http://bruceamiller.us/bamaudioschool/audio_course/02_rec_drms.html

Share your drum recording experiences here.

Great article in that link, Bruce. Thanx. I'm a home recorder, I do everything myself, using all real instruments (no samples or loops, etc....) But i'm a drummer first. I've come a long way in my drum recording and I think it's not bad now, but it is the hardest instrument to mic, record and mix. I'm never happy with it. I only use 4 mics and don't even want to think about the problems I'll be opening myself up to if I started micing bottoms of snares and individual toms. 4 is fine for me.

I have no experience in recording drums. I have used midi-modules and sequencers to accomplish most of what I have to date. I'm not too good at looping or using samplers yet, but still working on it.


My studio experience as a guitar player is that the drummer rarely knows how to tune his instrument and has never played to a click.

The first three hours of any session involves waiting for the engineer and drummer to be happy enough with the mic positioning and raw sound to continue with recording a performance that is neither planned or charted in any way whatsoever. Why can't drummers play a song without audio cues from the guitar or bass player?

Our drummer used V-drums on our last session which minimized the need for microphones, but he insisted that a stereo feed to the console would sound great, as he had it "dialed in". I knew that was a mistake, and I tried to explain that it would be handy to have the kick, snare, and hat on separate channels for EQ, gate, comp, pan, or whatever might come up. Of course I ended up with a recording that sounded no better than the midi sounds I eventually replaced it with.

Mike, how many drummers have you worked with? You seem to have been unfortunate in your experience.

quote:

Originally posted by Giorgio Salomone:
... If the drummer is good but can't play to a click then get another one.

Well, I can relate but from a different perspective. I just did a collab with a latin percussionist where he added perc to a flamenco guitar track of mine. I did the orig without planning on anything being added to it and it had lots of tempo changes within phrases. The collab turned out well thanks to the percussionist's skill, but the frustration he went through to match the varying tempos must have been pretty intense, heh-heh.

But if I were to do it again with the collab as a plan I would use a click.

Tim

I am just starting recording in the past few years. I was using 12 mics on the drums earlier this year (d112 or d12 on kick, plus a 15" bass cabinet about 3' out in a blanket tunnel, 57 bottom snare, some shure beta mic top snare, akg clip on mics on the toms, 2 OH's- sometimes my superlux SDC's, sometimes an NT-2 and akg 4000, then three room mics). Now, I am doing some preproduction recordings in a garage with my mbox, so only 2 channels of drums. I have been using a sennheiser evolution kick mic, then one overhead pointing down about 2-3' over the kit, between the floor tom and snare, some compression on the OH just for some level control, then lots in the mix. Our guitarist is doing drums on the preproduction and I love his sound. I will be hard pressed to use 12 mics ever again, that's all I'll say about that. The mono drums are really easy to mix as far as fitting them into the sonic picture and I'm loving the sound, definitely surpassed what I thought it would be. I'm not a huge fan of modern pristine drum sounds though, so that sways my opinion a bit.

Hello everyone,
Hey Mike, the reason I believe that a drummer 'needs" a reference from a guitar player or better yet, a bass player is simple.
Music does not happen the way it is often recorded today. Musician's tend to play off of one another. Another reason is to make sure the structure is correct. I myself want to hear the drummer with a guitarist, a basist, as well as with a vocalist. Even if all you end up keeping are the drum tracks, this will give you
the natural playing dynamics which are often missing in today's music. To hear what the vocalist is doing with the melody line dynamically gives the drummer lattitude to adjust his/her playing intensity accordingly. The same holds true for any instrument IMO. Pre-production also helps a great deal. Playing to a click is essential. Should you find yourself with a drummer who cannot play to a click realize this;
Timing is the root of good musicianship.

A drummer who cannot play to a click is like a bird that cannot fly.

The drums are the primitive ingredient in music.
Listeners connect with the drums without even knowing that they are doing so.

Sloppily played drums will lead to a sloppy recording.
If the vocal IS the song, then the music is it's backdrop, the supporting colors of the "painting." Music has to breathe and, natural playing dynamics are the music's breath.
Reference tracks also allow the engineer/producer to hear the song in it's natural state. If he/she is going to bring your musical vision to life they need to hear the SONG.
These are merely my thoughts. Take them or leave them as you may.

I'm one of those that record it all too and I think the drums have kicked my ass longer than any other instrument.
I'm using the 4 mic technique,,,
Beta 52 on kick
57 on snare
and a pair of KSM 109's on OH (over the shoulders)
I think I've got a fairly well tuned room but it still just ain't gettin it.
Can't offer any help on recording drums but I'm pretty good at learnin...and barbequeing chorizos...

Peace ..............Kel

Yeah Keldog, I hear ya!
Saturday we're recording drums, or we are supposed to be anyway. I was prepping the kit with the drummer Tuesday afternoon. Thins were going very well, until we got to his 16" rack tom. The rim was all bent out of shape. The kit was an older and very nice Pearl DLX pro series in birch wood. Who knows if the rim will show up this afternoon as we were promised. It's sort of pushing it as the heads need to be streched in and tuned and re-tuned.
Getting a good drum sound starts with the drums themselves. The room they are in makes a huge difference as well. This is a 10 piece double kick kit so, it's going to be a nightmare!
I like the four mic senario myself but, this kit is getting close mics and room mics. It's going to be a crash course in. phase issues I am afraid. Thank God we have plenty of microphones. We just added a bunch of the Audix D series mics. I think they are a bit hyped myself. I know the D-6 doesn't do much for me on kick drum, maybe on hip hop. It sounds sub harmonic to my ears. Thankfully there is a pair of
D-112's and a pair of Beta 52a's (I like those)

What's your room like shape and dimension wise?
What materials are the walls, floor and ceiling treated with/constructed of?

Lz...well sir, I gotta couple of pics...http://www.myrisinghope.com/studio.html

It's a small room (inside my garage)...basically 14' x 16' with an added 4' x 8' to one side. (used to be a vox booth). 10' peak at vaulted ceiling.
I've got 4 bass traps from modular acoustics, the blue foam is from foambymail, and the gray ones are from an Auralex package. T-111 paneling is on the wall opposite the drums. Floor is just carpet over concrete floor.
Oh, and moocho luck on the 10 pc double kick...Yikes! I'd like to hear how it turns out if you get a clip from it.
Thanks and...........Peace
Kel

Rats...link didn't work.........
maybe this...

RH_Studio_Pic_1.jpg (291 Kb, 36 downloads)

Ok...and this

tn_Door_pic.jpg (46 Kb, 22 downloads)

and last one....

can't figure out how to do multiple pics in one post.....sorry

Cove.JPG (50 Kb, 29 downloads)

helped the post count tho..........


heh-heh

I've recorded, re-recorded, and re-re-recorded drums until I was blue in the face. I would suggest that the most important aspect of drum recording is the tuning of the drums. Rock, hip hop, R&B, and some other styles require more close attention to tuning than others such as Jazz, but with that said, finely tuned drums can take any recording to another level.

A friend of mine let me borrow his Firepod and a set of Audix Fusion Series mics. I knew they weren't high-end, but I was excited to try something other than the Oktava 319's for overheads. Honestly, the Audix F-15 was much better in the O.H. use. Now when I record drums, tom mics (Audix F-10) are supposed to provide the attack and clarity and the overheads capture the round, full sound that the toms project. The same is basically true for the snare (SM57 Top only). For this session, I used the included Audix F-12 for the inside Kick mic, which gets that punching high-mid end. One of my Oktava 319's was the other kick mic, set outside the kick about 6" with the 10dB pad ON. While mixing, I like to put the two mics in a submix bus with compression. I also put a highpass on the F-12 and a lowpass on the Oktava. I also put my recently discovered Altec 639B Ribbon/Cartoid to use as a room mic. Got some really great FX tracks from that.

http://studioforums.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/1526095781/m/5441068141

You can listen to the tracks from the session at the link below. The songs are "Coma Love" and "Dap Dap." "The Dweller" was recorded before.

Hi,
I would like to thank Bruce for being so open with the mysterious world of recorded music. The information is invaluble.
I would like to share what I'v learned from recording drums. First of all they are the toughest instrument to record.
I use 5 mics total. 2 SM57's for overhead and 2 SM57's on the snare top and bottom. We put a Shure Beta 52 on the bass drum it has both heads on and its about 8" away from the front head.
We record onto 2 tracks Left and Right into Cakewalk Sonar. The drummer will play along with the guitarist to get a keeper track for drums and we start overdubbing from there.
My experience is the initial sound has to be what you want or you'll be back at square one trying to get the drums to sound "right".
Overall we as a band are pretty happy with the way they sound. The drummer gets a little upset at times because I cut him no slack. But thats mainly with his playing not the way the drums end up sounding. The phase he hates to hear from me is "I think you could get a better take."

Thanks again Bruce,
Live in Las Vegas,
David.

The better the drummer, the better the tuning, the better the drum SOUND, the less you will have to do.

It is interesting that better musicians make the engineer's job much easier. When you can focus on simply capturing what there is (rather than fixing) the job is a piece of cake.

Unfortunately you usually have to deal with fixing problems for a while before you get to work with good sounding musicians.