Plastic / Rubber Cymbals

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My drummer came up with an idea to try on our next session. We want to use a technique used with bands like Queens Of The Stone Age and Midnight Oil.

Recording with rubber/plastic cymbals during initial tracking of the drums, and then over dubbing cymbals. I didn't make this up; so don't get mad at ME. I just want to try it.

There are some plastic ones I found at Musicians Friend, and then there are also some rubber covers you can put on real cymbals. The plastic ones didn't seem to be reviewed very well.

I was wondering if anyone has used either or has sources for better, quieter ones?

Thanks!

Why not rent some Roland V Drum cymbals instead. That way you can get a MIDI output of the cymbal/hats tracks which could help make the overdubs easier (because you will have a reference for the hits that you can easily snap/nudge to if need be) or you could just forego recording the cymbal parts altogether and use high quality cymbal samples. I picked up one of those Zildjian Z-Pack cymbal sample libraries a few years back on sale for $20 (full price was like 10 times that) and they sound great.
 
Otherwise I think i'd just duct tape/tie some pillows or something else soft to the cymbal stands to avoid hearing the tap against hard plastic which would likely show up in the overheads/tom mics. If you are doing close mic'd toms without overheads or room mics then I guess those little taps wouldn't be such a problem.

Yeah, my concern is the overheads and rooms too.  I just don't see how those wouldn't get picked up.  I CAN see how it would work with a RUBBER type of surface, and that is another option that Musicians's Friend sells. I may try and get some sort of material like that first and run experiments.  I do close mic all of the drums, but also do run overheads and room mics.
 
OF course, with this technique, I would be using a parallel set of overheads in the recording, and I'm thinking that crashes and high hats would be much louder than any sticks hits picked up by the ones in the first recording.  But you never know until you try right?  

I really don't want to use samples. I love technology, but I am really going old school right now with my recording.  I have fantastic mics, and I just wanted to try an experimental technique, rather than go the easy route of using samples.  I feel like I'll never get better as a recordist if I don't try to obtain the best recordings I can at all times - and sampling isn't recording.
 
I'm not passing judgement on those that do here, please understand.  Again, I love technology, and I"m quite sure there are going to be occasions when I break out Drumagog or something to use sampled sounds on my drum recordings, but I don't want to rely on it.

Yeah, I hear ya and if I had good mics/cymbals I'd opt for the real too. Especially for the hi hats which never sound quite like the real deal no matter how good the samples are. Still it would be useful to get some sort of MIDI trigger going on just for reference and timing correction. You could even create your own samples and loops to be triggered by the MIDI track.
 
Just a crazy idea I thought of when I saw what you are up to.
 
Another thought is to do two passes of the drummer doing the full performance. One where the cymbal parts are just muffled hits on whatever you end up using and then another where the drums are muffled (like just take away the kick pedal and put practice pads or something non noisy over the rest of the drums).
 
As an ex drummer I think I'd find it awkard trying to do just the cymbals without tapping out the rest of the beat.
 
Anyway, interesting topic.... and yeah, I agree rubber would definitely be better than plastic.
 
Cheers.

Right on.
 
Well, my drummer came up with the idea, and if it was anyone else, I would have second thoughts.  But this kid is a RAIN MAN of drums; he came in with another band and I have never seen anyone play on a click so tight.  Ever.  And I own a recording studio.  So if he just starts the track playing on a click, he will pretty much be lined up perfectly anyway, and then he can overdub the cymbals.  He seems to be confident about it, so who am I to argue! :)  If I know him, he'll rehearse it until he's comfortable before we record.

This is most likely only something I'll do with him to start (since our time is our own), and then if the results come out really well, I can sell it to other bands.  Of course, they will have to pay for the extra time to do it. 

Ah, a pro's pro. Love working with guys like that. I'm a guitar player who turned "drummer" simply because I was asked to fill in for my buddy's band in rehearsals. I guess I got good enough that they stopped looking and gave me the gig. I was pretty fast and followed along well but a REAL drummer is a whole different animal. Those guys have a totally different way of looking at and doing things. They actually understand rhythm/time sigs/etc whereas I just played what felt right. No clue what the math was behind it all. lol

I hear you.  If somebody put a gun to my head and told me to play 4 on the floor, I would ask for a last meal.

Heheh. If I had a few minutes to google it or they played me an example I might be able to figure it out but drummer lingo man... s'all Greek to me.
 
Meanwhile I could prattle on for hours about Greek modes so I guess that may not be the best colloquialism.
 
;-)

spindlebox
Plastic / Rubber Cymbals

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My drummer came up with an idea to try on our next session. We want to use a technique used with bands like Queens Of The Stone Age and Midnight Oil.

Recording with rubber/plastic cymbals during initial tracking of the drums, and then over dubbing cymbals. I didn't make this up; so don't get mad at ME. I just want to try it.

There are some plastic ones I found at Musicians Friend, and then there are also some rubber covers you can put on real cymbals. The plastic ones didn't seem to be reviewed very well.

I was wondering if anyone has used either or has sources for better, quieter ones?

Thanks!

This sounds like way more work to me and it was when we did it in the 80's. I hated this procedure, but it was even worse for us because we didn't use ANY cymbals. The older I get, the more I'm finding perfection = stagnant in certain scenarios.
 
I'm going to start recording my next album in March most likely. We just finished the pre-production for 19 songs. One thing I notice is....some of the pre-pro is us in the studio playing like we would live. Other times, when we had the time, we did it like we'd do an album...tracking drums, then rough instruments so the drums could be tracked etc. What I have noticed.....some of those all in one sessions blew away the more pinpoint accuracy sessions.
 
We picked up a spontaneous edge that I can't explain. The more we try to write parts and hone in on them, the more uniformed we sounded which in turn takes away the good dirt you get under your nails...if you know what I mean.
 
One of the things I love about cymbals in real time is how the mics you use on them affect the rest of the kit. You really get a nice bleed if you know what you're doing there. If you do decide to go after this, make sure you run over-heads where your plastic/rubber cymbals would be this way you catch the drums in the overheads.
 
The way technology is now, I'm having a hard time understanding why anyone would want to do this now unless some sort of incredible special effect were to be happening. The last thing I'd want to do is possibly punch in cymbals if you made a mistake due to how they sustain and how you will never hit them the exact same way. Therefore, a punch can be rather "swirly" sounding depending on how/where you may need to punch in. I personally think it's more trouble than it's worth, but hey....everything is worth a try. :)
 
-Danny

There's practice cymbals out on the market, but you're going to get an annoying practice pad sound, but you might be able to gate out some of that.  Most of them are made from plastic, but the Stagg practice cymbals have a rubber coating.
 
As Danny said the correct way of doing this technique is with no cymbals.  Substitutes would be to play on his leg/thigh or on a pillow.
 
I was never a fan of this technique, and was really more of a problem in search of a solution.  Cymbal bleed happens, alot of studio guys compensated back in the 80's by mounting their cymbals way above the toms.  Case in point was Anton Fig on Dave Letterman,  he had all his cymbals way up high above his head, but you look at his setup now, it's much flatter and more shoulder level.
 
However, if he's the one wanting to do it, more power to him.  This would drive me nuts.