Drum recording epiphany

Well, I am sure this is basic to a lot of you guys, but I FINALLY found the big drum sound I was looking for all this time. Not that I haven't gotten some good drum sounds before...

But I basically ditched reverb for a change, and I put my drums in a room in my house, no treatment whatsoever. 9x12 feet. I compressed a little more heavily than I usually would, and backed the close mics off an inch to about 4 inches off snare, toms, etc. Didn't even use a room mic. The sound just blossomed. I think the nice close reflective walls just give this certain energy.

Breaks all the rules I guess... Although the G9 as overhead preamp has a lot to do with it I think!

neat.  can ya post some clips?

Yeah! I got similar experience last autumn when we were location recording in this hunting hut with my friends. I'm rookie in recording and never had a chance to record in dedicated room so of course we put all kinds of matresses and stuff on the walls to dampen the room before trying without. After several days of trying various micing techniques for drums we ditched most of the "damping" and I put overheads in front of the kit and wham, whow what a sound it was

I got usable sounds before but never felt the sound was spot on until the occasion.. "Wow, I can record" -moment it was I think after you once get really great sound you'll have personal reference what to target and try in future. This is something everyone has to experience either by trying or observing a pro. The room and positioning matters a lot!

a number of high end / old school fellas will tell you

the room mics (or in absence of room mics, overheads)

should be about 40 to 60 % of your drum sound.

Equidistance is your friend.

QUEEF BAG said:

a number of high end / old school fellas will tell you

the room mics (or in absence of room mics, overheads)

should be about 40 to 60 % of your drum sound.

Click to expand...

was just about to come here to write that. I personally don't use overheads. They are pointless in a studio, and a very unnatural place for a mic. Nobody ever listens to the kit in this position (hovering above) so don't expect to make any usable sounds out of them.

Big drum sound in my experience juts about always comes from the room. When the kit sounds good in the room, find the best place to listen to it and set the mics there. Use a great compressor here. The rest (close mics) are there to beef up the sound, color up the pallette. If you failed the room sound, the salvaged result is usually not great, stitched up from boring effected dry mic sounds. I even go as far as avoid close micing the kick drum, but instead find a good sounding kick "area" somewhere a little bit away from the kit, and set an overall "kick booster" mic here.

Most people close mic too close. All proximity and oddly surgical.

Anything from 6 inches to a foot is a good place to start. 3 inches away is all mud.

Let it breathe.

Probably 80% of the drum sounds I've gotten over the years have been with a single overhead, BD mic, and maybe a 451 to catch the fine detail.  With a decent drummer and a good room it's hard to beat.

Worst drum sounds I ever got were from sessions at the recording classes I took at a local college.  All "by the book" close mics on everything with the two (useless unless the room is BIG) XY overheads.  Despite having a nice and well tuned set and good drummer.  They were precisely clinically correct, in phase, and endlessly dry and boring.

And I agree that the room is king.  10 ft ceiling, 12 X 15 1920's style slat plaster walls, 1" thick w/ 6" gap between adjoining room walls, 6ft space between ceiling and roof = great room for recording bass and drums in. Also anything with lots of brick and wood.

What do you guys think of the 'recorder man technique' for drums?  You're basically putting the capsules at the drummer's ears

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiFOD1EeKhQ

it's interesting, but for the way I play (and most rock drummers) those mics would get smacked in about 2 measures into the first take, then repeatedly beaten to death...I hear that's not good for mics, or a good drum mix. Another thing I'll provide my opinion on is the fact that I rarely like the sound of my drums from where I'm sitting....

I will upload some clips when I get back home later. I really think it's the room. Having those reflections. The ceiling isn't more than 6 inches over my overheads! Somewhere I had about this technique they used for Led Zeppelin where it was a mic up high pointed down at the snare, a mic a few feet off in front of the kick, and then another mic a few feet outside the floor tom, pointed also at the snare.

I tried that once and that was pretty cool too. And I'll tell you the other big thing. I have never been one to muffle overtones on any drum, but I've always liked the Powerstroke 3 snare heads. Well, they sort of do damp overtones. Well, I put just a regular coated ambassador on there, tuned her well, and BAM, the snare just came to life as well. Now, who knows if it was just the fact that it was a new head... but really liked the sound of that change too.

I've gotten great fat sounds with a ribbon placed in front of the drumkit.
Placed about 1 meter away and 1 meter high in front of the kickdrum. I often aim it slightly down to null out the cymbals.
Compress or distort to taste and add overheads for transients and high frequencies.

Transients on a kit? You gotta be kidding me.

I'm still looking for my best kit-sounds and i'm pretty sure i won't even know about it until at least 20'years after I mic it up if I ever get there. Did one one time and broke all 'the rules' whatever that means. D112's on toms, 421 on snare, don't even remember kick but I think all the close mic's and oh's were dynamics. Rooms were three summed stereo pairs front/center/back with a 4th pair inside the "mirrored room" for reverb. Also surrounded the kit with reflective-side gobo's and about maybe 20 music stands.

I've found the best sounds to tape don't involve any compression. At least in my experiences when I stopped using compression it has been much easier to get the drums working. I'm sure there are plenty that compress on record where it sounds awesome. But hey, don't use any. Give it a try.

Best,
jb

My biggest epiphany came when I had a chance to record a kit in a 60 x 40 foot room with 20 foot ceilings, after recording drums in a small room or booth for years. Seemed like the drums themselves weren't being affected by the compression of the air in the room that you would get in a room barely large enough to hold the kit, and they could really breathe.
Also, the B&O stereo ribbon in my avatar photo goes out front of almost every kit I record in about the position Hank describes.
Recorded a live gig once where one of the overheads wasn't properly synced, and using only one was nice in the mix (as lassoharp suggests), as all the phase issues with two overheads were not there.

OK here are two clips:

http://www.righirecording.com/DIY/FartherDrumsNoRoom.mp3
http://www.righirecording.com/DIY/FartherDrumsWithRoom.mp3

The only processing is slight compression on overheads, pretty heavy compression on the room mic (for the room clip) and overall compression on the mix (SSL).

That extended overring on the tom hit @ 31sec on the room track is really cool!  The pitch dives ever so slightly like a moan - almost as if it were done with the "wet finger across the floor tom thing"  (don't know the formal name for it but I've seen drummers do it a million times).


Sound is nice and meaty.  Good work.

Thanks! I still need to tune the toms a bit, not quite doing what I want, but yep the MEAT is what I am after! I wonder if you guys like the FAT HEAD mic? I was thinking about getting one or two as they weren't too expensive compared to other ribbons.

What's nice about these tracks is the LACK of plugins I used to get the sound. I want to experiment with the whole equidistance thing next.

get that drummer a metronome!!!

mulletchuck said:

get that drummer a metronome!!!

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I really hope that's not the keeper. What has quantization done to us?! Anyway, I have a friend with a fathead II that he brought in to the studio when my old band was tracking guitars. We used it as a room mic, and aside from the inherent low output, it sounded really good.

I perform with 3 different gospel drummers every weekend.  Metronomic drumming from real people IS possible.