Recording with Yamaha EAD10

When it comes to making demos, the EAD10 appears to be fan-fucking-tastic. Your results are really good. While I can hear deficits like anemic toms, it's not as if the toms are entirely missing or un-hearable, just lacking.

I wish they made an EAD20 with an ORTF overhead and beamforming technology capable of instrument isolation. It would be a solution to such a long running problem faced by drummers.
 
My previous mixer that I used with a BD mic and one overhead died last year so I opted for the EAD10. It is an amazing tool for practicing. My only complaint it that the overall volume balance is such that the hihat and cymbals end up too soft in the mix. It forces me to play the hihat and cymbals way too hard to get a balance with the snare and BD that sound amazing but seem to overpower the mix. I increased the highs in the headphone mix, but even when recording the iPhone app or DAW, the cymbals are too soft. The ability to add overhead mics would be great. I’m thinking of buying either a USB mixer or an audio interface to allow me to control the balance of the EAD10’s great audio processing with a couple overheads for clean hihat & cymbals. Has anyone tried this?
 
My previous mixer that I used with a BD mic and one overhead died last year so I opted for the EAD10. It is an amazing tool for practicing. My only complaint it that the overall volume balance is such that the hihat and cymbals end up too soft in the mix. It forces me to play the hihat and cymbals way too hard to get a balance with the snare and BD that sound amazing but seem to overpower the mix. I increased the highs in the headphone mix, but even when recording the iPhone app or DAW, the cymbals are too soft. The ability to add overhead mics would be great. I’m thinking of buying either a USB mixer or an audio interface to allow me to control the balance of the EAD10’s great audio processing with a couple overheads for clean hihat & cymbals. Has anyone tried this?
Youll get phasing issues, but it could work. You’d want to reverse the phase of either the EAD10 or the overheads, since you’d be micing the cymbals from the bottom and from the top. If you’re interface has a phase button on each input channel, all the better. Otherwise flip the phase within the DAW.
 
My previous mixer that I used with a BD mic and one overhead died last year so I opted for the EAD10. It is an amazing tool for practicing. My only complaint it that the overall volume balance is such that the hihat and cymbals end up too soft in the mix. It forces me to play the hihat and cymbals way too hard to get a balance with the snare and BD that sound amazing but seem to overpower the mix. I increased the highs in the headphone mix, but even when recording the iPhone app or DAW, the cymbals are too soft. The ability to add overhead mics would be great. I’m thinking of buying either a USB mixer or an audio interface to allow me to control the balance of the EAD10’s great audio processing with a couple overheads for clean hihat & cymbals. Has anyone tried this?


I just recorded a track for a hip hop group and that's exactly what I did. EAD10 on the compressor setting - had a nice overhead mic - both went into a scarlet interface then into protools.

Nice clean cymbal sound - great EAD quality - I didn't have any phasing issues. Came out great.
 
Do you really just attach it to the bass drum and get a quality recording of the sound of the whole kit? Bass, snare cymbals and toms?

Yes, but with the limitations.

80/20 did a good realistic review.
"If you're a 3 or 4 in your sound production with your Zoom mics, this will take you to 7.5 in a hurry."

 
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Do you really just attach it to the bass drum and get a quality recording of the sound of the whole kit? Bass, snare cymbals and toms?

Yeppers.

It's awesome.

I mean - the biggest thing is that you get ONE track. So you can't turn up the bass and you can't mess with the cymabal eq or the snare independently. So you have to understand that if you really want to dig deep - you'll hit a wall soon.

However - I just did that track for the hip hop guys and now I'm doing the whole album because they were so happy with the drum track.
 
Yeppers.

It's awesome.

I mean - the biggest thing is that you get ONE track. So you can't turn up the bass and you can't mess with the cymabal eq or the snare independently. So you have to understand that if you really want to dig deep - you'll hit a wall soon.

However - I just did that track for the hip hop guys and now I'm doing the whole album because they were so happy with the drum track.
I've just bought one to do demos and get something better than phone recordings without needing to buy an whole interface and digital recording setup. Hopefully get some half decent recordings with it. Thanks very much for the information.
 
I've just bought one to do demos and get something better than phone recordings without needing to buy an whole interface and digital recording setup. Hopefully get some half decent recordings with it. Thanks very much for the information.

You're going to dig it - and the app is incredibly powerful.

You can import tunes and play along make videos on your phone, etc.

It's great!
 
My previous mixer that I used with a BD mic and one overhead died last year so I opted for the EAD10. It is an amazing tool for practicing. My only complaint it that the overall volume balance is such that the hihat and cymbals end up too soft in the mix. It forces me to play the hihat and cymbals way too hard to get a balance with the snare and BD that sound amazing but seem to overpower the mix. I increased the highs in the headphone mix, but even when recording the iPhone app or DAW, the cymbals are too soft. The ability to add overhead mics would be great. I’m thinking of buying either a USB mixer or an audio interface to allow me to control the balance of the EAD10’s great audio processing with a couple overheads for clean hihat & cymbals. Has anyone tried this?
I actually prefer my Hats to be lower in the mix. I can't stand Hi Hats that are overpowering or even equal to the volume of my Kick/Snare. So this doesn't bother me.
I just did the firmware upgrade and it includes a "talk back" feature, so now I don't need to use a separate vocal mic and interface for conducting online lessons. It's all EAD10. Also, I have been doing a lot of commercial recording the last couple months and have been using the EAD10 as extra room mics. So the whole kit is miced up, and I include a L and R channel with the EAD10 in the mix. It's fantastic!
 
Can someone explain what the EAD10 actually is, like what is the technology happening under the hood? Is it doing some fancy equalization, or actually using some sort of algorithm to detect individual drums, or what? When you are done, have you mic'd your drums, or done the equivalent of using triggers to use sampled sounds?
 
Can someone explain what the EAD10 actually is, like what is the technology happening under the hood? Is it doing some fancy equalization, or actually using some sort of algorithm to detect individual drums, or what? When you are done, have you mic'd your drums, or done the equivalent of using triggers to use sampled sounds?

The unit that connects to the bass is basically three things:

1. Bass drum trigger
2. A vented grille section at the top of the unit houses a stereo condenser mic in an X-Y configuration that picks up the acoustic sound of the drums.
3. The brain or processing unit - that stores all the sounds, etc. It's your primary interface - where you can scroll through effects, sounds, change trigger levels, etc. etc.

The entire sensor unit that you attach to your bass drum hoop, including the grill that covers the microphone capsule, incorporates an acoustical design that allows for the adjustment of directivity and frequency characteristics. The secret sauce is the processing that Yamaha has developed with yearsssss of audio experience and high end digital signal processing from their home audio stuff that looks at the frequencies coming into those mics and has a sophisticated algorithm that basically follows this logic:

"A frequency is where cymbals usually exist - so I will mix this sound as cymbals"
"B frequency is where snare drums usually exist - so I mix this sound as a snare" - it also can accept a snare trigger.
"C frequency is where rack toms and floors usually exist - so I mix this sound as a tom"
"D frequency and impact from the trigger is the bass drum"


It's an incredibly slick little system and I've recently recorded a whole album with it and the producers PREFERRED the sound of the EAD10 despite not having individual tracks, etc. just the EAD10 and one overheard. We originally just ran it on a whim to see how it sounded - but lo and behold - the "compressor" setting nailed it haha.
 

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It's an incredibly slick little system and I've recently recorded a whole album with it and the producers PREFERRED the sound of the EAD10 despite not having individual tracks, etc. just the EAD10 and one overheard. We originally just ran it on a whim to see how it sounded - but lo and behold - the "compressor" setting nailed it haha
Very intriguing. Very tempting.
 
I just bought can ead10 and I have not used it yet .I'm curious though are you guys using the Yamaha app for recording


I use the app all the time - for things like instagram videos etc. I have also used a scarlet interface into pro-tools for actual recording...but the app is my favorite part. Super easy to get quality audio and video.


Very intriguing. Very tempting.

It's amazing as a practice tool - you have your kit sound coming through some headphones with songs you can import on the app or a click in the unit itself...but you have some compression and reverb on it and it sounds like you're jamming in a studio or there's some crazy effects in there like a flanger haha.

It's great for social media - super easy to bust out a quick drum cover or snag some clips with great audio to share insanely easy.

I've used it now in a real recording capacity and I was surprised to hear that the audio track I exported with that got used on at least a few tracks.

Now having said all that - it's not perfect:

1. You get a single track exported. There's no going in and bringing up the kick drum and bringing down the snare, etc. What you get is what you get.
2. You can't record the drums flat and go back in and add the effects later. You can add other effects later if you export that track - but you can't add the "1985" preset or "HipHop" after you record a flat track - that would be awesomeeee but it just isn't that smart of a unit.
3. I've found that it's best with a 22" kick - because the microphone sits physically lower on a 18" or 16" - you pick up a lot more of the bottom head with that kind of a set up than with a 22" because of the physical location of the input. ...but - I only have 18's and 16"s haha - so with setting like "compressor" - I can still get a good sound, just not quite as beefy as some people can with the 22". I have a 22" coming in though so I'll be able to do more testing.
4. I actually really like how well it does cymbals - but I wish the toms were a little more full in the mix - but that's personal preference, it hasn't stopped me yet.
5. You can mess it up with big or funky setups. It's two mics and a trigger...so if you have a 7 piece set with 3 aux snares and cowbells hanging off the ceiling or whatever - the volume and quality of the snare or tom sound that's 6 feet away from the mic just won't be quite as good as a solid 4 piece kit with everything in decent proximity will be....but it still won't be that bad which is amazing.

Also - I've used it live on 4 shows now too and on stage isn't something a lot of people talk about so I'll share my expriences there too:

1. First gig I used it on was with my jazz trio at this big corporate gig - it was in a ball room and we had our fender passport for a PA - so it wasn't SUPER amped up - but I ran it on the "Calf Skin" setting and it actually did great giving just a little more drum sound in a big ballroom - the kick sound on that setting was great.
2. I used it at a club with my primary band which is Hip Hop / Jazz / Funk - think Galactic or Lettuce vibes....That show was a mixed bag. The stage volume was considerably higher from other instruments and since it's designed to pick up sound around it -we ended up just using normal mics because occasionally I would get trumpet cutting into my mix. Again - it wasn't THAT bad though but we didn't have time to dial it in - it was kind of an experiment.

3 and 4 were both live streams and it just CRUSHED in those two situations. The audio went into the mixer and sounded perfect. The production team was stoked at how little they had to bring in for the drums haha. The ambient volume was moderate as we did these in an art gallery - so there was some echo and we don't have a chordal instrument: bass, drums, trumpet with effects and an MC - so there isn't a ton to bleed in except the ambient sound of the trumpet - which didn't happen.

So I really nothing but good stuff to say about it as long as you use it in in a context where it makes sense to use it.

It doesn't replace real mic set ups for professional sound - but nothing on the planet beats how easy it is to set up and get dang good audio in literally a minute or so.
 
One thing to note, if you're a dumbass like me. I plugged a mono jack into the phones socket, and everything sounded terrible. Put a proper stereo jack into it, and it was like a totally different thing. Far beyond just hearing the audio in one headphone. i haven't recorded properly on it yet as i'm waiting for some adaptors to allow me to connect my laptop and phone to it. But the sound straight through it into headphones is great. And I say that as someone who does not like electronic drums. Though I only have 0.5 selected on reverb and maybe 2 on trigger, it really brings the kick into the mix with my cymbals.
 
Are you getting the sound of your drums, or a triggered sound, or some sort of combination of the two? Like if I change my heads, or tune my kit differently, how does it affect the output?

When I was looking at this a while back I think I was concerned about lack of Android or PC support. Where does that stand? I really prefer to operate from my PC. For playing over songs, I typically bring up my music on the PC (Google music in my case, similar to Spotify). Will that work, or does it insist on having an audio file of some kind?
 
Are you getting the sound of your drums, or a triggered sound, or some sort of combination of the two? Like if I change my heads, or tune my kit differently, how does it affect the output?

When I was looking at this a while back I think I was concerned about lack of Android or PC support. Where does that stand? I really prefer to operate from my PC. For playing over songs, I typically bring up my music on the PC (Google music in my case, similar to Spotify). Will that work, or does it insist on having an audio file of some kind?

You get the acoustic sound for all of your drums - the kick DOES have a trigger though - but there's an actual knob for adjusting how much kick trigger you get.

So if you change the heads and tune different - it'll sound different. I know when I have my higher tom tuning - it picks up the toms a lot more because I'm starting to slide in the snare frequencies - which I have them tuned lower, it mixes them lower because it knows it's toms and their algorithm mixes toms lower than snare and kick.


So about the second question:

The unit has an 1 x 1/8" aux in - so if you use that - it'll input anything you want into your headphone mix. You could play along to an audiobook - it doesn't care haha. So you would just need an aux cord from your PC or phone


So you could practice to anything.

What I don't think you can do is stream from spotify then RECORD that streaming playing - but I might be wrong.

Also the "Rec'n'Share" app is available for Android.
 
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