Home Recording for Drummers

SurfGuitar101 Forums » Recording Corner »

surfdrumsf2 Joined: Apr 02, 2006 Posts: 11	Posted on Oct 13 2006 08:54 PM I would like any feedback I can get about recording drums at home as far as equipment. What workstation, how many mikes can I get away with and still sound good. I would like to be able to add guitar tracks for demos as well. Thanks Top
PolloGuitar Joined: Feb 26, 2006 Posts: 5080 San Francisco	Posted on Oct 17 2006 08:29 PM Here's what we did when we recorded the Mach IV CD in my basement... We used Mel Waldorf's 16 track Akai recorder. For the first session, we borrowed some mics from my brother, after that I bought a few of my own. The Mic set-up was like this: Kick: EV RE-20 Snare: Shure SM-57 Stereo Overheads: Shure SM81 Room: Auditechnica AT 4050 We did not mic the toms individually, as we wanted a more natural, ambient sound. Of course our goal was to sound like the Astronauts all recording in the same giant room, but since the basement is A LOT smalled than Capitol Studio A, we had to compromise. So, amps were placed away from the drums, set to a minimal tolerable (tone wise)volume, close mic'd and covered with lots of blankets. The room mic, set to omni pattern was placed at the top of the staircase as this was the farthest place away from the drums. Recording- rather than use any EQ or compression on input, we recorded straight- it's digital right? So if you don't have to compensate for tape (digital gives you plenty of clean headroom), and what goes in is what comes out, then why bother. Also, Mel's Akai recorder was in the same room as us, so it would have been impossible to monitor correctly. Mixing- the drum sound came almost exclusively from the Overhead mics and the kick mic. The OHs didn't need much compression or EQ, the kick was EQd to bring out more "tick", to give it attack. The snare mic was heavily peak limited- Shig has a playing style where he rides the snare, then pops it on the rim real hard on the 4 beat. When he pops it, it is quite a jarring difference from when he is riding it, so the compression evened it all out. I would guess this is a common problem for surf drummers who use the snare in a more dynamic fashion than rock drummers. The snare mic was EQd to bring out the wood tone of the sidestick. The ambient room mic was give a 1/16 second delay to make it sound even farther away, then heavily compressed so that you can hear all nuances. Of course, working in a small room we had to use some digital reverb, especially on the snare mic. But, rather than using the presets in the box, I tried to really listen (eyes closed) and tweak the parameters until I got a sound close to what the room naturally sounded like (by A/Bing the reverb return with the room mic). Unfortunately, for the true sixties studio sound you need a plate reverb, and I have never heard a digital reverb that comes close to a real plate... Here's the IMHO part... I do not believe that it is possible to get good drum sounds with (really) cheap mics. This is a painful reality. Your favorite bands of the sixties all recorded with a selection of what are now incredibly expensive tube and ribbon mics. (Not to mention all all the warm tube compressors, boards and plate reverbs.) The good news is that there are some great values to be had. Heck if you are going to drop a $K on a digital recorder, you should spend a $600 or more on mics as well. (One of my favorite anagrams of the past comes to mind- GIGO.) Even if you can't afford to get some more expensive mics, atleast try to get an array of mics, rather than say, 6 SM57s. The reason for this is that if you use the same mic for all the instruments, everything you record will be imprinted with the exact same frequency spectrum. If you can get a few different mics, you will get more spectrum coverage and average out some of the frequency humps. Hope that helps... --ferenc — Buy Speed of Dark @ Bandcamp Buy Spin the Bottle @ Bandcamp My Blog- Euro Tour Blog Pool Boys on Spotify INSTAGRAM Frankie & The Pool Boys on FB Pollo Del Mar on FB DJ Frankie Pool Boy on North Sea Surf Radio Top
MaxReverb Joined: Dec 28, 2006 Posts: 20	Posted on Dec 28 2006 09:36 PM If possible put MIDI triggers on at least the kit and snare and use Drums from Hell or BFD Jazz Funk and layer the samples with the orignal source. Rick Top

Top