Hi, my teenage boy plays drums. He plays to backing tracks that he listens to through headphones with ear defenders over the top. Works well. But I'd love to be able to hear the music whilst he's playing and be able to record it - nothing professional, just to keep for my benefit! What equipment would we need to be able to do that? He's tried playing music through a loud Bluetooth speaker (most tracks are on his iPhone) but he can't hear the music over the top of his drums if he wears ear plugs or ear defenders (and it's too loud not to have any protection). We're neither of us very technically minded so any help appreciated!
Thanks,
Ella
First off - props to you for supporting his drumming!
Even enough to track down this forum and ask us!!
That's REALLLLLLY cool of you!
Unfortunately the above folks are right - there's not a super cheap way of doing this.
If you have a laptop that's decent you could do something like this:
Digital Reference 4 piece mic kit- $100
10 pack of XLR cables on Ebay- $37
Zoom H2n as overhead or room mic- $100
Behringer u-phoria umc audio interface- $100
stands- $0 (clamps come with mic kit)
Cubase- $0 (it comes with the zoom)
Multi-track drum recording for a 4 piece kit with only $337 - but you or he will need some skills to work all that equipment (Which might be fun for him anyways if he's really into music).
Another option that could work that I love is called the Yamaha EAD10. Just note that it costs about $500 - but I found a nearly brand new one for $350 on ebay (or you can look at reverb.com too for used gear).
It's a recording setup that clips the bass drum that you could put together in like 1 minute haha - it's the easiest thing.
It has an amazing app on the phone that allows you import songs and play along to them and record them - it's super easy to use. It also has a metronome and tons of cool stuff like effects that he can put on his drums.
It's a killer product that's very easy to use if he has a decent phone to run the app - and later if he did have a laptop - he could send the audio from the EAD10 into the laptop.
Here's a link to it:
Acoustic Drum Microphone System with Electronic Drum Module, Interconnect Cables, and Power Supply
www.sweetwater.com
Mic your drums in seconds - attach the EAD10 to any acoustic drum, and you'll have a high-quality stereo image of the entire acoustic kit in seconds. The EAD10 intuitively and instantly transforms acoustic drum sounds with studio-quality digital effects and sampled sounds. Create stunning audio...
usa.yamaha.com
That's a very simple way of doing it too.
Again - I LOVE that you are here - I hope we can help!!!