Trying to really record drums for the first time

Lloyd Christmas: Wanna hear the most annoying sound in the world?
Post Reply
User avatar
vomitHatSteve
Posts: 6453
Joined: Tue Feb 14, 2017 11:06 am
Location: Undisclosed
Contact:

Trying to really record drums for the first time

Post by vomitHatSteve »

Ok. In all previous projects, I've made do with whatever I can hack from two mics, EZ Drummer/samples, and/or hiring Greg.

Now, I'm actually trying to do proper, multi-track live drums for an arena rock band.

Here's our raw tracks:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

I'd love any feedback you can give me.
User avatar
Bubba
Posts: 3350
Joined: Wed Jan 04, 2017 2:45 pm
Location: Checking out my haggard face in the mirror.

Re: Trying to really record drums for the first time

Post by Bubba »

Hi, Steve. Have you no way to track the individual toms? The full kit sample seems to be suffering from the same difficulty as my earliest drum recordings, which was needing to have the overheads really loud in order for the toms to come through. As it is, the cymbals are killing everything. Rami has shown that you can still get great drum tracks without individually miking toms, but I believe it needs excellent, disciplined playing and great-sounding drums to get the most out of it, whereas your drummer seems to go at everything hammer-and-tongs and the drums themselves don't sound that great. :biggrin:
Haggard Musician :mad:
User avatar
Bubba
Posts: 3350
Joined: Wed Jan 04, 2017 2:45 pm
Location: Checking out my haggard face in the mirror.

Re: Trying to really record drums for the first time

Post by Bubba »

I just put your tracks into my DAW for a proper listen. I note that wav no.4 contains a stereo file of the tom tracks.

Kick drum. Very woolly, tight-sounding, no resonance, no beater attack. It sounds like you have wadding in the drum and far too much of it. You really need strong beater attack for this type of music, and a deep-tuned batter head with room to breathe. You can take out some of the boom and thwack later if you need to, but you can't put it in, not with a raw track like this, at least. Also, the playing is really inconsistent. It would take a ton of gating, compression and eq to even start getting it usable, IMO.

Snare : Not too bad, you could work with that. The wires are coming through quite well.

Overheads : Not great - it's all cymbals and picking up more of one than the others. Have you set up your overheads with a plan as to what parts of the kit you want to capture?

Toms/hats: I'm not sure what you were going for here or how you went about rcording it. If you used another stereo pair then that would be a no-no to me. Phase cancellation, kit bleed and everything else will be your enemy. Close mic the toms on separate tracks if you can. I normally gate them. The toms sound like they are being tickled rather than hit decisively. This probably explains why the cymbal - to - tom balance is way off. The only cure for this is for the drummer to improve his technique.

All together, mixed a bit in my DAW, the whole thing isn't a disaster, but it's way off what you're going to need to produce for a stadium rock sound.

Have you read Greg's drum guide? That's a great resource.
Haggard Musician :mad:
User avatar
Bubba
Posts: 3350
Joined: Wed Jan 04, 2017 2:45 pm
Location: Checking out my haggard face in the mirror.

Re: Trying to really record drums for the first time

Post by Bubba »

Here's an MP3 of your kit sample with some mixing and eq done by me. My opinion is that the sound of the room isn't all that great but I think the drums sound usable. But not, perhaps, for a stadium rock sound. :biggrin:

VHS Drums.mp3
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
Haggard Musician :mad:
User avatar
vomitHatSteve
Posts: 6453
Joined: Tue Feb 14, 2017 11:06 am
Location: Undisclosed
Contact:

Re: Trying to really record drums for the first time

Post by vomitHatSteve »

Thanks bubba.
I have individual tracks for each tom and the hats, but I got lazy exporting them. :D
They're turned down pretty quiet because I ran out of pre-amps on my interface, and the signal chain on the other board was very noisy. I'll see what I can do to get less noise there. (Maybe my other board? But I'd lose a channel)

For the kick, he has foam directly on the the opposite side of the beater head from the beater, a blanket, and no resonant head. We can try clearing out some of that padding to see if that gets us more attack.

OHs are Recorderman. I have them both pointed at the snare from about 40". (Left is shoulder; right is directly above. Drummer is a lefty, so I have NO idea the correct way to pan them! :D). I didn't have a real plan. I just moved the L one around until I liked how the snare sounded.
I guess the one ethic I had for those was that they should mostly get the cymbals and supplement everything else.
User avatar
Bubba
Posts: 3350
Joined: Wed Jan 04, 2017 2:45 pm
Location: Checking out my haggard face in the mirror.

Re: Trying to really record drums for the first time

Post by Bubba »

Fair enough, Steve. I have to say, I was a bit wrong about the kick drum playing - the consistency is actually pretty good once the eq and a bit of comp is used.
Haggard Musician :mad:
User avatar
rammer24
Posts: 2736
Joined: Wed Jan 04, 2017 1:41 pm

Re: Trying to really record drums for the first time

Post by rammer24 »

Bubba wrote: Fri Apr 28, 2017 6:56 am Rami has shown that you can still get great drum tracks without individually miking toms
Thanx Bubba. Just to be clear, I have been micing my toms for the last year or so. But for a long time, I only used 4 mics and didn't mic my toms. Listening back to those recordings now, the toms are weak.

One trick I did do for a while before realizing that I needed to mic them is this: I'd duplicate my overhead track(s), and then I'd eliminate everything on the duplicated track except for the toms. I then had a "sort of tom track" that allowed me to EQ them however I wanted. It still wasn't as good as micing them, but it was better than just having them in the overheads.
User avatar
vomitHatSteve
Posts: 6453
Joined: Tue Feb 14, 2017 11:06 am
Location: Undisclosed
Contact:

Re: Trying to really record drums for the first time

Post by vomitHatSteve »

Cool.

I'll probably end up doing some kind of ludicrous side-chaining compressing and gates all over the place, but I want to get as far into the process as I can before I pull out those tricks!
User avatar
Greg_L
Posts: 20625
Joined: Wed Jan 04, 2017 1:07 pm
Location: Where the knuckle meets the poophole

Re: Trying to really record drums for the first time

Post by Greg_L »

Goddamn I meant to peek at this before but it slipped my mind. Will check it today.
Rebel Yell
User avatar
vomitHatSteve
Posts: 6453
Joined: Tue Feb 14, 2017 11:06 am
Location: Undisclosed
Contact:

Re: Trying to really record drums for the first time

Post by vomitHatSteve »

No problem! Life got busy, so I'm not gonna get a chance to set everything up and experiment again 'til thursday anyway.
User avatar
WhiskeyJack
Site Admin
Posts: 11365
Joined: Sun Jan 12, 2014 11:48 pm
Location: Canada
Contact:

Re: Trying to really record drums for the first time

Post by WhiskeyJack »

I'm no good to ask. My ears are sadly only used to fake drumbs. I can have a listen next time i am on my monitors.
:happytrees:
User avatar
Bubba
Posts: 3350
Joined: Wed Jan 04, 2017 2:45 pm
Location: Checking out my haggard face in the mirror.

Re: Trying to really record drums for the first time

Post by Bubba »

Greg_L wrote: Mon May 01, 2017 12:38 pm Goddamn I meant to peek at this before but it slipped my mind. Will check it today.
I wish you would, Greg. You can shoot my comments all to hell, I feel penitent. :biggrin:

Somebdy abuse me! I deserve it! :headwall:
Haggard Musician :mad:
User avatar
Greg_L
Posts: 20625
Joined: Wed Jan 04, 2017 1:07 pm
Location: Where the knuckle meets the poophole

Re: Trying to really record drums for the first time

Post by Greg_L »

Bubba wrote: Wed May 03, 2017 8:48 am

I wish you would, Greg. You can shoot my comments all to hell, I feel penitent. :biggrin:

Somebdy abuse me! I deserve it! :headwall:
I'm downloading them now. I fucking forgot again, like a retard. :facepalm:

I got too much shit on my plate right now. :headwall:
Rebel Yell
User avatar
vomitHatSteve
Posts: 6453
Joined: Tue Feb 14, 2017 11:06 am
Location: Undisclosed
Contact:

Re: Trying to really record drums for the first time

Post by vomitHatSteve »

Nothing like a steaming plate of shit to start the day!
#hashtagBlessed
Audio Monster
Posts: 280
Joined: Fri Mar 31, 2017 6:12 am

Re: Trying to really record drums for the first time

Post by Audio Monster »

Bubba wrote: Wed May 03, 2017 8:48 am
Greg_L wrote: Mon May 01, 2017 12:38 pm Goddamn I meant to peek at this before but it slipped my mind. Will check it today.
Somebdy abuse me! I deserve it! :headwall:
:robus: :robus: :robus: :robus: :robus: :robus: Done! :coolstorybro:
User avatar
vomitHatSteve
Posts: 6453
Joined: Tue Feb 14, 2017 11:06 am
Location: Undisclosed
Contact:

Re: Trying to really record drums for the first time

Post by vomitHatSteve »

Ok. We tried out some new mic placements.

Here's our second attempt:
There were a few FX on the previous take, I've removed them from this one.

The biggest issue we're running into right now is getting isolation on the high-hat. I couldn't find a place to put the mic that didn't result in a lot of heavily-distorted snare coming through. Any ideas?
Post Reply