Bad recording experience

Story time here kids. I got the chance to track some drums at Nick Bellmore's studio in New Haven, CT a few months ago on some tracks Zeuss was producing. Nick has engineered a couple of albums by little bands like Hatebreed and Down. Zeuss produced albums by some guy named Rob Zombie, so I assume they know what they are doing. The bottom line is I trusted them and had heard enough to know the drums would sound amazing when we were done.

I asked if I should bring my gear and was basically told "no, yours will sound like crap. You will use ours." When I showed up everything was tuned really high, the snare was as dry as a marching snare, the cymbals were like 4 feet over my head and the hi-hat felt like it was on the other side of the room. This was all for separation, and the tuning was what they felt was right for the room. I personally hated it, but again, I trusted them, so I just went in and played my parts.

In your case it is completely possible that the engineer did know best. Or it is possible you just went to the wrong guy. If all this guy does is extreme metal then he is likely engineering your sound with those same requirements. Not everybody is versatile, but in the end it is up to you to know that before you go in. In the end, the proof is in the pudding. Listen to the final mix and then see how it sounds. you may be surprised.
 
All this is a good reason to save up for your own studio gear. ie. a computer, audio interface and mics (& software of course) and then you can learn all that stuff yourself.

I'm half-way between the two really, the engineer has a right to be pedantic about the drum sound, as does the drummer, but we all have to be realistic and that's what the OP tried.

I would say that whilst the first listen might sound like crap, with a bit of eq, a cardboard box can sound a lot better. Essentially, all drums sound like cardboard boxes until you eq them. Don't forget that compression is a very important part of the sound too.

At the mo, I'm experimenting with the room mic on my kit, I have also raised my cymbals away from the drum mics so as to minimise bleed (coz I get a lot when setup just as I like it)

What I'm saying is that I had to make changes to my drum/cymbal positions into places less comfortable in order to record a good sound.

We all have to compromise, ideally a studio kit would be a 4 piece with minimal cymbals, all spaced out nicely from each other in a good reverberating room.
 
It's more important to me to keep a positive head space and focus on getting prepared for the show than to argue about my sound. So I usually make life easy on the sound engineer and do what makes him or her feel comfortable.

There are some exceptions. If a particular recording or gig is really important to me and I have the creative control, then I will demand things be done a certain way. But in my world, that's a relative minority of gigs.
 
Sounds rough man. For the EP that i've been recording the engineer/producer is also a drummer. 1st thing we did was buy new heads for his kit(Pearl Masters, Coated Ambassadors over clear Ambassadors) and then he had me tune to my satisfaction. Then we recorded it and we determined what we needed to change to get the recorded sound to match up what we heard in the room. This involved retuning the kick and selecting completely different cymbals. The sound in the room ended up not being quite what i would want to play these songs live with but the sound on the tracks is exactly what i wanted. We used 4 mics on the drums Kick, snare, and a pair of overheads. The engineer should be able to mic your kit the way you tuned it and make it sound good but conversely recorded sound is an entirely different beast than live sound in a room and you as the drummer will have to make adjustments in order to get the sound on the tape to be what you hear in your head.
 
Rosemarydrumco said:
I totally disagree with this. It's the engineers job to get the drums sounding good for the song. Period...[\QUOTE]

Well, you would be wrong about that. What you're describing is part of the artist's or producer's job. Determining "what's best for the song" is not the engineer's job, unless he thinks he knows what the artist is going for, and it's not happening, and he wants to make a suggestion about how to achieve it.
It seems to me that the OP came in with very strong opinions about how he was going to have his drums sound, and it didn't really mesh very well with the engineer.
It's his prerogative to insist on the sound he wants, and it's not his job to mesh with the engineer-- it's the other way around. If the engineer has suggestions he needs to be nice about it, and ultimately defer to the artist.
 
I plan on putting an un-ported Ambassador on my kick and I'm worried about the guff I'm gonna get from sound guys. At my last show I asked the sound guy how often he encounters un-ported heads and he rolled his eyes and said that fortunately they're few and far between. He said they're too difficult to get a good sound from and the full reso head prevents you from being able to get any attack from the drum. I think a lot of the sound guys I encounter listen primarily to the kinds of awful music that replace the bass drum with clicks and because that's their idea of attack, that's what they think a live drum should sound like.

Am I out of line for thinking that a professional live sound engineer should be able to get a good sound from any type of well tuned drum, rather than trying to bend it to his ideal drum sound? Maybe the problem is the sound guys working local clubs and bars aren't really professionals.
 
Below is an example of a live recording using an un-ported kick drum.

1 mic in front of the front head, one inverted condenser between floor tom, ride and snare and 1 overhead.

If you don't cut a hole in the head, this is how your kick drum will sound, more of a pulse than a hit i guess. You can do a lot less with this kind of sound than you can with a ported head.

https://grandmarshall.bandcamp.com/album/reenable
 
Maybe the problem is the sound guys working local clubs and bars aren't really professionals.

They simply know just one side, one situation and one set of issues.

Being a complete engineer is something diffferent, Still, just like musicians, you'll be hard pressed to find someone who's just great at it all.

You got guys li Vinnie for drums, Tim Pierce for guitar, the session musicians that do it all. Same with engineers. The ones that understand everything are few and far between.

It's not about being a master of everything, though. It's really about attitude, the humility to be open to learning, being present, focusing on the right things.

For us that at least try to have some sort of overall understanding though, it does get a bit annoying meeting people, who even seem to get plenty of work, that haven't really understood some simple basics.

I generally do meet better live engineers these days, though. Many of them are pretty young to. They are simply spunges for info, know how to use the web to learn and do whatever it takes to do a good job.

These ideas go for everything. In football conditioning, technical skills and talent helps, but the guy who gets the ball in the end is the one that wants it the most, who is willing to go that extra mile and do it all the time. Sadly, that isn't always appreciated when you work behind the scenes, just like being a teacher, I guess.
 
I get the tape and muffling and all, sounds like crap in the room, amazing on tape. I would have no problem but I like overtones.

I'm pretty sure you can't put overtones in afterwards on a drum that is taped up. A drum with O-tones sounds so great because you rarely hear it on recordings. OMG it's not that hard, think Bonham. I can do it. If I can do it and an engineer can't/won't...he doesn't have any respect from me. Kind of pisses me off.
 
I get the tape and muffling and all, sounds like crap in the room, amazing on tape. I would have no problem but I like overtones.

I'm pretty sure you can't put overtones in afterwards on a drum that is taped up. A drum with O-tones sounds so great because you rarely hear it on recordings. OMG it's not that hard, think Bonham. I can do it. If I can do it and an engineer can't/won't...he doesn't have any respect from me. Kind of pisses me off.

+1

If I'm just practicing at home through my IEMs, I add an o-ring to cut out the ringing of the snare a bit, it's just a bit over-bearing in the live mix. Whenever I'm recording though, i have to remember to take off the o-ring as it sounds dead when recorded with it.
 
If we're talking "out there" techniques, I'd agree, but a good room, well prepared kit, an engineer who knows his room, & you should be up & running in no more than 30 minutes from first placing mic's.
That really depends heavily on the kit, it's setup and how it sounds. We don't know those variables, (please note, not talking crap about the OP!) nor do we know for example what mics he had, or how much time this was supposed to get done in. If you're en engineer charged with getting good sounds and it's just not working out with the gear brought in, you need to be expedient about changing things so you can work with them.

It's quite obvious that the OP didn't have the benefit of a good engineer, & probably not a good room either. Those key elements need to come together.
Based on this one-sided report and no audio of either before or after, I guess I agree, but I've personally seen you yourself lament about having to do sound for good drummers with poorly maintained, setup or tuned kits. Drummers can get VERY defensive about their sounds and often don't hear what others do. It's very possible this guy really knew what he was doing, or maybe he didn't! Perhaps if he had the right types of mics, he would have allowed the front head to stay on, who knows?

The result, & the attitude, are oh so typical of demo grade studios. Unfortunately, you often get what you pay for. There's absolutely no excuse for the attitude from this so called engineer. It's not just his job to get the best sound, it's also his job to support + encourage players to get the best out of them. If he's too jaded to work with relatively inexperienced players, he shouldn't accept work from them.
You get what you pay for is sort of the lesson here I think. We don't know the costs, but musician budgets tend to be lean.

Do research, make sure you understand how an engineer works and what his stuff sounds like. If he consistently pumps out great music in the genre, it may be worth deferring to his experience and not worrying so much about the room sound; which, quite frankly can change just from being a different room. That 4 hours of tuning you put in down in the basement can be almost useless once you get in the odd-shape muffled setup of a real recording room.
 
Am I out of line for thinking that a professional live sound engineer should be able to get a good sound from any type of well tuned drum, rather than trying to bend it to his ideal drum sound? Maybe the problem is the sound guys working local clubs and bars aren't really professionals.

I don't think you're not out of line, but that's a matter of opinion. ;)
 
Rosemarydrumco said:
I totally disagree with this. It's the engineers job to get the drums sounding good for the song. Period...[\QUOTE]

Well, you would be wrong about that. What you're describing is part of the artist's or producer's job. Determining "what's best for the song" is not the engineer's job, unless he thinks he knows what the artist is going for, and it's not happening, and he wants to make a suggestion about how to achieve it. It's his prerogative to insist on the sound he wants, and it's not his job to mesh with the engineer-- it's the other way around. If the engineer has suggestions he needs to be nice about it, and ultimately defer to the artist.

We have a difference of opinion here and thats ok. I've spent a lot of time in the studio on each side of the coin so we can agree to disagree. I don't think random session drummer comes in and tells CLA how to get the best sounds out of his drums...and since in this situation the engineer was the producer, I think he does have the authority to make some sonic decisions here. Typically the producer is working with the engineer to get the sound the band wants and he thinks best.

The issue here is lack of communication and difference of opinion between the engineer/producer and the drummer. They should be on the same page. But If the drummer/band tells the producer the sound he wants and engineer thinks they need to go about it a different way than he thinks to achieve that sound, the drummer should trust the engineer. That's why it's so important you pick the right one.

No offense to the OP but it seems he doesn't have a ton of studio experience...so it may just be possible the engineer knows more than him when it comes to getting a great sound IN THE STUDIO.

Like I said...this is all out the window if the engineer sucks. I don't know what level of professionalism this is on...so my arguments may be completely mute.

I just don't believe real session drummers and those that spend a ton of time doing studio work tell the producers and engineers how their drums should sound. The producers know the sound they want and the band trusts them to get it more often than not.

I'm just saying when I go into a live or studio gig I get with the engineer to talk with him about what sound would serve the music and we work together to achieve it. That's how I think it should be.
 
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It's one of those things.

Certain styles require muffling. Anything goes really, it's as much personal style and taste as anything.

There is a thing about overtones and drums, though. It actually took me a while to get used to fully sustaining drums and hear everything. Just like those mid frequencies that might sound weird to some on e.g. guitar though, drums sound way deeper from a distance than behind the kit etc..., in many settings those overtones are needed to cut through. You don't hear it in context.

Another example would be to hear the vocals on a typical ballad isolated with fx. In a dense mix there's probaly 10x more reverb on that track than would think.

In the case bass drums, there is a reason some engineers go a bit wild with the micing, like 3-5 mics. If they don't know exactly how things will be mixed they have stuff to work with and the complexity of that straight recorded sound will always have an edge over what can be done with any EQ tweak. Unless you start replacing and adding in samples, but then, what's the point.


Unported BD heads is a special case, though. It's sort of a thing now, it's in style, so knowing how to work with it isn't much to ask.

Just taking the reso off completely and putting a mic inside the drum is a normal thing to do though, for a certain sound and control. It feels quite different to play. It all depends on the music.
 
Below is an example of a live recording using an un-ported kick drum.

1 mic in front of the front head, one inverted condenser between floor tom, ride and snare and 1 overhead.

If you don't cut a hole in the head, this is how your kick drum will sound, more of a pulse than a hit i guess. You can do a lot less with this kind of sound than you can with a ported head.

https://grandmarshall.bandcamp.com/album/reenable

I'm going to respectfully disagree with you.
I initially used an unported head because I liked the aesthetics of it. When playing live we would mic it from the batter side and there was attack and body.
When using an expert I've asked them initially to mic from the front with the option to mic the batter if it's problematic. It never has been. As I mentioned earlier I had one set of roadies (I don't think they were "professional" soundmen) grumble about my full head but I think they were grumbling because they were conditioned too, we got a big bass drum sound in a huge marquee with little effort. I've calmed an overtone down with one large (1") oval of Wincent tone gel. The guy we've just started using didn't say anything or roll his eyes but simply got down to micing up and quickly got a big attacking sound. Perhaps the fact that my curent bass drum is a 14" depth has something to do with it but I've front micd both 16" and 18" drums.
I'm not awkward (moon gel is on the snare and Aquarian Studio Rings on the toms to speed up a good drum sound when close micd) but as a point of principle the likelihood of me cutting a hole in my reso head hovers around zero. My experience is that a good sound can be quickly had with a full reso and I'll be damned if I'm going to butcher a perfectly good head just so that I don't need to have "that discussion" with a soundman, especially when the guys I've been working with these last few months have no issues with a full head.
 
I'm going to respectfully disagree with you.
I initially used an unported head because I liked the aesthetics of it. When playing live we would mic it from the batter side and there was attack and body.
When using an expert I've asked them initially to mic from the front with the option to mic the batter if it's problematic. It never has been. As I mentioned earlier I had one set of roadies (I don't think they were "professional" soundmen) grumble about my full head but I think they were grumbling because they were conditioned too, we got a big bass drum sound in a huge marquee with little effort. I've calmed an overtone down with one large (1") oval of Wincent tone gel. The guy we've just started using didn't say anything or roll his eyes but simply got down to micing up and quickly got a big attacking sound. Perhaps the fact that my curent bass drum is a 14" depth has something to do with it but I've front micd both 16" and 18" drums.
I'm not awkward (moon gel is on the snare and Aquarian Studio Rings on the toms to speed up a good drum sound when close micd) but as a point of principle the likelihood of me cutting a hole in my reso head hovers around zero. My experience is that a good sound can be quickly had with a full reso and I'll be damned if I'm going to butcher a perfectly good head just so that I don't need to have "that discussion" with a soundman, especially when the guys I've been working with these last few months have no issues with a full head.

Well, fair enough, but I did give the mic position. Plus if you mic just the front head, you're going to have the flattest sounding kick drum ever.

I would recommend a combination of your setup and and mine for a studio. Get the pulse from the front head and the attack from the front head.

if you have enough mics and tracks of course

If I was a live engineer and the drummer turned up with an un-ported kick drum, I would take the front head off and mic it close to the beater.

2 full heads on your kick drum is just not required for live situations as it will have the bejeezus compressed out of it anyway, negating any personal preference you have. I can understand for recording, but live, no, unless it's a room micced kinda jazz situation.
 
& that would be quicker than mic'ing the batter head?

I can think of quite a few situations where that's true. Depends what sounds you're looking for, what the overall mix will be like, how the other bands will be mic'd, what mics you have available, what the room does to the sound waves, and so on.

I've personally been there when a sound guy took some dudes head off, and in every case, it was because his kit with the stock Yamaha un-ported head didn't sound good in the mix and they simply weren't important enough to warrant lots of extra setup time when there's other bands to sound check and he's already had to do that so many times that he already has freaking pre-sets on his board for the occasion.

Harder to admit, I used to be "that guy". Early in my gigging experience I would bring out my un-ported 22x18 which sounded okay in a bigger room but would always sound weak, muddy or farty when a close mic was placed. Of course, at the time I never admitted any of that. I took a "sounds/feels good to me, make it work, sound guy" approach and after about the 3rd time I got the "suck" button pressed on my kick I got wise.

Unless you have a dedicated tech, or are a big headline act, or you do your own sound, showing up to a gig\session without a port or willingness to be flexible is not in your best interest generally speaking.

As much as we hate to think so, in the majority of cases, the sound guy who does this every day really does have some good experience behind him, more than we do almost certainly, he might not know every technique for the less common setups, but be real... We would all love it if we always had extremely patient, willing, world class sound help, but, well... Usually it pays to do it their way.
 
Man I've never recorded my drums or recorded in a studio-I have been recorded playing with an orchestra and whatnot but I'm completely naive of the subject so have nothing of value to add. But I do have an observation and a question- that it sure seems it doesn't matter how well you play if you aren't mic'ed and recorded properly no one hears or what they hear may sound poor? Always seems to be an issue with the kick-is it because mics just don't or can't record the real sound and tones we hear in the low frequencies of a kick so engineers create a sound they can record?
 
Reading through all of this.... My question is....

Where the hell was your producer?

Engineers listen to the producer. Instruments are set up and mic'ed by the engineer in accordance to what the producer desires. If you do not have a producer, try to get one before going into another studio.

The only things that a drummer needs to do is to make sure they can still reach all of the instruments, give the engineer an idea of what the levels are going to be, and deliver a spectacular performance.

Left to their own devices, most engineers have one or two sure-fire methodologies they use to record any particular instrument and are frustrated when they need to deviate from their proven routines.
 
Reading through all of this.... My question is....

Where the hell was your producer?

Engineers listen to the producer. Instruments are set up and mic'ed by the engineer in accordance to what the producer desires. If you do not have a producer, try to get one before going into another studio.

The only things that a drummer needs to do is to make sure they can still reach all of the instruments, give the engineer an idea of what the levels are going to be, and deliver a spectacular performance.

Left to their own devices, most engineers have one or two sure-fire methodologies they use to record any particular instrument and are frustrated when they need to deviate from their proven routines.

The engineer and producer were the same guy


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