Ludwig SuperSensitive snare 7X14, Evans G1 heads (EQ2 on the kick batter), and Zildjian Avedis cymbals. I only know all this stuff because a lot of it is still set up. My room is 14-ish feet wide, 20-ish feet long, and 7.5 feet high. I have a lot of absorption (all Roxul Saf-n-Sound or AFB panels framed in 1 by X frames wrapped in muslin) including a 7-foot by 6-foot by 3-inch-thick cloud overhead, a 4-foot by 4-foot by 6-inch-thich panel directly behind the kit, and some 6-foot by 4-foot by 2-inch-thick panels standing to the sides of the kit. I also think I'm altering the balances a fair bit in the "with plugins" sample including a whole lot more room mics (so, heads-up with that). The "with plugins" sample doesn't include my parallel stuff because I didn't include it with the "no plugins" sample - I use the parallels for some extra grit, transients for the close mics, and some length for the whole kit. It's a tom groove into a crashed ride cymbal beat. Sounds in the room with conservative EQ on some mics and light compression on the Perception 400 room mics: drive.google.com/open?id=0Bzugr8cD5X_MXzFZTkx5YXQyOUESame channels with plugins (no samples): drive.google.com/open?id=0Bzugr8cD5X_MNlRGdnpiVGFUYkkI give you all this information so we can talk about the overheads in a low-ceiling space like mine. I love this overhead setup. I almost always do this three-overhead thing. Wide spaced pair plus a middle overhead mic - everything measured equidistant from the snare. I can rely on the spaced pair for a little more high end. I can rely on the middle for more meat. This time, I used ribbons on the spaced pair but sometimes the spaced pair is SDCs and the middle overhead is that Apex 205. None of this would be possible without the big-ass panel directly overhead. Recording in this room without that panel (and the others, really) is a mess. Anyone have thoughts, concerns, or criticisms? I'd love to hear 'em! Like I said above, I don't really know what I'm doing - but I'm trying' like hell to figure it out! |
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Post by jampa on Apr 15, 2017 0:11:12 GMT -6
I got no criticisms, just a bunch of videos to dump
sorry
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Post by jazznoise on Apr 15, 2017 3:31:42 GMT -6
jazznoise that's fascinating stuff. Right now my near/far room mics are just some figure 8 ribbons in 'sort of near' position, kind of doing both roles. Lucky enough the nulls in the patterns are facing some of the near reflection points. I should still read about critical distance, I am sure. I do have a giant sliding glass door facing the high hats, as well as a curtain rod that could potentially take heavy curtains, as well as a dropped ceiling that could potentially take 703 panels that haven't yet been made yet above the kit. The room is medium large and connected to a stair case, I am curious if opening the sliding door would make any difference. The XY overhead pair I have fairly close in, and you are right, it does give a pretty tight sound. The room mics are needed for the ambience and size. Even closely placed, my spaced ribbons are giving quite a large sense of space and width. I guess the room is pretty live. There is no sound treatment yet, but there is possibly some diffusion from the stone wall, and the other walls are wood panels. It sounds, at the very least, better than some drywall rooms I have been in. I have a gut feeling that some curtains and 703 over the top would add some needed tightness to the room. Just to control reflections mainly, I don't think bass trapping is too much a problem. Any time drums get backed into a corner those near surfaces just seem to be a problem to me. Thankfully it's not a painful sounding room, just needs a little finesse. Thanks for sharing that sound clip. I think that final sound you arrived at is quite nice. And it illustrates exactly the kind of subtle nuance that I've been chasing in choosing mic placements and mixing choices down the line. As I say, dry is usually easy to do. Trying to have ambiance and a good sense of the attack of each drum is harder. The idea of doing some bass trapping might surprise you. If you haven't tried mic'ing the stairwell, shame on you! When I've been really stuck bathrooms and halls and swimming pools have all come in handy. The stereo image will have nothing to do with the kit, usually, but that's not the end of the world. The drum sound I arrived at is fairly bland on its own, but serves the song stylistically. The difference in the 2 room mic sets is about 4 feet, but the ambiance level in both is similar - it's the stereo image and the tonal quality that change. The last 2 room mics are a pair of those ECM8000's taped to the floor, which I want to replace but really do a great job for the money. If you get a chance could you do a clip of your current drums/sound and we can see what's what? Try experimenting with opening the sliding door and see what it does for you. Glass tends to let low frequencies through it and reflects all the high end, so having more or less of it will change the tonal quality a lot and venting the room might extend the bass response a touch. |
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Post by drumrec on Apr 15, 2017 17:01:25 GMT -6
Congratz Dan to the infinite but certainly the most fun, drum recording  Have done some drum recordings through the years and one thing I've learned, no drum recording is the same. Could be the same genre, but a completely different tempo that allows you mix and use the mic different. So you are almost never "home safe" and that's the fun part with drum recording. Regarding your question, I use close mic when it is more pop / rock for more meat in the sound. Usually I have 3 snare mic. 2 on top and 1 below snare. I angled done them much. For when I want to have close mic up, it's meat I am looking for and that I get the best with the steep angle (Can post a picture from yesterday's record so you can see how I did. Little special recording where I took away all the cymbals,haha). Regarding OH I had for a long time XY, but for the past 6-7 years, I have chosen spaced pair plus a mono mic in the middle (just above the head). Besides that, I have two Coles just behind me (little back), which picks up the body of the entire drum kit. Then I have all the freedom to choose what I want in the mix. After moving back and forth to get the mics in the right phase, so now is the prohibition to move them from the "sweet spot". Regarding your second question, how you treat them separate channels and bus channels. I have a convenient way (in my opinion) the way I treat the channels and get a quick overview. Send a screenshot. They individual channels I usually just remove the bad frequencies and use the gate depending on the style (the best gate plug in my opinion is Steven Slate Trigger 2. Bought it only for gate function, then it is good if you want to make your own sample), anyway! Then I send separate channels to the bus channels and compress, EQ (adding), etc. smoothly way when there are many channels you're working with (usually be 18-20 channels). Maybe I just have to say the obvious, but perhaps there is some useful information. Quite another thing that may not have with your question. But a funny thing that I've used a lot of lately. The most boring channel that often superfluous .... hi-hat channel. Read an article (do not remember who) that he directed hihat mic on snare drum instead that usually away from the snare. For he thought you could get so much invaluable good sound from snare drum from hihat mic. Said and done so I tried it and liked it a lot. Usually Distortion hihat channel with a Decapiator and mix it in with the rest of the sound, great addition. Will try to post a mono channel with the hihat mic direction with Decapiator plugin. Cheers   www.dropbox.com/s/vodo6ocvycy0z7q/HH%20with%20Decapiator.mp3?dl=0 |
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Post by Guitar on Apr 15, 2017 17:40:20 GMT -6
jazznoise that's fascinating stuff. Right now my near/far room mics are just some figure 8 ribbons in 'sort of near' position, kind of doing both roles. Lucky enough the nulls in the patterns are facing some of the near reflection points. I should still read about critical distance, I am sure. I do have a giant sliding glass door facing the high hats, as well as a curtain rod that could potentially take heavy curtains, as well as a dropped ceiling that could potentially take 703 panels that haven't yet been made yet above the kit. The room is medium large and connected to a stair case, I am curious if opening the sliding door would make any difference. The XY overhead pair I have fairly close in, and you are right, it does give a pretty tight sound. The room mics are needed for the ambience and size. Even closely placed, my spaced ribbons are giving quite a large sense of space and width. I guess the room is pretty live. There is no sound treatment yet, but there is possibly some diffusion from the stone wall, and the other walls are wood panels. It sounds, at the very least, better than some drywall rooms I have been in. I have a gut feeling that some curtains and 703 over the top would add some needed tightness to the room. Just to control reflections mainly, I don't think bass trapping is too much a problem. Any time drums get backed into a corner those near surfaces just seem to be a problem to me. Thankfully it's not a painful sounding room, just needs a little finesse. Thanks for sharing that sound clip. I think that final sound you arrived at is quite nice. And it illustrates exactly the kind of subtle nuance that I've been chasing in choosing mic placements and mixing choices down the line. As I say, dry is usually easy to do. Trying to have ambiance and a good sense of the attack of each drum is harder. The idea of doing some bass trapping might surprise you. If you haven't tried mic'ing the stairwell, shame on you! When I've been really stuck bathrooms and halls and swimming pools have all come in handy. The stereo image will have nothing to do with the kit, usually, but that's not the end of the world. The drum sound I arrived at is fairly bland on its own, but serves the song stylistically. The difference in the 2 room mic sets is about 4 feet, but the ambiance level in both is similar - it's the stereo image and the tonal quality that change. The last 2 room mics are a pair of those ECM8000's taped to the floor, which I want to replace but really do a great job for the money. If you get a chance could you do a clip of your current drums/sound and we can see what's what? Try experimenting with opening the sliding door and see what it does for you. Glass tends to let low frequencies through it and reflects all the high end, so having more or less of it will change the tonal quality a lot and venting the room might extend the bass response a touch. Jazznoise thanks for the feedback. There's a lot of footwork in the stairwell, so no permanent mics can go there, but I do like the idea of having some 'recording time' mics ready for stuff like that, I will give it a try. There's also a nice hallway and garage nearby the end of the room that could come in handy. I have a few omni mics sitting dormant right now that would be perfect for this application. I really like the idea of posting a few drum clips here just to show you what's what. Like @schmatlzy did a few posts prior, and everyone else who has also posted clips. Probably the day after easter or so will be a good time for me to dig into the drums again. All of this great advice has already given me several ideas of a few things to tweak and look at. Adding another 8 channels of A/D input would really open up my recording options, but would also take away from my mixing setup and increase the footprint in the room. I guess right now I'm going to focus on a 10 channel-ish setup which I can tweak to taste. |
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Post by Guitar on Apr 15, 2017 17:53:39 GMT -6
Congratz Dan to the infinite but certainly the most fun, drum recording Have done some drum recordings through the years and one thing I've learned, no drum recording is the same. Could be the same genre, but a completely different tempo that allows you mix and use the mic different. So you are almost never "home safe" and that's the fun part with drum recording. Regarding your question, I use close mic when it is more pop / rock for more meat in the sound. Usually I have 3 snare mic. 2 on top and 1 below snare. I angled done them much. For when I want to have close mic up, it's meat I am looking for and that I get the best with the steep angle (Can post a picture from yesterday's record so you can see how I did. Little special recording where I took away all the cymbals,haha). Regarding OH I had for a long time XY, but for the past 6-7 years, I have chosen spaced pair plus a mono mic in the middle (just above the head). Besides that, I have two Coles just behind me (little back), which picks up the body of the entire drum kit. Then I have all the freedom to choose what I want in the mix. After moving back and forth to get the mics in the right phase, so now is the prohibition to move them from the "sweet spot". Regarding your second question, how you treat them separate channels and bus channels. I have a convenient way (in my opinion) the way I treat the channels and get a quick overview. Send a screenshot. They individual channels I usually just remove the bad frequencies and use the gate depending on the style (the best gate plug in my opinion is Steven Slate Trigger 2. Bought it only for gate function, then it is good if you want to make your own sample), anyway! Then I send separate channels to the bus channels and compress, EQ (adding), etc. smoothly way when there are many channels you're working with (usually be 18-20 channels). Maybe I just have to say the obvious, but perhaps there is some useful information. Quite another thing that may not have with your question. But a funny thing that I've used a lot of lately. The most boring channel that often superfluous .... hi-hat channel. Read an article (do not remember who) that he directed hihat mic on snare drum instead that usually away from the snare. For he thought you could get so much invaluable good sound from snare drum from hihat mic. Said and done so I tried it and liked it a lot. Usually Distortion hihat channel with a Decapiator and mix it in with the rest of the sound, great addition. Will try to post a mono channel with the hihat mic direction with Decapiator plugin. Cheers Håkan Thanks for the feedback! First of all it is very interesting that some people choose to ignore the hi hat, or ride cymbal, or any cymbal close mics. Second, I first learned to keep the hat isolated from the kit, like in the Wagener video above. But then a lot of other tutorials I see, for example the Massenburg, the hat mic is facing the snare and kit! Something I will have to experiment with. I don't think I've hardly ever miked a hi hat to date. Your sound example adds a very interesting texture. I am trying to find the right amount of saturation for drums, and maybe focusing on individual channels like that would keep it under control. I have also done Left Right Center overheads in the past and that has been some of my best drum sounds. Or Left Right, Front of Kit Mono, something like that. That might be something I need to return to. I also find that the close mic emphasis is mostly giving the beef like you say. Very appropriate for some styles, and less for others. Especially with compression. Perhaps the most significant factor I am dealing with is that I have always recorded other people playing drums. Now that I'm getting slightly better at playing myself, the sound of "my" instrument in the room and on the track is becoming that much more picky and critical. I am noticing thing behind the kit that would more often only be noticeable to the drummer, not the engineer. So I'm getting a little more interested in the entire process. Hopefully this will lead to both improving as and engineer and as a drummer. |
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Post by Guitar on Apr 15, 2017 17:59:14 GMT -6
I got no criticisms, just a bunch of videos to dump I can proudly say that I have now watched all of those videos at least once or twice, haha! I think to absorb all of those would be to intuitively grasp drum recording in general. Which is why I will need to watch them many more times. Not only is there style and genre at play but also individual taste, aesthetics, and practicality. That's a nice bunch of videos, definitely. |
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Post by scumbum on Apr 15, 2017 18:37:37 GMT -6
For the past week or two, I've been woodshedding on my drum sounds, and playing. More than anything like songwriting. Just playing a lot, and getting sounds, with no goal in mind other than that. It's actually kind of nice to just focus on playing and sounds. In a way, songwriting all the time can actually distract from that part of it. For overheads I was using some modified CAD $25 chinese SDC microphones and svart and drbill were totally right, don't waste your time with dirt cheap condensers, even with the noble upgrade path. Today I had a moment of realization that my drums just weren't sounding very good on disc, so I put in some work. I changed my overhead pair to some KSM137 and immediately I got a much more clear and cohesive picture of the kit. Without the loss of low end and smearing in the highs. The overhead mics in particular, I realized, are creating about 80% of my drum sound, even with close mics and room mics. The CAD and MXL mics just give too much peak on the cymbals, no matter what else you're doing down the line. I also realized the blumlein ribbon pair was not working in front of the kit, it was too close. The image was putting the snare in weird places no matter how much I fiddled with it. Moving back to the old standard, widely spaced AB pair for the room mics gave me a much wider and more relaxed picture of the kit. The XY SDC overheads don't give much sense of room or low end, so these ribbons out front are another big element in the total drum sound. They sort of work together as a pair of pairs to give the main sound. You could just use either one, but the combination of both pairs has generally been most ideal. After all this work, I realize the drums themselves still need some work. I changed a painfully bright 22" Zildjian Ping Ride to a K Custom Organic Ride and that really tamed a lot of the brightness of the kit. Now the 14" New Beat hi-hats are the brightest thing on the kit. I am thinking that some 15" hats might be the ticket to tame this last treble demon. Either A or K Zildjians, still not sure yet. But the mics can only do so much after what is in front of them. One "Pro Tip" that I can give is the Kush Omega Transformer plugins. For $29 you can give your super clean transparent mic pres the taste of either Neve, API, or Altec tube preamp flavor. I use the Apollo preamps and some Yamaha MLA-8 preamps for the basic capture, and then I put in the Omega A on the bus and suddenly, it sounds very much like I recored with a bunch of API preamps. You know, $7,000 worth give or take, for my 10 channels. I am a huge fan of one-knob plugins like these, and I would say that the Kush Omega series is the real deal, and smartly priced. Much cheaper than the UAD or even Slate options. A little goes a long way, and I can get this sense of excitement going that I don't want to turn off once I hear it. The N plugin is quite dark and bassy, and the A plugin is very punchy and bright. Haven't tried the Altec yet. The A is my quick favorite on drums. I guess there's no way around it, my wide open toms and snares need gating or editing. The sympathetic ring between drums can get out of hand quickly. I find that the stock Cubase gate plugin works quite well as a quick fix. In the mix, some SSL channel EQ can get the rest of the sound on individual tracks. Still experimenting with drum compression. Some of my best results have been treating the drum bus as a whole. But I have also gotten some exciting sounds with my DBX and Symetrix compressors on individual drums. So one of my questions to the forum would be, how do you like to treat drum close mic tracks vs drum bus tracks? I'm still feeling this one out. Also I really admire the drum experts out there. To me this is one of the most challenging areas of music. When the drums are banging everybody gets excited. You just gotta learn how to tune really well to get a good drum sound . I've battled drum tuning for awhile , but finally now have gotten a good tuning method for my drums . I recommend this DVD "Drum Tuning: Sound and Design...Simplified" by Bob Gatzen . www.ebay.com/itm/Drum-Tuning-Sound-and-Design-Simplified-DVD-2004-Bob-Gatzen-/272624993806?_trksid=p2385738.m2548.l4275I've found if the drum is tuned good the extra ringing can sound good . But when the drum is slightly tuned bad the ringing is horrible . I'm working on a new drum sound . Instead of using Overheads , put a pair in XY in front of the kit and then close mic . I tried it yesterday and I like it . All the mics point the same direction so everything is in phase . Heres an example , This is SCRATCH.....I'm writing a new song so I have a bunch of scratch tracks and still fine tuning all parts . So its sloppy . But the drums are 4 mics , XY pair in front of kit and close mics on kick and snare . No tom mics . Will probably add Tom and Hi-Hat mics . Hi-Hats are 15" zildjian cymbals . www.dropbox.com/s/jhbbekh5yfwmug9/He%27s%20The%20Smun%20-%20Scratch%202.wav?dl=0 |
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Have done some drum recordings through the years and one thing I've learned, no drum recording is the same. Could be the same genre, but a completely different tempo that allows you mix and use the mic different. So you are almost never "home safe" and that's the fun part with drum recording.