Recording Drums

[Gretschem]

Hi Guys,

I'm just after some plain old advice on the best and easiest way to record my drums. Every forum i go to it seems they all have problems with their interfaces, compatibility issues etc.

Moto 8pre, Presonus, M Audio blah blah blah

How hard can it be ?

Cheers

[chris p]

Hi Gretschem, and welcome to the Turtlerockers.

To begin, you need to add a signature with your full name to your posts. While nicknames are fun, full names add accountability.

Secondly, this probably needed to go in the "gotta start somewhere" discussion - DIY is about building stuff.

OK, enough lessons. There's three basic approaches to drum miking -

(1) "Its all one instrument, so mike it that way". Just get a good mic well positioned in front of the kit to capture its sound. Advantage is that's it easy, disadvantage is that you cannot alter the balance, pan or eq for a single drum within the captured sound.

(2) "Each cymbal and drum is its own instrument and has its own mike" - fine if you've got lots of mikes and inputs, allows greatest mix versatility. Downside is that you really need to be careful in avoiding phase issues from spill - you will record some snare into the hihat mic, and it may be out of phase to the snare mic which means the snare will disappear or be muffled when the two are mixed together. I have seen this happen, where you solo a snare track and its fine, but in the mix its just gone.

Like all recording, its very easy to get sound into your computer. To get something that sounds good and professional depends on your equipment and skill, and on the talent and passion of the musician. Perhaps you could tell us what you have in the way of equipment and we could make suggestions as to how you might proceed.

(3) Stereo techniques - read up on Blumlein, MS and other stereo mic techniques. Gives more dimensionality to the sound while avoiding most of the multiple mic problems.

Most actual recordings are something of a mix of these. I've done workable recordings of drums using mics on kick and snare (so I could eq them and pull them up in the mix) and a good room mic to capture the full kit sound. I've also done kick, snare and a MS stereo pair, so you don't need to go the whole mic everything route until you have a need to do so. Have a read of Stav's Mixing With Your Mind if you can get hold of a copy for some other perspectives and insights.

Setting the gain structure from mic to preamp to interface is a whole separate question. Interfaces should be the least of the worry unless the gain knob is turned up way to loud. The right level for recording is a whole question again, but particularly for drums if the average is around -14db FS on your DAW meters you should be OK and avoid clipping.

[Gretschem]

Thanks Chris,

I'm still deciding on what to purchase in the way of "gear".

I have purchased an AKG D112 for the bass drum. I've got my eyes on a new set of NT5's for overheads, and probably the old SM57 on the snare.

Just gunna try Glynn Johns method of 4 mics for now.

I'm just trying to find out what mic-pre to get, without the BS.

I'm thinking of a new MacBook Pro as well.

[JulienG]

(1) "Its all one instrument, so mike it that way". Just get a good mic well positioned in front of the kit to capture its sound. Advantage is that's it easy, disadvantage is that you cannot alter the balance, pan or eq for a single drum within the captured sound.

(3) Stereo techniques - read up on Blumlein, MS and other stereo mic techniques. Gives more dimensionality to the sound while avoiding most of the multiple mic problems.

The combination I always ended up with is a combination of these, with a spaced pair of overheads plus an old dynamic chucked on a blanket inside the kick.

[Sheer Noise]

BFD2.

[chris p]

Nice sounding drum kit.

Yeah, with those mics you can get a good sound. I've used the AKG and 57 with some Audio Technica pencil converters as OH and managed an entirely acceptable sound.

If you're going for a MacBook I'd be looking at Logic as the DAW and the Apogee Ensemble interface - solid conversion and probably the best pres in a converter. You wouldn't actually need any extra mic pres for the time being, the Ensemble has four that will do the job, including phantom power for the NT5s.

[Gretschem]

Picked up a Power Mac G5 today, 2ghz & 4gb ram & 160 hard drive with os10 Leopard with keyboard & mouse.

I might take your advice Chris and keep my eye out for an Apogee Ensemble, it's a bit pricey, but I think the quality is priceless.

Thanks Chris

Cheers all

[chris p]

I should put in a plug for fellow turtlerocker Aearth (aka Nick). Give him a call 'cause I think he can rent you an Ensemble to try out for a while and see if it will do all you need.

You might try out a few of his mics as well, it would give you a better idea of which mics you might like to acquire in the future.

And after a while, recording drums you'll begin to feel the need for compressors - again, Nic can help.

Good luck with it.