Old dog, new recording tricks.

Andy

Honorary Member
Hi gang,

I'm back in the studio in 2 weeks time after a recording layoff of 25 years. No big deal from a playing point of view. I used to earn my living from live & recording session work but I'm grossly out of date with new methods & technology. It's my band's first foray into the studio so we're starting in the bargain basement and making things easy on ourselves. $200 / day local demo studio, 3 cover tracks, 1 day recording, half day mix & master, you get the idea.

Let me tell you about my step method to getting a good drum sound and see if you guys can give me alternative tips or let me know if there's better gizmo's out there to simplify things.

Ok, start with well tuned kit. Got that nailed. I like a semi live environment (not the padded cell approach). I put a high spl dynamic 2/3rds into the kick drum facing the beater striking point and a ld condenser at 45 degrees about 6" outside the reso. Toms close mic'd with hypercardoid dynamics. 57 or similar to the snare batter, condenser snareside, usually don't bother with the hats. 2 x condensers overhead. 1 x boundry mic at least 12 foot away on wall facing the front of the kit. I don't have gaffer or any form of dampening to the kit apart from the Emad 1 on the kick batter.

I hit around the kit and listen through isolation phones to tweek the basic tuning & mic placement. I then record a couple of minutes of round the kit playing and single drum / cymbal hits. Listen back in the control room. If further tuning / mic placement tweeks are needed, get them done then record the adjusted bits of the kit. Once happy, I then spend a few minutes EQing each line from the recording. I do this only to ensure I can get the sounds out later on that I want. i.e. I'm not missing anything. I then set everything back to flat & record the session. I'm a great believer in recording flat as you then have the best acoustic sound you can get and you've not EQ'd something out that you may need to give you separation later.

On mix & master, I rely heavily on the overheads for the general kit sound with the exception of the kick drum. The tom mics are used only to add a little mid & bottom, tom attack best coming from the overheads. Same story with the snare, the close mic's are the supporting act. I like to bring the boundry mic into play. This brings a live vitality and a bit of natural reverb into play. It's also a great balancer. Maybe a touch of plate reverb on snare & toms and that's my sound.

Ok, that's how I used to do it 25 years ago. I'm sure things have changed and my method of getting a good sound probably sounds amusingly old fashioned to some members. If you know a better way, have some handy sound tech hints, know of latest technology that makes life easier, please let this out of date drummer in on the secret.
 
Honestly, that sounds exactly the way i want to get my kit recorded, down to the mic setups and everything. I don't think anything you've said sounds old fasioned at all. To be honest i'd say the major changes in terms of recording have happened behind from the mixer back. Everything in front, IE the setup of the mics, acoustics, drum tuning and all that is pretty much the same as back as it was then.

As i say, the real changes are from the mixer back. I would say that the idea of eqing before recording is a good idea to see if it will sound good what you've done with the tuning and mic placements and everything is still a good idea today though, it's just that you will probably be using a virtual eq which is really good because you can save presets and you can also "see" the eq curve when you make it. Actually many studios still use real rack mounted gear. It depends where you go really. The other great thing about it is that you're not using tape so editing is so much easier, plus you don't have to worry about the quality degrading over time and playbacks.
 
Sounds like you have everything covered.

Differences in recording are more to do with everything is software based, with more tracks, and the ability to manipulate audio in unreal ways.

But mic-ing up a drum kit is more or less the same as it's ever been.
 
+1 Nothing's really changed from the drummer's perspective.
 
I recorded last weekend, using essentially exactly what you described KIS. I like a live room too, and a live drum sound. Kudos to you for your good taste.
 
Thanks guys, comforting to know the basics haven't changed. I very much get involved in writing, arrangement & production as well so I'm actually more concerned with vocal capture (always the most difficult & important studio task). I guess modern technology will show itself more at the mastering stage. I'm not getting too anal on detail in this session. The studio is low rent serviceable and we're only knocking out 3 covers over a day so expectation isn't high. The motivation to do this is a part fun, part band bonding (we've only been together in this form for two months), and the need to get some promotional content onto our site.

Thanks for the compliment Average. Even in the 80's, I was fighting against the tide by letting my drums sing when others were reducing their kit to nothing more than an impact trigger then building the sound using outboard gear. Totally horrible. The recording room in this little studio is nowhere near as lively as I'd like it, but I can improve things by featuring the boundry mic & overheads.
 
It warms my heart to hear of drums being recorded without muffling, pro tools, triggers and every other "advance". Acoustic drums are sonically beautiful and I will live my life

expounding the superiority of real acoustic drums with all their lively overtones sans electronics other than EQ and maybe a little reverb. Andy you're my kind of guy ha ha.
 
It warms my heart to hear of drums being recorded without muffling, pro tools, triggers and every other "advance". Acoustic drums are sonically beautiful and I will live my life

expounding the superiority of real acoustic drums with all their lively overtones sans electronics other than EQ and maybe a little reverb. Andy you're my kind of guy ha ha.
Cheers Larry. I wish this little studio had a nice big live room (something on the lines of a cathedral), but it hasn't. My kit sound is quite tight due to small sizes. The snare is especially high as I really love my piccolo (ignor the band practice sound I've just posted for Polly, I'm using my 13" Spaun stave). The studio is only simple stuff so I doubt they'd have a lot of the modern digital gear anyhow. I know the recording is to hard drive & not tape but I think that's about it. I'll post the results in a couple of weeks.
 
That's why I'm OK w/ a little reverb on the drums, it gives it more of an atmosphere
 
Even in the 80's, I was fighting against the tide by letting my drums sing when others were reducing their kit to nothing more than an impact trigger then building the sound using outboard gear. Totally horrible. The recording room in this little studio is nowhere near as lively as I'd like it, but I can improve things by featuring the boundry mic & overheads.

Oh man has this been a battle for me. Every freaking time we play somehwere big enough to have professional sound I have to have that conversation with the sound guys. Did EVERY sound guy grow up listening to crappy sounding drums? WTF? They want to make the drums sound so dry and dead. The sound equipment is to capture my sound. I'm not a hair metal drummer from the early 80's and I don't want to be.
 
Oh man has this been a battle for me. Every freaking time we play somehwere big enough to have professional sound I have to have that conversation with the sound guys. Did EVERY sound guy grow up listening to crappy sounding drums? WTF? They want to make the drums sound so dry and dead. The sound equipment is to capture my sound. I'm not a hair metal drummer from the early 80's and I don't want to be.
Couldn't agree more and I very much sypathise with your plight. There's some very switched on sound tech guys on this forum. It's a pity they don't represent the majority out there. Many are lazy, largely ignorant, believe it's up to them to generate the sound rather than capture it. The truth is, a lot of so called engineers value control over almost everything else. I do have some sympathy though. Most sound guys spend a lot of their time trying to get a good sound out of either a crappy instrument and/or a crappy performance. Drums are usually amongst the worst offenders. It's those drummers who stereo type the breed and have the engineers running for the EQ & gaffer tape before they've even heard the instrument. Rather like putting salt on your meal before you've even tasted it.

Luckily, my band carries it's own PA that's good enough for venues up to about 400 people. After that we're in the hands of the PA provided but we bring in our own sound tech and that works just fine. For smaller venues we dont use a sound guy, we just set up & play after a basic sound check. The sound guy we use knows to put my kit almost flat front of house except for auditorium tweeks and that gaffer tape within 100 foot of my kit will result in instant death by splash cymbal!
 
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