Musicians Collaboration Studio
How To => Production Tips and Tricks! => Topic started by: NickT on May 09, 2007, 08:46:25 PM
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Here it is! The MC Acoustic drum clinic.
We have quite a few drummers going with acoustic kits. We all know how hard it is to get a good recording with acoustic sets. And it's even harder to get them to sound good enough to be on a major release. And that is everyones goal, isn't it?
Things I would like covered.
- Drum tuning
- Room acoustics
- Mic selection
- Preamp selection
- Mic Placement
- Recording Levels
- Mixing
- Track Compression and EQ
- Drum Buss Compression
- Verbs and FX
And anything else we can think of.
We will need someone to run this clinic. Cary has been busy but I hope he might bite or at least give us some pointers!
Lets hear about what you might want to get from this clinic.
Thanks,
NickT
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Thanks for starting this Nick.
I can supply some tracks for this.
Should we have tracks that go to a song so we can see how it would sit in a mix?
Ken
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I'm sorry guys... I won't have much time to run this, but I will give as much input as I can.
That's a good list Nick. I would agree that those are all important aspects of getting a good sound. Since I'm always having to get the most from non perfect situations, I can share what I believe gets the most bang for the buck.
The kit and tuning is the most important IMO. You can't make a silk purse from a sows ear (of whatever the phrase is...) A good sound from the kick and snare are essential - they determine the overall sound of the groove. There is always hope.
Kick - I believe in a vent / mic hole in the front head. About 8 inches in diameter is a nice starting point. The idea behind the hole in the head is only to provide a way to get the kick mic up near the beater side head. If the hole is too small, it's a pain to move the stand around to tweak the sound. If the hole is too large, it's like having no front head at all - and I believe in the front head for its resonance benefits. Oh, I usually have the front head fairly loose - just past visible wrinkles. I tune the beater side head fairly low also, but not too low that is all click. Last, a little damping with a small pillow or felt does the trick. YMMV
Snare - Anything works, it's all about the heads. For the snare side, the typical single ply head is right - tune it fairly tight and make sure it's in tune with itself. The stick side is artists choice, but make sure it's tuned correctly. Some that I have used and have had good results with are the REMO power stroke, or control sound, and lately I've been using an EVANS Genera coated head. I like a dry, snappy snare sound and that head does the trick.
Regarding the snare strainer, don't get fooled about the hype regarding strainer materials and strand count. The average steel 16 strand strainer is going to do the job. It just needs to be at the correct tightness. Too loose, and the sound is undefined and tends to have a long decay. Too tight, and the sound is choked. Starting from full loose, hit the drum and begin the tighten the strainer. You'll hear a point where the sound is at it's most articulate. Double stroke rolls are clearly defined. That's the tension (in my opinion) where the strainer needs to be.
If you find the snare is resonating with the toms and kick (excessively), you can try tuning the bottom head a bit tighter. On the other hand, it could be overly ringing toms. I would not recommend damping the bottom head. Properly tuned, there is no reason for that.
Toms - these can be a pain, agreed? I have tried lots of stuff to get a good tom sound. I like deep resonant sounds, so I tend to tune fairly low. Floppy heads sound like trash though, so you need to find the lowest tension the drum can tolerate - if you're also looking for the big tom sound. Again, there's so much silly hype on tuning the toms - perfect fourths, off notes in the song, whatever. Studio rings and or Moon gel work wonders to dampen excessive ringing.
I'm not going to go into great detail on mics because I believe the basics are established. Most of the drummers here understand the need for a proper kick drum mic, etc. Mic placement, however, is probably not too greatly understood. If you're going to use multiple mics on the kit, then you need to place them to maximize isolation. Every microphone has a specific pickup pattern. Cardioid, Omni, figure 8, etc. We'll assume that most of the mics in question are cardioid. An SM57, for example is a cardioid mic which means that the mic is most sensitive at the end. I side address condenser mic is most sensitive at the side. Why do you need to understand this? Because you want to aim the most UNSENSITIVE part (the null) of the mic at the next loudest thing near it. For example, when setting the mic on the snare, be careful to put the null facing the high-hat. If the snare mic is far enough away from the hi-hat, then make sure the null is facing the kick. Take the time to look at the pickup patterns supplied with the documentation of the mic. When you learn and understand the way the stuff works, it will help you place the mics for optimum isolation. There's nothing like a snare track that only has snare.
Don't be afraid to put the mic close to the head. In my opinion, 5 inches away is too far. I have my mics about an inch from the head, facing into the center on the drum shell. The kick mic is the exception, usually inside the shell (through the front head hole) about 5 inches away from the beater head midway between the beater and the rim
The placement of overheads seems to be a great mystery also. The overheads capture most of the natural sound of the drums. These mics by themselves should give you the typical sound of the kit. Generally, the pair is panned hard right and left. Store that for future reference. The sound of the typical drum kit features the kick and snare dead center, and the rest of the kit panned out in stereo. Keep this in mind when placing your overhead mic. You CANNOT just place the mics 4 feet apart on top of the kit. That would give you the kick in the center and the snare off to the right. Placement is as follows: Looking down on the kit from above, draw an imaginary line directly through the kick and the snare. Now place your overheads on each side of this imaginary line. You'll find in most situations that the right overhead is towards the front of the kit and the left overhead is behind the kit. When placing the mics like this, you can pan them hard right and left and still have the kick and snare in the center. There are other methods - xy, mid/side, etc that provide good stereo imagery. The method described will definitely work.
This is a huge topic and I hope we all learn from it. I'm not professing to be an expert, but I am professing to have experience. The stuff I've shared is what works for me. If you try any of it and it helps you to get a better recording, then I have accomplished my goal.
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Cary -
Thank you for that detailed explanation! That is a great start to what I hope is an informative clinic.
I would love to hear from the drummers up to the point of miking. Then we could move on to some recording of tracks to play with.
Thanks!
Nick
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Wow, that was great. Thanks Cary
Ken
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A few general statements:
Kick drums: remember, a big goal of a kick drum is to move air. moving air == bottom end. Keep this in mind when tuning your kick drum. If the head is too loose it can sound very papery (as Cary mentioned). If the head is too tight it can sound too thin. It's an art unto itself to get a happy compromise. I tend to keep my kick head as loose as I can stand playing it. A little more than just tight enough to get rid of the crinkles but not so much that you can't easily push the head in with a finger at the center and there is a decent amount of travel on it there (at least one half to a full inch).
Snare drums: Snare drums are complicated beasts. There are many different ways to tune them, and many different ways to _hit_ them to get the sound that you want. A very very good drummer once told me something that I took very much to heart. The best sound you will get for a rock snare drum involves NOT hitting the rim, i.e. don't always do rim shots. To get a good balance of crack and boom you need to hit the drum in the middle, hit it well (as in with good style/accuracy) and not necessarily hit is so hard that you choke it out. There are a lot of different methods for tuning snare drums. As Cary mentioned a common problem is your bottom head getting sympathetic vibration from other drums. There can be a couple of different causes for this: sympathetic vibrations due to it being close to the pitch of another drum (like a tom), and plain old vibration that it may pick up from being too close to another drum (that's not related to sympathetic/pitch related vibration). If it's sympathetic you can tune the bottom head either higher or lower. If it's plain old vibration make sure to isolate your snare drum (and stand) from the rest of the kit as much as you can.
Tuning: every drum is different and has an optimum tuning for itself. It doesn't necessarily have relation to the other drums around it, the song that you're playing, fourth's, fifth's, or any other preset interval. It can take a lot of time to find each drum's happy place, but it's well worth it. Another trick that I tend to use more often than not is to tune the bottom head just slightly higher in pitch than the top head .. this tends to help manage the overtones/ring of the tomw without resorting to rings, muffling or any other kind of dampening. The more dampening you have on _any_ drum, the less tone you get out of it. Sometimes that's what you want, but keep that in mind. Spend the time with each drum to find out where it wants to live pitch wise. You'll know when you find the sweet spot :) The drum will "sing" not "ring" :D
You'll notice that I didn't talk about any micing at all yet, I'll take the time to get into that in another post in the near future. I think it's very very important to get the right sound into the mics (whatever mics they are and wherever you've placed them), and not just "fix it in the mix" by apply a bunch of EQ'ing and/or plugins to it to get that sound. Some of the best kit sounds I've ever gotten had little to do with my engineering skills and more to do with the tuning of the kit :) If you spend the time to get the drums sounding proper you'll likely find you don't need a lot of anything on them to make them sound good .. because they already do.
Lastly, and this is something that a lot of people tend to forget, is that when you are tuning your drums, you are tuning them to sound good at the position of the MIC ... not where your ears are. It's easy to fall into the trap of tuning up drums to get them sounding sweet to your ears where you sit behind the kit (or stand in front of it, or wherever your ears are at the time), but when you put a mic in front of it it sound totally different. Sometimes a drum that sounds amazing on a mic might not sound quite as sweet where you're sitting behind the kit or from elsewhere in the room either. Keep this in mind!
Mark
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Lastly, and this is something that a lot of people tend to forget, is that when you are tuning your drums, you are tuning them to sound good at the position of the MIC ... not where your ears are. It's easy to fall into the trap of tuning up drums to get them sounding sweet to your ears where you sit behind the kit (or stand in front of it, or wherever your ears are at the time), but when you put a mic in front of it it sound totally different. Sometimes a drum that sounds amazing on a mic might not sound quite as sweet where you're sitting behind the kit or from elsewhere in the room either. Keep this in mind!
Good tip Mark. I spent 3 hours moving mic's last night recording samples, going back to adjust, rerecording over again, and again. I never once thought to listen from where the mic was pointing.
Thanks
Ken
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Heres some samples from last night.
One with fx and one dry
Ken
I forgot to mention, I did not have my ride or crashes set up.
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Excellent thread folks :D
I read a lot of the data here but not all.
That tuning issue is really important when it comes to drums... I always say I am not a drummer but I play a little. And I have been doing for a long time. I recorded drums mainly in analog years ago and had all the big mixers and all the mikes and I know how hard it can be to get the drums to sound and record properly. I recall recording in a corner of the room on a good solid carpet got a good result. Not a concrete basement but even one the dry wall and finished rooms. I really to close to a window you would get the window vibrating and the snare was a hard one to get it to sound good in the recording. Some drummers like that Stewart Copeland snare sound.. "ME TOO" but I feel they fall short of achieving it properly. Somehow I feel JW comes close. I like the sound of his snare. There are some other drummers here that get a fab sound as well but I don't know what they are using. I saw a video by I think the guys name is Steve Gadd on drums that was a gift for me and I learned a lot a long time ago. And I read what Gerk said about the tightness of the bass drum pegs. It's true.. I experience the same thing for the most part. Guys I am a bass & guitar player when I used to go into the drum shops and melt. I just love drums.
Ken you are one hell >:D of a player and your kit sounds great. Gerk I heard your kit and is sounds awesome in tunes heard around the colab sites. Cary seems to have a lot of experience too. Great thread I am learning a lot just reading it.
I did a few test to your wave clips ken. I deleted them now. It was fun. Nothing great just having fun. I did not hear crash cymbals in the clips. I guess it's because it was just a test to hear the snare, bass drums and toms. Tom wise I like when drums are tuned in order almost like notes on the guitar. Not sure if I am saying it right.. When the drummer hits the toms and they each have their own sound and tone and sound nice. They don't sound BOMMY.
Keep up the great work
Tubes ;)
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Hey Tubes, yeh I did'nt have my cymbals setup. They were still packed from the night before. Right now I only have a exta set of hats. I'm working on getting another set of cymbals so I don't have to move them back and forth for gigs. I also can't stand my ride for recording but it's great for live stuff.
The tight snare sound. I'm not a big fan of that sound although it's great for some songs but it's not the sound I'm going for. I like a fatter less poppy sound. Thats just a personal preference. Right now my biggest hurdle is the toms. kick and snare are close but the toms are killing me. I'm using 10, 12, and 14 . I tuned the 10 as low as I could get it and then did the others a 3rd apart . I may try using coated heads on the toms to try and get more attack plus better positioning with the overheads may help also. I may also ditch the 10 move everything over one and set up my 16. Lots of choices so little time. :-\
Stay tuned :)
Ken
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Heres some samples from last night.
One with fx and one dry
Ken
I forgot to mention, I did not have my ride or crashes set up.
That sounds good Ken. Decent levels and the tuning sounds good. Do you have the overheads in play?
Nick
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........Some of the best kit sounds I've ever gotten had little to do with my engineering skills and more to do with the tuning of the kit :) If you spend the time to get the drums sounding proper you'll likely find you don't need a lot of anything on them to make them sound good .. because they already do......
Excellent post Mark! and this concept applies to any acoustic source when recording. Always try to get the best sound you possibly can out of your source, then do the mic thing..... >:D
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Yep Nick.
Overhead were in, but I didn't have my crashes up so they were picking up the kit pretty good . I'm going to reposition them according to Placement is as follows: Looking down on the kit from above, draw an imaginary line directly through the kick and the snare. Now place your overheads on each side of this imaginary line.
. The way I had them setup they were really crash mic's instead of overheads.
BTW the toms are all miced with the podium mics I told you about ( Audio Technica AT837QML ) :)
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You know the strange thing is some of those drum loops.. "drums on demand" and others get a great sound in the final loops and there are no separates they really give you including the snare. They seem to record it really well. Maybe looking at what they are using might shed some light on some things. I know they use a pro studio but what type of board are they plugged into, mikes, placement, etc.
The Stray cats got a nice snare sound. McCartneys "Silly LOve Songs".. I love the drums in that song.
The drum skins are something else that are important when recording. I think I had clear ones and they had some sort of oil in between them. They are expensive and hitting them too hard damages them. Like guitar strings. Old ones get a bad sound after a while. Bass strings I don't replace as often as the guitar but their type matters too.
Tubes ;)
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Right now my biggest hurdle is the toms. kick and snare are close but the toms are killing me. I'm using 10, 12, and 14 . I tuned the 10 as low as I could get it and then did the others a 3rd apart . I may try using coated heads on the toms to try and get more attack plus better positioning with the overheads may help also. I may also ditch the 10 move everything over one and set up my 16. Lots of choices so little time. :-\
Stay tuned :)
Ken
Intreresting... I listened to your dry wav file. One of the toms sounded very nice and I think it was the 10" It couild be mic position and or mix.
Please tell us what mics you used and where they were placed... for those example files you posted.
If you're brave, post small sections of the seperate uneffected wav files. It would be nice to hear what went into the DAW.
nice work so far bud. :)
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Here you go Cary,
The toms and hh are miced with Audio Technica AT837QML ( podium mic's ) I have audix d2's and 4 but I was experimenting.
The snare is a sm 58
The kick is a Audix d6
The overhead are Samson CO2's
tom 3 will be on the next post
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Tom 3
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Ken,
what are your mic pres also?
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Hey Mike,
I was hoping to hear from you on this :)
I'm using a Mackie CFX16 MKII, from there I'm using the 4 bus's and 4 aux sends to get to my Delta sound cards
Ken
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Delta sound cards
Delta Card ... You got the one with 4 ins / 4 outs Ken? Got one... Great Cards.. I got them when they first came out $800.00 or something. These days they came down in price and you can find used ones for cheap.
Not sure who else makes such a good card. I tell you I had all the expensive Porto studios and none came close to these cards...
How's the drums coming for the project Ken... Where you about to get another take. I realize you are gigging.
Good mikes means everything but it's not everything. Got to have the pro gear at this level.
Tubes ;)
Edit: I think I meant 8 ins / 8 outs for drumming but 4 will work if you are happy ;D with just 4 mike ..
lets see 1=bass drums 1=snare 1-hats 1=overhead cymbals and toms (Really need about 6 miles)
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Here you go Cary,
The toms and hh are miced with Audio Technica AT837QML ( podium mic's ) I have audix d2's and 4 but I was experimenting.
The snare is a sm 58
The kick is a Audix d6
The overhead are Samson CO2's
tom 3 will be on the next post
I'm diggin in Ken...don't feel like I'm being critical, well, I am being critical but it's not at all aimed at trying to be a wood tick or anything.
You do hear that jingling in the OH-R trackt? You need to track that down 'cause it's definitely noticeable. It may be a mic stand or cymbal stand touching against one of the tom hoops.
You're doing some eq on these track huh? The overheads have no low end. I know most drummers want to add their touch so the tracks sound good but it's really doing more harm in this case.
The tom 1 track preamp is too high. There is some clipping on the initial transient of the tom hit. If you zoom way in, you'll see it. If you're recording in 24 bit, go a little more conservative on the levels. If you have clip lights on the board, make sure those lights never come on.
There's some major digital distortion on tom 2. You may have clipped the input on the DAW. Again, if you zoom in on the hit's you'll see the nasty clipping. When you get overs in the digital realm, it doesn't clip like in analog. You'll see the wavform going plus and minus from sample to sample. Perhaps that's not clear from my explanation. If not, I can put up some screen captures showing the differences.
Tom 3 is a nice level (in my opinion) but I'm scratching my head why none of these tracks have low end? Do you have a high pass filter on your board and is it pushed in?
The snare track has some clipping - or brickwall limiting???
The room sounds very dead to me. How big is the room? Is it carpeted? What do you have on the walls? Can you reduce it if you need to?
With regard to your mixing board... if you're only using it for the preamps, make up some special connectors to tap into the boards inserts on each channel. You'll be able to get a signal right after the channel pres and bypass the EQ and effects stage on the board. It's definitely the way to go when using a mixer for multiple pre-amps. The shorter the signal path, the better.
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I'll study those clips tomorrow to give some feedback. This is a very interesting and helpful thread guys, two thumbs up!
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don't feel like I'm being critical, well, I am being critical but it's not at all aimed at trying to be a wood tick or anything.
Not at all Cary,
This is exactly the feedback I'm looking for. I've just learned a ton in your last post. Ok . heres the run down
Yes I heard the jingle, I'm pretty sure it was the washers and wing nuts on my cymbal stands ( I did not have my ride and crashes on them and I never tightened them down when I took them off ).
I mentioned the seps were dry with no eq. I did forget that although in the daw everything was flat, my board did have the low cut filters engaged.
Tom 1 too high, I'm sure your right.
Tom 2 clipping, I'm sure your right again. A screen shot would be great so I can see what to look for.
Tom 3 level good, sheer luck on my part :).
No low end ? Low Cut was engaged on tom mic's, damn you have a good ear .
No limiting on the snare so it must be clipping.
The room is my garage( 16' X 20' ). The kit sits on a 8 x 5 carpet. other then that It's a concrete floor. The ceiling is just insulation, no drywall. There are cabinets an shelving on the walls . It is a completely dead room.
Come off the inserts for my sends, no problem , will do.
One of my biggest problem is the ring I'm getting from the 10" tom thats cause by the kick. I've tuned it a bunch of different ways, tuned the kick down, takin the bottom head off the tom. No luck. I can't seem to get rid of it without over muffiling the tom. The ring I'm talking about seems to be around 115 hz. Do you usually use gates for this sort of thing or do you just keep on tuning ?
Thanks again Cary for your taking the time to listen and offer your advice.
Luis, I'm looking forward to your feedback.
Gerk, Thanks for the conversation this weekend and helping me out.
Nick, Well you know :)
I'll throw up some more samples tomorrow with Carys adjustment.
Ken
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Some very good info here. I want to thank you all for the great advice.
Tom 3 level good, sheer luck on my part .
No low end ? Low Cut was engaged on tom mic's, damn you have a good ear .
Yes he does!
Lets keep it going!
Nick
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No gates! Gates are evil and should be a last resort IMHO ... gates very much change the sound of things too, even the very expensive ones. I used to tour with a full rack of Drawmers that was worth more than most people's cars and I barely ever even hooked them up :D
Also another good thing to note, is that you can have clipping going on even if the red clip light on your board doesn't light up. If it's even close to clipping and in doubt back it off more :D If you're recording 24bit you've got some room to play with there, you don't have to (or want to) record everything super hot.
Mark
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With regard to your mixing board... if you're only using it for the preamps, make up some special connectors to tap into the boards inserts on each channel. You'll be able to get a signal right after the channel pres and bypass the EQ and effects stage on the board. It's definitely the way to go when using a mixer for multiple pre-amps. The shorter the signal path, the better.
Yep, not to mention the elimination of additional op-amps, filters and noise of not only the channel strips but also the bus/aux sends :) Most inexpensive boards tend to use cheap stuff for aux sends -- even more cheap than the components in the channel strips themselves.
Mark
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After listening to your tracks, I just second everything Cary said. As said before tom 2 clipping in maybe the most noticeable "inconvenience". There is an issue with the snare too, it isn't sounding "natural", maybe you could tell us what kind of processing you did on the tracks?. The room is dead, but I still prefer a dead room over an awfully sounding one :)
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Darn i want that crane song spider pre,my eyes are exploding HA HA ,They will rock on the drum sound.Oh well ,will live with my red1 for now .........
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Here's where I'm at with all the junk on it :)
Ken
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Ken,
on the using inserts subject... you can use a standard 1/4" snake for that. just remember that you want to keep this a fairly short jump from the mixer to the sound cards because now it's unbalanced and will add noise (how much depends on a lot of factors) so you are better off to put the mixer fairly close to the sound card/breakout box/etc.
And if you do use the inserts, just push the 1/4" plug in until it clicks once--don't push it in all the way. this will interrupt the signal just after the preamp. the downisde is that now you can't use the EQ on your board and will have to EQ on the DAW. not too big a deal though as the Mackie CFX EQ is nothing you will probably miss... I have the CFX12 and just use it for monitoring.
Mike
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on the tom ringing subject , what kind of heads are you using? have you tried others? Also try experimenting with the distance and angle of the mic on that drum. you said you tried tuning -- have you tried tuning the top and bottom heads to the same pitch? or lowering the bottom head? or making it tighter? find out what works best in your room. Moongel is useful too when nothing else works.
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Mike,
Thanks for the info.
As far as the cable goes, thats pretty much how I did the last take. Definate improvement by bypassing the channel strips on the board. I also bought the Mackie just for monitoring.
I did get the ring out of the 1st & 2nd toms, I just need to work on the floor.
I'll try some more mic positioning.
My bottom heads are tuned higher then the tops.
I'm using using Evans EC2's on the toms and coated ambassador on the snare.
Do you recommend something different for the toms ?
I'm also using Evans rings on 10" & 12" toms and Moongel on the snare and floor.
Thanks
Ken
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Those are sounding nice. Quit dropping the stick during ring out! >:D
Nice job....you are getting very close!
Nick
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Quit dropping the stick during ring out!
:P
:) :)
Thanks Nick
Ken
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Hey Ken,
that does sound very good. are you happy with the sound? Drum sound is very subjective. I tend to go for a lot more open/natural sound as opposed to the tighter, muffled sounds -- I think yours is sounding very close to the Roland samples you have probably been using for awhile. ;) and if that's the sound that you are going for then I'd say you succeeded. but you sure can't beat real cymbals can you?
I am curious about those EC1/EC2 heads. I went to the NAMM show when it was here in Austin last year and those really sounded good on their demo drums. I'm probably going to try them soon. Right now I have G2 clear on top and Attack clear on bottom. it's OK but not perfect. My drums originally had ambassador clear on top and bottom and I liked that sound but I've been experimenting with heads and 6+ years later still haven't found the perfect combo. :'( Now, on my road kit (a very early Pearl SRX which I confirmed is really a re-badged MRX--6ply maple--kit) loves the coated Attack single ply heads on top and bottom. I couldn't be happier there.
as for tuning, you might try making the top head a bit tighter than the bottom and see how that sounds for you also. and also really crank the bottom snare head-I mean tight. surprisingly it takes bit to choke the bottom head and can really make the snare responsive.
Mike
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Hey Mike,
The td-20 has great sounds for Kicks , Toms, & Snares.
The cymbals are just ok. Thats pretty much what put me over the edge on recording the acoustics. You just can't beat real cymbals.
I'm not sure about the EC2's yet. They're on my Mapex M-series. I might try a few different heads before I'm sure what works best with those drums.
My gig set is a Taye Tour Pro series which I'm crazy about. Definately the best sounding set I've ever had. They have Aquarian Responce 2 's on them. They sound great and hold their tuning pretty good also for moving in and out every weekend.
I'll try your tuning tips also. I always tuned bottoms and tops the same on the toms, but I went to a Thomas Lang clinic a few weeks ago and he mentioned he tunes the bottoms tighter then the tops. So I been trying his way . I'm not sure if thats working for me either. In any event I am getting close to where I want to be. I'm sure I'll be tweaking for the next year. Thanks for the advice.
Ken
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I went to a Thomas Lang clinic a few weeks ago and he mentioned he tunes the bottoms tighter then the tops.
that's interesting. I'll have to mess round with that myself again. He definitely gets a good tom sound and he's a friggin monster! bet that was cool clinic. I went to a Billy Cobham clinic here a couple weeks ago. there was only about 30 people there including Billy, the sound guy, Yamaha rep, other staff, etc. the place did a horrible job promoting the clinic but it sure made for good seats!
Mike
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I went to a Thomas Lang clinic a few weeks ago and he mentioned he tunes the bottoms tighter then the tops.
that's interesting. I'll have to mess round with that myself again. He definitely gets a good tom sound and he's a friggin monster! bet that was cool clinic. I went to a Billy Cobham clinic here a couple weeks ago. there was only about 30 people there including Billy, the sound guy, Yamaha rep, other staff, etc. the place did a horrible job promoting the clinic but it sure made for good seats!
Mike
Without a doubt Cobham is my favorite drummer. I've been a fan of his since the mid seventies. That must have been great to see him in such a small audience.
Hey Ken... I have a Mapex M kit with the EC2 heads. How's that for irony...
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I have a single Mapex tom with an ambassador clear head, does that count LOL :D
Cobham rocks ... I saw a Thomas Lang clinic about a year ago too, that man does things independance wise that just should not be possible, and I love his laid back approac to stuff.
On Warming Up: "I don't warm up. The last thing you want before a big gig is the drummer walking around the dressing room and hitting things. Most of the songs I play live are very simple 4/4 rock type beats, and by the time you're into the first chorus of the first song, you're warm."
On Approach: "There are only 3 ways to hit a drum. A single, a double, and a press roll. Everything else is just a combinaton of those 3 in one way or another."
Mark
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Great you jumped in RBD. If you just could provide us with some samples it would be great for this thread progress
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Not Boring at all RDB,
Thanks for sharing the info.
When I'm happy with my set up I'll post my all my info with some pics of my mic placement.
Ken
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It's been a while since I mic'd up and recorded a kit but the main thing to get right is the room sound. If the room isn't good then you're fighting a losing battle - I had to record a demo in a practice room once and there was carpet all around the walls and it just sounded dull and lifeless on the recording. We managed to get some large wooden panels to lean against the walls and it made a real difference, the sound coming through the O/H mics was much more lively and useable, so check out your room first.
The 2nd thing was on the Kick drum in Rock/Pop it tends to be the percussive attack that cuts through the mix so we taped a credit card onto the drum where the beater hit to get more of a click in the attack and gives a sharper more hard hitting kind of sound.
I also think the quality of your overhead mics is really important and you should be using a pair of the best mics you can lay your hands. The overheads gel everything together ( unless you have a bad room sound ) and I think you can get away with less expensive mics for your snares and toms by getting a sound from the overheads . That's why lots of engineers use things like SM57's to mic snares, they don't sound great on their own but cut through when mixed with nice sounding overheads.
CosmicDolphin