Please Help A First-Timer with Home Recording

[granlobo12]

Hello, all...and thanks for your time and consideration.

In the process of attempting a first-time, at-home recording.

My understanding is that once 8 pieces of the kit were mic'd up, the 8 XLR cables would go to the audio interface, which would then connect to the laptop/DAW.

I had expected to just *play through* a 4-minute song, simultaneously recording 8 channels that could be manipulated afterward in the DAW.

It's being suggested to me that doing so will "pollute" each channel because, for example, the snare channel will be picking up noise from the toms and the tom channels will be picking up noise from the cymbals.

I was asked to mute my entire kit with rubber mutes except for 1 individual kit piece at a time, playing all the way through the song, but only recording that 1, unmuted piece each time. (E.G., "this is the "snare" track. Everything else is covered in mutes so that the snare doesn't pick up any cymbal or tom. 4-minute playthrough, but only the snare "counts" during this run-through.").

It'll make for a long recording process having to play through as close perfectly as possible *8 times* for each song, with the goal of avoiding "contamination" from one kit element to the next.

Any feedback is much appreciated. Thanks!

 

[alparrott]

No, no no no.

This is certainly a technique, and it *could* work, but almost nobody in the actual music business records in this way.

The drumset is an entire instrument and the components of the drumset interact with each other sonically in a certain way. When you whack the snare drum, you will get slight sympathetic vibrations off the tom resos, the bottoms of the cymbals, etc. This is what makes it sound organic and authentic.

The microphones on a drumset are mostly unidirectional, meant to be aimed at the drum they are miking. They will pick up some noise from the other instruments around them, especially when playing loud. But if positioned correctly, that bleed is negligible to the signal coming from that microphone when the target drum is not being played.

The graph below is an isolated bass drum microphone track in a six-track recording (bass drum, snare drum, two toms, two overheads). The bass drum microphone is a Sennheiser E901 boundary microphone placed inside the bass drum.

If you listen to an excerpt of the isolated microphone on this track, you can hear the cymbals, toms and snare, but as shown on the graph above, it's a very low-decibel floor through which the target instrument (bass drum) is clearly the most prominent instrument. This track was lightly EQ'ed and compressed, and that serves to further emphasize the bass drum on this track and minimize the other voices that bled into the microphone.

Now, there are many projects where the one-at-a-time drumset component technique was used - but it is not common and is way more difficult than it sounds. I certainly would not recommend it for a beginner to drum recording. 99.9% of recordings do not do this. Almost certainly whoever is asking you to do this, is not a drummer themselves and may not be aware of how complex this technique is. Maybe they would like to invest in a drum machine.

 

[TK-421]

Whoever asked you to mute your entire kit except for one drum at a time has absolutely no clue about recording drums. If it was a band member telling you this, you need to set him/her straight. If it was a recording engineer telling you this, absolutely find a different engineer.

As alparrot said, it’s okay for some bleed to occur (e.g. picking up a little bit of snare in the tom or bass mics, etc.). Just think of the drum set as one instrument instead of a collection of individual drums and cymbals. After all, you wouldn’t record a piano one string at a time, you record it as one instrument. Same with drums.

 

[Jeremy Bender]

In this video you'll see how a top pro's kit looks at a recording sesssion in a Nashville studio. Notice the mics on each drum and his dampening method.

 

[granlobo12]

Thank you for your time & kindness.

Band leader thinks he's using this technique to replicate "isolation booths" in a studio that we can't afford.

If "bleed" is an issue, wouldn't double kick drums bleed into each other during fast (metal) double bass drumming? Unavoidably so?

How would you even damp/mute a kick drum?

Seems impossible to me to play a blast beat (syncopated snare/bass) while *pretending* on either the feet or the snare to not have it "bleed" into the other?

Can you even keep time correctly while affecting the kinesthetics/rebound of all but one kit element at a time?

It's young people involved...good players with big aspirations...but this seems excessive and a bit odd.

 

[alparrott]

Thank you for your time & kindness.

Band leader thinks he's using this technique to replicate "isolation booths" in a studio that we can't afford.

If "bleed" is an issue, wouldn't double kick drums bleed into each other during fast (metal) double bass drumming? Unavoidably so?

How would you even damp/mute a kick drum?

Seems impossible to me to play a blast beat (syncopated snare/bass) while *pretending* on either the feet or the snare to not have it "bleed" into the other?

Can you even keep time correctly while affecting the kinesthetics/rebound of all but one kit element at a time?

It's young people involved...good players with big aspirations...but this seems excessive and a bit odd.

A lot of times metal drummers will trigger their bass drums. That signal is amplified and the natural microphone signal, if one is used, is turned down.

This technique that your band leader is talking about does not duplicate isolation booths. Even in an isolation booth, drums and cymbals bleed into each other's microphones. It is extremely possible to get a very clean drum sound without doing each component one at a time. Probably every single album he has heard has had the drumset recorded together. If it sounds very clean, it's because there's gates and compression and EQ on every channel, plus possibly some triggering. But it wasn't recorded one drum, one cymbal at a time.

Tell him he has to record his guitar parts one note at a time for the same reason. It's exactly as stupid as it sounds.

 

[Bo Eder]

Yeah - the band leader doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Tell him to go take a class.

 

[TK-421]

Band leader thinks he's using this technique to replicate "isolation booths" in a studio that we can't afford.

I don't think your band leader knows what an isolation booth is. It's designed to separate musicians from each other when recording all the parts at the same time. For example, separating piano from guitar from bass, etc. And while this also applies to drums, it's meant to separate the entire drum kit from the other instruments. NOT individual drums from each other.

In fact, I'd say it'd be just about impossible to record a convincing drum track that way. Even if you really wanted to record this way and played everything to a click, hits wouldn't line up and the feel would suffer dramatically.

Seems impossible to me to play a blast beat (syncopated snare/bass) while *pretending* on either the feet or the snare to not have it "bleed" into the other?

This is especially true with playing blast beats. So you're right, it would be impossible.

Can you even keep time correctly while affecting the kinesthetics/rebound of all but one kit element at a time?

No.

If you want to see isolation booths in action (how they're supposed to be used), check out this video. Yeah it's jazz, not metal, but that makes no difference whatsoever.

 

[green glass drum]

The "method" that the bandleader is speaking of.....was used on one song...that I know of.
"Heart of Glass" by Blondie. Clem Burke recorded the kit in multiple passes playing one element each time through. This "method"....is time consuming, difficult for the drummer to remember their parts in pieces, may sound great when it's done......and not really necessary in the grand scheme of making records......unless the producer says it is.

 

[Winston_Wolf]

If (big IF) you wanted to do something out of the norm like add some kind of effects to the drums that wouldn't sound good on cymbals (or vice versa) I could see doing a drums pass and a cymbals pass, but if your drum part is of the straightforward "boom bap boom boom bap" variety I just can't see the point, especially wanting to track every single drum separately. That's just madness!

As already mentioned, the sound of a drum set is the sum of its parts ringing in sympathy with each other. All but the most absurdly dry drum tracks have that sympathetic ring in them, you just don't hear it in the final mix with the rest of the instruments. Even in cases where the track sounds very dry and isolated, it's still the work of EQ and noise gates, NOT tracking every piece separately.

 

[dboomer]

It's being suggested to me that doing so will "pollute" each channel because, for example, the snare channel will be picking up noise from the toms and the tom channels will be picking up noise from the cymbals.

It will, but that’s just one of many compromises.

Any time more than one microphone pick up the same source there will almost certainly be cancellations and comb filtering. So when you have a bunch of mics picking up a source there will be even more. You can eliminate that issue by using a single microphone. Ok, nobody does that.

So by using multiple mics you can individual control of all of your drums but with at least some compromise in sound quality. You could use electronic drums and have both total control over each drum while having no phase cancellation issues. One additional thing that most aren’t aware of but the same things happens in your live pa mix. If any of your drum mics are picking up the guitar or bass they will be affecting the tone quality of those other instruments (Unless they are run direct only).

But for me, I‘d rather have either of those issues than to try and play a drum part one drum at a time.

 

[dcrigger]

The "method" that the bandleader is speaking of.....was used on one song...that I know of.
"Heart of Glass" by Blondie. Clem Burke recorded the kit in multiple passes playing one element each time through. This "method"....is time consuming, difficult for the drummer to remember their parts in pieces, may sound great when it's done......and not really necessary in the grand scheme of making records......unless the producer says it is.

Not really that uncommon - Every Breath You Take was recorded that way... but even this is a different methodology than the OP's leader was suggesting. Being as you describe, actually playing each part of the set at a time, one after the other on separate passes - not playing repeatedly playing the whole part while attempting to mute/muffle the unwanted sounds for that pass.

The whole point of this method is to gain total sonic control over each element - not capturing say a snare part with a whole mess of muted ticky-tacky going in the background.

 

[dcrigger]

Thank you for your time & kindness.

Band leader thinks he's using this technique to replicate "isolation booths" in a studio that we can't afford.

If "bleed" is an issue, wouldn't double kick drums bleed into each other during fast (metal) double bass drumming? Unavoidably so?

How would you even damp/mute a kick drum?

Seems impossible to me to play a blast beat (syncopated snare/bass) while *pretending* on either the feet or the snare to not have it "bleed" into the other?

Can you even keep time correctly while affecting the kinesthetics/rebound of all but one kit element at a time?

It's young people involved...good players with big aspirations...but this seems excessive and a bit odd.

Yes the leader's concept of what isolation booths are far is simply mistaken. Booths exist to separate the one player from another.... vocals from the sound of the band in the room, drums from spilling into everything else.

As touched on above - the only ways to totally isolate one part of the kit from the others is to.... play each part separately (but this very challenging, except for really simply overall parts - and then always compromises the groove, especially if the player isn't really good at doing it.); or record the drums normally then do drum "replacement" with samples for the elements desired to be isolated. (For example, kick and snare samples can be made to perfectly mimic the acoustic drums - and then the sample are used in place of the close kick and snare mics with the BD/SD leakage remaining in the overheads, tom, and room mics. We are hearing this technique constant today); and finally just program the drums for square one (with the right software, great isolation - but again, possible huge compromises in feel and realism (depending on the skill of the programmer) and generally takes a lot more time.)

As far as isolating the drums from other parts of the band - a common technique is to set-up to record the drums like normal, but have the other players all going direct (no mics, no amps). This way the band plays as a whole, but the focus, besides getting the overall feel right, is getting the drums right. Once the drum parts are done - amps can be set-up and the other players can replace their "direct" parts. Again, for good and bad, this method is used a lot.

 

[piston broke]

My understanding is that once 8 pieces of the kit were mic'd up, the 8 XLR cables would go to the audio interface, which would then connect to the laptop/DAW.

You might be surprised by how many songs were recorded with only 3 or 4 mics - as popularised by Glyn Johns.

 

[dwsabianguy]

Songs for the Deaf by Queens of the Stone Age was recorded with two passes on the drums - one of just drums, and one of just cymbals. It allowed the drums to be treated with some room sound and the cymbals with none. It's a great sounding record, and Dave Grohl did a fantastic job on those drums, but even playing V-cymbals and drums with mutes, that sounds like a slog to me. But I can't argue with the results.

To record things separately, your timing has to be impossibly tight. As it's your first time recording, to be honest with you, you're almost definitely going to have a very hard time.

If you're trying to sound like a drum machine, I could see simplifying the hell out of the part and recording kick, snare, and cymbals separately from each other, but that's definitely not going to sound like "a drum set" because the "set" part is a big part of the sound, and that includes one player's one singular performance. Start stacking performances on top of each other and you're going to end up with thousands of tiny timing discrepancies that no longer sound like a human being playing a musical instrument.

Bleed also isn't inherently bad. You just need to have some good mic techniques in your bag to know how to control it to your benefit. And there's always gates to reduce bleed.

So no, I would never do that, and I would never ask someone to do that. Maybe drums and cymbals, but never each individual piece.

It's a bit like asking a guitarist to record each of the six strings separately.

 

[PorkPieGuy]

When I first started recording, I actually tried to do the one drum at a time. Talk about sucking the fun out of the process.

Here's my advice:

1. Close mic all of the drums, and then use two overheads.
2. Record a test track with the kick drums and overheads only coming through. Physically adjust mics as needed.
3. After this initial test recording, use the close mics to fill in what's "missing" in the mix, and do more test recording.
4. Get the drum mix and levels as perfect as you can before recording the actual songs. Spending 30 minutes getting things to sound good in pre-production can save HOURS of time in post-production. Even with that said, it's not going to be perfect. It NEVER is, but do your best to learn and enjoy learning.

Also, don't get too hung up on the recording process; however, definitely get hung up on playing well. I'd rather have a crummy mix of a great song and great playing as opposed to a perfectly-mixed song that was not great. Good songs tend to shine through.

For example, this is one of the worst drum mixes I've ever heard:

Sounds like it was recorded in a metal building or concrete garage.
The kick is flat.
Cymbals are waaay too loud.
Toms are just as flat as the kick if not worse.
The guitars crawl all over every freakin' part. They are annoyingly loud. Gah.

The result?

It's perfect.

And I wouldn't change a thing.

 

[doggyd69b]

When I first started recording, I actually tried to do the one drum at a time. Talk about sucking the fun out of the process.

Here's my advice:

1. Close mic all of the drums, and then use two overheads.
2. Record a test track with the kick drums and overheads only coming through. Physically adjust mics as needed.
3. After this initial test recording, use the close mics to fill in what's "missing" in the mix, and do more test recording.
4. Get the drum mix and levels as perfect as you can before recording the actual songs. Spending 30 minutes getting things to sound good in pre-production can save HOURS of time in post-production. Even with that said, it's not going to be perfect. It NEVER is, but do your best to learn and enjoy learning.

Also, don't get too hung up on the recording process; however, definitely get hung up on playing well. I'd rather have a crummy mix of a great song and great playing as opposed to a perfectly-mixed song that was not great. Good songs tend to shine through.

For example, this is one of the worst drum mixes I've ever heard:

Sounds like it was recorded in a metal building or concrete garage.
The kick is flat.
Cymbals are waaay too loud.
Toms are just as flat as the kick if not worse.
The guitars crawl all over every freakin' part. They are annoyingly loud. Gah.

The result?

It's perfect.

And I wouldn't change a thing.

I don't think it sounds that bad (when compared to bands from the 60's) on some of the Beatles recordings you can barely distinguish what the drums are doing due to the quality of the gear used. if you listen to broadcasts from the 60's, all male speakers sounded very alike because of the mics used. I believe the same applied to recordings of instruments. When you compare that to the quality we have at present time, even the cheapest gear will sound better than a lot of the old stuff. Now even with the best gear if your levels are off then your recording is going to sound bad...

 

[doggyd69b]

After messing around with Superior Drummer (the closest I will ever get to properly recorded drums) I discovered immediately that:

1 A lot of the time you want some mic bleed from other kit pieces to make the drums some more natural as well as some room ambiance otherwise your drums will sound very flat and unrealistic.

2 You will never be able to exactly match an album's sound unless you are using the exact same gear (all the way to the exact drums used) and in the same room the originals were recorded, and hopefully you have notes from the original engineer or even better have him there.. but for most of us regular folks we can only hope to treat our little space somehow to get it to sound ok, then we can also only afford to have certain gear and make the best with that.

3 Nobody said you can't do great recordings with little, it will just be more difficult.

4 Drum replacement software is a thing (record mediocre drums, replace with great samples and voila great sounding recording). And that is NOT cheating, it's utilizing the available tools to get the job done, after all, a real drummer had to play those parts and you still had to record them.
a little cheating can happen if you adjust the midi (or audio) to perfectly line up every time, but if that is what you are going for.. again how you produce your art is up to you.

After using Superior Drummer (which I just bought after all these years) I start with a basic kit from the default library, pick say a snare, and try to work with it to achieve a certain album tone most of the time quite successfully. This is accomplished because you can layer instruments (add a snare on top of another snare and blend the two which you can't do in real life). I have not yet used it with my e-kit, but I am certainly looking forward to that, for now I am making my own presets (not that the ones that come with the program are not great but I am making my specific presets for specific scenarios, then will test hopefully with drum-less tracks and see how good or far off I was... (they sound great in my monitoring headphones)...

 

[Wavelength]

Bleed into the close mics from other drums is absolutely normal. It can be mitigated to some extent with drum placement, mic selection, mic placement and the way the drummer hits the drums. It's not completely avoidable, and I'd imagine having no bleed whatsoever would make fairly unnatural sounding recordings.

Here are some examples from a simple drum recording I made to experiment with how each mic contributes to the whole mix. Each file contains a four bar loop of the same thing, but various tracks are soloed or muted in different combinations. Apart from slight EQing and polarity switching, no plugins are used.

1. Soloed busses

1. Full mix
2. Kick
3. Snare
4. Toms
5. Overheads
6. Room mics
7. Full mix

2. Muted busses

1. Full mix
2. Kick out
3. Snare out
4. Toms out
5. Overheads out
6. Room mics out
7. Full mix

3. Without snare and toms

1. Full mix
2. Overheads and kick
3. Overheads, room mics and kick
4. Full mix

4. Without toms

1. Full mix
2. Overheads, kick and snare
3. Overheads, room mics, kick and snare
4. Full mix