Improving my drum sound

[Morgan C]

Hey all, first post here. I've recently got into recording real drums (SO much better than programming them), and really want to go all-natural if possible. Doing rock and metal so I may be trying to achieve the impossible ;p

Here are the current raw sounds I'm getting http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/324723/Drums2.zip
Room - 2 KMicros ($5 mics, sound pretty bad and distort on rim shots even though they're 2m from the snare.. but better than nothing)
OH - PG81
Snare - 57
Everything into a Presonus FP10.

My main issue is that the cymbals sound kinda distant, not very 'in your face', and there's a lot of drums in the OHs (perhaps cos I'm hitting pretty hard). That, and the snare drum is ALWAYS dull. Might just be the 57's fault. Also, its a really good raw sound, I think, but when I go to process it it kinda falls apart.

Kit is a Pearl Export, the toms are badly tuned and have very old skins so ignore them. The snare is a really nice Pearl Brass Freefloater. Head on that is pretty old too, replacing it next week. All the cymbals are pretty nice, various brands. Unfortunately I'm in a garage, so the sound of the room is pretty awful (as you can tell by the room mics).

I'm thinking of hanging some thick blankets up in a small area around the kit to stop the sound reflecting around, hopefully get a more 'in your face' sound. Will this help a bit?
My kick mic (e902) will be arriving soon, so thats why theres no kick in there.

Any tips would be much appreciated!

[Grumblefoot]

If you want to get the cymbals to stand out more, use an eq plug on the OH track and high pass it.

[Dr. Mordo]

The best thing you can do is experiment. Your room/kit/mic combination will have specific needs that you have to find. Spend a day moving the mics around to see what happens. Then, when it's as close as you can get it to what you want, work on the results in the box and start tweaking EQs and compression. I think the raw sounds you are getting are pretty good. A important concept to understand is that when you compress these tracks, the cymbals will come up in the mix (and sound much more 'in your face'), so you initially want less cymbals. So these tracks will sound pretty good when you compress them. I think the room mics sound pretty good, the distortion just adds character. Always remember - there is no such thing as a bad sound; there is only an inappropriate sound. The Flaming Lips drums are usually way more distorted than that, and they sound amazing.


Yes, just a mic on the top of the snare will sound dull. You might try the 57 under the snare. That's how they recorded Ringo much of the time, with one overhead and a snare side mic - no top snare mic. You could also buy some more $5 mics and put one under the snare. Just remember that if you run mics on the top and bottom of the snare you'll need to reverse the phase of the mic on snare side.

Cheapo mics that distort can sound good in applications where distortion helps. Remember that much of the sound of older recording is the sound of pushing the levels until they clip on the tape. So using a mic that distorts on the snare bottom (and maybe top as well) may work well for a slightly nasty sound. Also note that the distortion will probly be less noticeable because the snare has a much shorter sound than the full kit from across the room.

If it was me, I'd try putting one of those cheapo mics on the bass drum; it might be better than you think. I'd back it off about a foot from the front head, and then boost the bass a bit in the EQ. That way it work distort the mic so much but the bass drum will still be audible; depending on the tone of the distortion, it may actually make your bass drum sound better - often clipping creates a treble response that isn't actually present in the drum. If you like it, buy a couple more and put them under the snare and on the bass drum, and return that e902.

[Dr. Mordo]

Immediately after my last post I thought that I should show that these sounds are pretty good, so I installed Reaper, figured out how to use it (I'm typically an Nuendo guy), and threw this together. Both tracks are first takes (somewhat obviously) recorded thru my pretty crappy laptop soundcard. All I did to the drums is EQ and compression. I used all the tracks, leaning heavily on the OHs but with some of the snare and room mics in there as well. I ran the whole mix thru and EQ, compressor, and a tiny bit of limiting just to get the levels up.

[Morgan C]

Originally Posted by Grumblefoot

If you want to get the cymbals to stand out more, use an eq plug on the OH track and high pass it.

Can, but I'd prefer to get it better at the source. Here's a friend's OH track (attached), which has a lot more cymbal in it (and the cymbals are much more in your face). He used Audix F15's I think, the cheap OH condensors. Might be partially because the room sounds better.

@DrMordo
Thanks for all that
I don't like compressing Overheads much, I might limit them to reduce the snare transient but I prefer to leave the compression to the room mics.


I had another go yesterday. Moved the room mics from in front of the kit to under the kit, a suggestion from someone, and its kinda nice. Dunno whether I like it more, its less garagey but less roomy too.
I also used my fake Beta52 (don't ask - sounds like shit but better than nothing) on the bottom snare. Attached is the mixed version (Drums 20Sept). I still need to experiment with the 'room' mics to get the snare and kick centred, snare is WAY left and kick is WAY right as you can hear.



Do you guys think hanging up a bunch of rugs will help improve the 'in-your-face'ness of the sound and/or make the sound less garagey? Just 4 rugs in a square around the kit.

[Dr. Mordo]

I think it'll all come down to mic placement and compression. I think the only way to get a really 'in your face' sound from a cymbal without using compression is to close mic it. I guess you could just move the overheads as close as you can to your cymbals without things getting weird; that'd help some I'm sure.

But honestly, I don't think you're going to have much luck with out running some compression on the overheads and room mics. There's a reason people compress pretty much every signal to some extent - it makes the signal sound louder and more 'in your face'.

[tenchijin2]

You'll definitely get cleaner, up front cymbals by recording in a room with little to no reflection. Cymbals, being almost entirely hi freq, reflect a lot off of walls and ceilings and the mics pick this up, which makes them sound washy and weaker.

Actually recording in a small, dead-ish (across all freqs) room will make all your drums much punchier, but that isn't what most people want these days.

That's just my experience. The other advice about experimenting and finding what sounds right in your room is dead on. Also, don't discount that the cymbals themselves may just sound like that.

[conquest]

1. Titening up the high freq in your room will help
2. A large condenser in the room of in front of the kit can help a lot. It can be a better reference to how the drums actually sound. You never listen to a kit from above right? It will help tie it together. I like to think of thid as the punch mic. Filtering out some highs and the lows rolling out around 120.

3. Think of your individual drum sounds as a sum of all the microphones employed. The57 might sound dark alone but not so much when combined with Oh and room. When mixing listen to what changes make to

4. Record individual hits and zoom in on the waveform. Ultimatly using your ears is the best judge but doing this can help you understand phase relationship between microphones.

[Morgan C]

Ok, I think I've improved it quite a bit.
I haven't messed with the room yet, and that'll be my next step.

But, I lowered the overheads. Got the crashes much more upfront and wider, but then the ride and hats sorta got lost a bit in the stereofield. So I chucked some cheapo mics on them (KMicros).

Also put a room mic up quite close to the kit (much closer than usual), and quite high up.
And my kick mic arrived (e902) and sounds fantastic. Maybe even too much highs o.0 which is insane for metal kicks.

http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/324723/Drums2OctDry.mp3
http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/324723/Drums2OctRoomy.mp3

There are some samples. Top is basically the bottom without the room mic (and verb on the room mic).

[RubixGroove]

You ever just try mic'ing the hats by themselves?
I LOVE being able to gate those things on their own.
You could probably even do it with one of them $5 guys ya got, just to play around with. There's a bunch of different tactics, when it comes to deploying the mics.

Ever try putting one over your right shoulder?
I really like to put one about three'ish feet behind me, to my right a bit.
Sort of kidney level, but it really picks up the THWAP! of your kick beater.
It's not something that will land you a huge gig in a recording studio or anything, but it's a fun technique to play around with on your own!

[Tony76]

Morgan C,

You got a very nice sounding kit. Which heads you used for the kick and toms?

Thanks,
Tony

[Morgan C]

Originally Posted by RubixGroove

You ever just try mic'ing the hats by themselves?
I LOVE being able to gate those things on their own.
You could probably even do it with one of them $5 guys ya got, just to play around with. There's a bunch of different tactics, when it comes to deploying the mics.

This has a 'hihat' track, but as im out of mic stands its just sitting there on a stool near the hats. Lots of bleed but if I mix it in low it does what I want.

Originally Posted by Tony76

Morgan C,

You got a very nice sounding kit. Which heads you used for the kick and toms?

Thanks,
Tony

Thank you

I'll be replacing my snare head today so hopefully that'll improve a lot.

Kick is the basic clear Pearl head that came with it, and its OLD. Many many years old. On the reso side is a year old Evans EQ3. With a thick blanket inside.

Toms are 2year old (blehhhh) Pinstripes over Ambs (floor tom has the stock pearl head, again, many many years old).

All of those are pretty much as loose as they can go on both sides, because of how old they are. Desperately need replacing but they're just so expensive here in Aus. I have a newer kick head (coated Powersonic) but it just sounds terrible, probably because its coated. The toms I know would sound 100x better with new heads, but I don't have $200 to splurge atm to replace them all.

[Morgan C]

Thanks for everyone's help.

Just tracked 4 songs in 1.5 hours, tryin to get them all done really quickly.

New snare head, used samples on the toms (although they are mine and 100% raw - only used samples because I don't have enough mics).

Here are the results!
http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/324723/ParamoreDrums.mp3

I think it sounds pretty good. No samples on snare/kick.

[Morgan C]

Bump/update

http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/324723/LTFBShort.mp3

Gave it a bit more time mixing, used a sample (of this snare) to get some more tone into it. All of the punch is from the live track though. Also put some bass in there. I think it sounds pretty killer. Its not very big, but its punchy, full of tone and very ambient.

Will update this once more when the song is complete.