Good Morning Everyone,

It has been about 4 years since my last post here.  I am in the process of reestablishing my home recording studio (ie the basement).  Up until recently I didn't have the capability to record drums at home, due to my limited number of mic and lack for pre amps to be about to do so.  I just purchased a Octa-capture as well as a bunch of new mics  and am just starting to experiment with recording and entire kit.  I have spent plenty of time in real studios and know basically how to mic up a kit.  Last night I had the drummer in my band come over and we too a first stab a recording the drums for a new song that we are working on.  

If you are a drum recording master and have some time could you please take a listen to the tracks and tell me what I can fix.  First off I know that the kick drums needs some tuning.  It is a bit boomy for my taste and it needs to be cleaned up a bit.  My real concern is the snare.  I am getting some much ringing it is really just cutting through the entire mix.  Here are some links to all the tracks as they were recorded.  I have done zero processing on them. I just want to make sure that I am getting the best sound I can before I start tweaking.  Hope to hear from some of you.  

Entire Drum mix (raw):  http://snd.sc/OALOFu

Snare Top (listen to this to hear how much ring this is):  http://snd.sc/OALUwH
Snare Bottom:  http://snd.sc/OAMieJ
Kick:  http://snd.sc/OAMrPp  
Rack Tom: http://snd.sc/OAMyud 
Floor Tom: http://snd.sc/OAMFWO 
Overhead L: http://snd.sc/OAMJpj 
Overhear R: http://snd.sc/OAMQBp

When listening to the snare (top) track - quite frankly it sounds as if the snare isn't engaged . You can damp the over ring a bit with small pads on the head. I think there is something amiss with either the mic itself or the placement is way off ( in my opinion ) . Maybe it was placed to close to the head? I like to pull the top snare mic back 4 - 5 inches if possible. You should get some sense of a balanced frequency response. Almost sounds as if it was miked on the null side of a cardioid.

Rbh


When listening to the snare (top) track - quite frankly it sounds as if the snare isn't engaged . You can damp the over ring a bit with small pads on the head. I think there is something amiss with either the mic itself or the placement is way off ( in my opinion ) . Maybe it was placed to close to the head? I like to pull the top snare mic back 4 - 5 inches if possible. You should get some sense of a balanced frequency response. Almost sounds as if it was miked on the null side of a cardioid.

A good rule of thumb I like to use is 3 fingers-
Bottom mic staight up @ center
Top just above edge @ 30 degree angle towards center




Another thing you can do while you figure out your mic/mix is to convert it to softsynth drum tracks in just a few easy steps.

I would probably dampen the snare as already stated by Rbh.  Moongel from the music store works well or sometimes just a small piece of duct tape is enough.   Usually placed on the top head near the rim. The closer it is placed to the center of the head, the more ring it will remove. Also the head is tuned a bit to the loose side but that may work for some situations.  One critical thing not to overlook is to not judge the snare sound by the top snare mic. only.   I usually get more of the actual high end of the snare sound through the overheads.  If you use a bottom snare mic. I would just ad a small amount while listening to the final mix.  Also : CHECK FOR PHASING ISSUES.

Great thread.

Posting the individual tracks was brilliant.

I'm looking forward to seeing what all the drummers have to say.


best regards,
mike

You might want to get some "moon gel" (Google it) to cut down on your snare or other drum ringing. I thought the overall drum mix sounded decent. For me, it's easier judging the sound of drums when I hear it with the other instruments that are in the mix.

Hey Everyone, thanks for the replies.  So I went home last night and really started to play around with the snare to try and figure out what was going on.  Through a combination of tuning, muffling, and mic placement, I feel a little better about what I am able to produce.  I didn't get a chance to put up any of the sample tracks that I recorded but to my ear there is an improvement.  

In all reality I think that the drum could also benefit with the additional of a new/different batter head.  I am thinking the Evans Geneva Dry (right now it has a Remo Emperor X which from what I understand has a good bit of ring to it).  

I have check all the phasing and have confirmed that it is correct (including flipping the phase on the bottom mic).  

I am using EV PL35 (not the greatest snare mic but was trying it out) and these are supposed to have an extremely tight super cardioid pattern.  I think I may have also had the mic pointing a little to much towards the ring and have now corrected in pointed it a little more towards the center.  

I will try to put up some new sample sound clips later tonight for your review.  Again thanks for the help.

HighestOlive: I'll give you my take for what it's worth. Personally, it sounds like a good drum kit to me. I can sit here and tell you 100 things to do differently but that would make the kit materialize into something *I* would like.

What you have here in my opinion, is a good classic rock drum sound circa 60's and 70's. A sort of Ringo from The Beatles sounding kit to where whoever was playing them, didn't really hit them with any conviction. This means this particular kit wouldn't be too great for anything hard rock. LOL! But for light rock, country etc, I see no blatant errors in this sound other than I would like to hear a little more tom panning and a little less cymbal separation. Meaning, your toms don't seem to pan much (or at all) and your cymbals are everywhere due to your room mics or over-heads.

Now the other thing I'd like to address. It is near impossible to tell you "you need to do this that this this and that" with a naked drum kit. It is best to always listen to it while being mixed in with a song. We can come up with the greatest sounding instruments known to man by themselves....that doesn't mean they will work in a mix of other instruments.

In closing, I would say that you have the makings of a good sounding drum kit here. I wouldn't change a thing other than working on the panning and then see how it sounds on a song with a little compression and processing etc. Nicely done....good luck to you.

-Danny

So I wanted to share a bit of my progress with this issue.  First thing I did was change the snare head out to a Evans ST Dry.  In my opinion it gives more of the snare sound that I am into.  Then I did I bit of playing around with mic positions. We re-tracked the drums. And after all that, I spend a good big of time working with the drums in Sonar X2 to get to a place where I am feeling a little better about things.  I am still not totally happy, but it is a work in progress.  Take a listen if you want and let me know what you think:

Full kit:  http://snd.sc/WbyNYa

Danny Danzi


<snip> to where whoever was playing them, didn't really hit them with any conviction. This means this particular kit wouldn't be too great for anything hard rock.

-Danny

That was the first and biggest thing that struck me. I've seen people pet dogs harder than he/she was playing that kit. Therefore it makes it hard to give any real suggestions. Although it's a worn out cliche, it's even more fitting regarding drums/drummers, 50 % of the  tone is in the hands and feet of the person sitting on the throne..


I record lots of drummers and can only tell you of the joy that comes from recording those who really know how to strike the kit, bringing the tone/life out of the drums.


For the others I use Drum Tracker...


*On Edit - Did you compress/limit the latest sample you posted?