Clear, Present sounding drums.

[Chrisc_o]

Post a clip of your current results. There are all kinds of general tips and tricks that can be offered to you as a rough idea for experimentation, but will that really help you improve anything?

Post a real-world example of what you think needs to be improved upon.

[jamesbird93]

I'll post a soundcloud link of my current results when I'm home from work!

[jamesbird93]

Originally Posted by Chrisc_o

Post a clip of your current results. There are all kinds of general tips and tricks that can be offered to you as a rough idea for experimentation, but will that really help you improve anything?

Post a real-world example of what you think needs to be improved upon.

Here we go,
These are completely raw;

http://soundcloud.com/james-bird-1/gearslutz-raw-drums

What do you guys think? This is a massive leap from what I got about three years ago,

When compressed and equalised this gives an OK sound but still not the studio qulaity of clarity I'm looking for,

How can I improve this?

[popmann]

Hire a mix engineer?

Room is key to drum sounds. If you don't have a nice big one...and it sounds like you don't, you have to know how to build one digitally.

[Funny Cat]

IMHO, the keys to Clear & Present drums are:


1.Mic Placement

Move the mics until it sounds "clear & Present". The closer you can get it to sound like a "finished" product, the better the finished product will sound. In other words, use the mic as your EQ. If the snare drum is lacking highs, either change the mic for a mic with better highs or move the mic until you hear more highs etc. This applies to each piece of the kit.



2. Proper Filtering with EQ


Cut all the unwanted stuff. lpf and hpf everything. It sounds UN-intuitive but the more you cut the highs in all the other drums the more the cymbals and hihats will sparkle. The more you cut the lows in the toms, hats, cymbals etc. the more clear and punchy the kick will appear to be.




3. NYC compression A.K.A. "Parallel Compression"

This can get your drums to that final 10%-15% if used right. Plenty of info on the web about this method of processing.

[mattjew24]

Find a better room with tall ceilings, an expert drummer, brand new heads tuned how you like.

[mattjew24]

Seriously you need new heads and a better room. Also try to avoid the PG mics at all costs, the toms sound dead. Based on your style you probably like a hard rock kind of drum sound...difficult to achieve my friend. Spend some money on the kit itself

[RoadToNever]

You've got a nice groove and good control and that's the best start. Somehow the recording lacks a sense of space and doesn't really slap you in the face the way it should. The "right" pre wont fix these issues and whoever gave you that idea is a jerk. Tell us more about your room, dimensions, where you've placed the drum kit and what kind or treatment you are using if any.

Starting with the treble it's kind of thin and one-dimesional, frankly I don't think the Samsons are doing you a favor. Check out Cad e70/Superlux S241 they sound like they could be used professionally unlike all the other cheap pencils I've heard which sound either thin, sharp or fizzy. The kick could use some EQ or a mic with a more shaped responce. Look at some of the many drum mixing videos on YT, there's tones of useful mixing moves to be learned.

[jamesbird93]

Originally Posted by RoadToNever

You've got a nice groove and good control and that's the best start. Somehow the recording lacks a sense of space and doesn't really slap you in the face the way it should. The "right" pre wont fix these issues and whoever gave you that idea is a jerk. Tell us more about your room, dimensions, where you've placed the drum kit and what kind or treatment you are using if any.

Starting with the treble it's kind of thin and one-dimesional, frankly I don't think the Samsons are doing you a favor. Check out Cad e70/Superlux S241 they sound like they could be used professionally unlike all the other cheap pencils I've heard which sound either thin, sharp or fizzy. The kick could use some EQ or a mic with a more shaped responce. Look at some of the many drum mixing videos on YT, there's tones of useful mixing moves to be learned.

First of all thanks for all the replies guys, I'll give some more info now I've had some feedback,
The room itself has low ceilings, damp sound, brick walls, a lot of padding, I'm contemplating moving this into the higher ceiling longer room for more natural verb, better idea?

Secondly, this recording is completely FLAT, nothing has been done with the EQ's pre-recording, its just a ballpark flat recording as I don't like the alesis EQ's much, do you think they'll help in this case?

I can indeed tell you we need new tom skins, and also yes, I'm less than impressed with the response of the PG mics, but I'm not quite sure what to put in their place without getting more sm57's or some senheisser e series.. My budget is running a little thin :( The kit itself is very nice, can't remember exactly what it is as I'm a guitarist but it's one of the higher end pearl's! He's just invested in some new higher end zildjian cymbals as he had this white horse crash ride before (WASH WASH WASH...)

And don't be decieved, I just wondered PERSONALLY whether a pre-amp may warm the sound a little and get rid of that horrible thin, flat response some of my budget mic's are giving out, as for the pencil mic's, do you recon the larger diaphragm mic's may counteract the thin treble a little?

[jamesbird93]

Originally Posted by jamesbird93

First of all thanks for all the replies guys, I'll give some more info now I've had some feedback,
The room itself has low ceilings, damp sound, brick walls, a lot of padding, I'm contemplating moving this into the higher ceiling longer room for more natural verb, better idea?

Secondly, this recording is completely FLAT, nothing has been done with the EQ's pre-recording, its just a ballpark flat recording as I don't like the alesis EQ's much, do you think they'll help in this case?

I can indeed tell you we need new tom skins, and also yes, I'm less than impressed with the response of the PG mics, but I'm not quite sure what to put in their place without getting more sm57's or some senheisser e series.. My budget is running a little thin :( The kit itself is very nice, can't remember exactly what it is as I'm a guitarist but it's one of the higher end pearl's! He's just invested in some new higher end zildjian cymbals as he had this white horse crash ride before (WASH WASH WASH...)

And don't be decieved, I just wondered PERSONALLY whether a pre-amp may warm the sound a little and get rid of that horrible thin, flat response some of my budget mic's are giving out, as for the pencil mic's, do you recon the larger diaphragm mic's may counteract the thin treble a little?

https://fbcdn-sphotos-f-a.akamaihd.n...47471410_n.jpg

This is the room itself, and the mic placement I talked of!

[mattjew24]

It would probably sound better away from that corner also...and the overheads could be causing phase problems setup like that. With XY I normally put the capsules almost touching, directly over the kick as to minimize phase.

Don't buy any preamps or fancy mics yet, buy brand new Remo heads and tune them up...try recording in a bigger room and try to get a good sound on each mic by soloing them up while your buddy plays

[mattjew24]

Practice makes perfect

[jamesbird93]

Originally Posted by mattjew24

Practice makes perfect

Thanks the advice man I'll have another crack at it on Sunday

[John Suitcase]

The problem you'll have with a small room without a lot of deadening is going to be bleed, and the resultant comb filtering, which sounds like smeared transients, and uneven bass response. The sound level is high, because you have a loud instrument in a small space. The result is that every mic is going to pick up everything, at slightly different time delays. There are two ways to overcome this. You can treat the room (or move to a larger space, which I'd normally do) or you can close mic everything, including the cymbals, with the plan being to sample replace everything except the cymbals. This sounds like a cop-out to a lot of people on this board, but even drums recorded in killer rooms with great gear and fantastic players often go out to a mix engineer who is going to use samples to supplement, if not to totally replace those carefully recorded drums. If you want that super polished, hyper-real sound that you hear on records these days, you are going to be using some sample replacement/augmentation. And you're going to need great mixing skills, to boot.

There are no shortcuts in this business, even things that look like shortcuts aren't really; using samples can totally destroy your sound if not done correctly.

At the end of the day, your goal needs to be the best you can do with the resources you have, not to match the sounds coming out of a million dollar room with top shelf talent every step of the way.

That said, have fun, do your best, learn everything you can, and you'll improve, sometimes a lot, sometimes a little, but if you keep going, you'll get something that makes you happy, eventually!

[RoadToNever]

Originally Posted by jamesbird93

Do you recon the larger diaphragm mic's may counteract the thin treble a little?

LDCs as OH tone down the attack and the sheen, probably not the result you're looking for, they also sometimes bring out the wash.
Better suited as room mics IMHO. One interesting use for LDC I was in combination with Audix D6+U47 on kick: Dale Cross drumming in the studio with Echonic! - YouTube Definitely move the kit out of the corner, you'll be surprised. May I suggest you sell some of your mics to invest in better overheads and perhaps kick if you don't want to spend too much time on EQ? I'm sure you could get an excellent sound with just OH+kick+snare.

[edva]

The drums should be tuned and played so that they sound good with just one overhead mic just above and slightly forward of the drummer's head, aimed at the center of the kit. Once you've got that, you can add small amounts of everything else as needed. That is one way to deal with the small room situation anyway. IMHO.

[gouge]

i've got a similar situation in a smaller room than yours, can't say i've got a definitive answer yet but here's what i've been trying that has helped in no particular order.

1. tuning
2. spend a long time placing mics
3. clouds over the drums
4. absorption on side walls near kit.
5. tape the drum heads to reduce the resonance, add a piece of gaff, hit the drum, add another piece, hit the drum again, add another piece and hit the drum again, you'll hear when you've added to much. p.s don't kill the drum just do enough for the room you're in.
6. tape the cymbals as per above. be carefull with this.
7. with the mic in front of kit in your picture lower it down so it's only 2-3 feet above the floor, gives you more drum punch and less cymbals. you may end up not using the overheads and running with the front of kit mic if it's stereo when mixing.
8. during mixdown, parrallel compression will make the kit sound way bigger. you really need this to make things explode. without it you're doomed. i use a dbx160sl but there are lots of other cheaper comps that can do it.
9. during mix down, room reverbs only seem to make things sound bigger. especially if you've gotten a fairly dry kit by gaffing the heads.
10. eq and filters.

[imixrecords]

Originally Posted by edva

The drums should be tuned and played so that they sound good with just one overhead mic just above and slightly forward of the drummer's head, aimed at the center of the kit. Once you've got that, you can add small amounts of everything else as needed. That is one way to deal with the small room situation anyway. IMHO.

This is how i approach most drum recordings. if the overhead (or heads) sound good on its own, it usually only gets better as spot mics are added.

[Oatbunches]

Being this huddled into the corner with all those parallel surfaces, you're going to have some serious comb-filtering. This can kill your transient response, leaving smeared and dull peaks. I believe you would benefit most from moving over to a larger room in order to avoid issues from early-reflections. I understand how that may be an inconvenience. But if that is the case, you would also benefit from broadband traps, enough to maintain early-reflections so that they are not destructive to your audio image (Phase-cancellation, peaks/nulls). Add in the necessity of careful mic placement to avoid phase-cancellation between individual microphones. Sound travels a finite amount of time around your room, and your mics pick up the propagation of the sound wave at slightly different intervals. This difference is enough to cause similar 'smearing' and 'phasey' sounds.


RealTraps - Room Modes

[gouge]

could also try some drop in acoustic treatments for the ceiling (space couplers) and couple the space above. lay some insulation on top of the space couplers. you have at least another 300+ mm there to take advantage of.

then use absorption on your walls. hang 4" insulation 4" from the wall face. bass traps to all corners etc.

that type of system will make a large difference to your room.

[NoPro]

Originally Posted by jamesbird93

Ok, so I'm new to this forum but man, I use it all the time and find my questions already answered!
But id just like a little opinion of some new stuff to try,

So I don't have a vast amount of super expensive gear or anything but I have my head screwed on,

I want to make a nice clear drum sound, which I'm achieving, but how would you guys go about this with the following gear;

3x Samson C01
2x Samson C02
1x Sm57
1x Sm58
1x akg d112
3x pg58
1x pg52

Currently I'm using the c02's as overheads in an xy config,
A c01 about 6ft away from the kit a foot over the cymbals, off centre from the kick pointing to the snare as a room mic.
Sm57 on top snare, undermicing the snare with a pg57, and pg57s on 2 toms. D112 on kick pointing to the beater.

The room I'm recording in is nice an damp sounding, no resonant echoes, small touch of natural reverb.

How would you guys advise getting a nice present, crisp sounding Jay Maas style drum sound? Should I put my ARTSTUDIO pre inline with any of these mics for some more warmth?

Any ideas are welcome guys and I'd appreciate them!

I'd try other overhead techniques especially otrf. That presence comes from experimention. Of course keep a 57 on your snare maybe the 58 on bottom...and dedicated kick mic

[jamesbird93]

Thanks for the mind response guys, I'll take the advice on board and show my results on Sunday, with a little mastering and a bit of work I think this will turn out well

[mattjew24]

Originally Posted by John Suitcase

The problem you'll have with a small room without a lot of deadening is going to be bleed, and the resultant comb filtering, which sounds like smeared transients, and uneven bass response. The sound level is high, because you have a loud instrument in a small space. The result is that every mic is going to pick up everything, at slightly different time delays. There are two ways to overcome this. You can treat the room (or move to a larger space, which I'd normally do) or you can close mic everything, including the cymbals, with the plan being to sample replace everything except the cymbals. This sounds like a cop-out to a lot of people on this board, but even drums recorded in killer rooms with great gear and fantastic players often go out to a mix engineer who is going to use samples to supplement, if not to totally replace those carefully recorded drums. If you want that super polished, hyper-real sound that you hear on records these days, you are going to be using some sample replacement/augmentation. And you're going to need great mixing skills, to boot.

There are no shortcuts in this business, even things that look like shortcuts aren't really; using samples can totally destroy your sound if not done correctly.

At the end of the day, your goal needs to be the best you can do with the resources you have, not to match the sounds coming out of a million dollar room with top shelf talent every step of the way.

That said, have fun, do your best, learn everything you can, and you'll improve, sometimes a lot, sometimes a little, but if you keep going, you'll get something that makes you happy, eventually!

I've not heard an easier to understand explanation for why room matters with drums!!!

[jamesbird93]

Originally Posted by mattjew24

I've not heard an easier to understand explanation for why room matters with drums!!!

Agreed!

[xparkerx]

Originally Posted by John Suitcase

The problem you'll have with a small room without a lot of deadening is going to be bleed, and the resultant comb filtering, which sounds like smeared transients, and uneven bass response. The sound level is high, because you have a loud instrument in a small space. The result is that every mic is going to pick up everything, at slightly different time delays. There are two ways to overcome this. You can treat the room (or move to a larger space, which I'd normally do) or you can close mic everything, including the cymbals, with the plan being to sample replace everything except the cymbals. This sounds like a cop-out to a lot of people on this board, but even drums recorded in killer rooms with great gear and fantastic players often go out to a mix engineer who is going to use samples to supplement, if not to totally replace those carefully recorded drums. If you want that super polished, hyper-real sound that you hear on records these days, you are going to be using some sample replacement/augmentation. And you're going to need great mixing skills, to boot.

There are no shortcuts in this business, even things that look like shortcuts aren't really; using samples can totally destroy your sound if not done correctly.

At the end of the day, your goal needs to be the best you can do with the resources you have, not to match the sounds coming out of a million dollar room with top shelf talent every step of the way.

That said, have fun, do your best, learn everything you can, and you'll improve, sometimes a lot, sometimes a little, but if you keep going, you'll get something that makes you happy, eventually!

A+

[cirrusboy]

Hey there all

I just went through all this, was geeking hard for about a year.

I have have a smallish room, 250 SF. all tongue and groove pine. I banged out the ceiling exposing the structural beams to the floor above, I gained about 3 feet making it 10 ft ceiling. I bought some ATS rigid 2" acoustic panels ( 2 boxes making it 12 sheets ) i took one box and split the panels long ways , wrapped them in black fabric and put them up in-between the the beams in the ceiling, using washers for support and 4" deck screws. they hang 1" from ceiling. this only covered one area of the room, where i put the drums. I took the other box of panels but this time i kept them at 2x4, wrapped them in a nice grey fabric and arrayed them out from one corner of the room, 3 PANLES PER WALL. Staggered 2" out from wall ( 2x2"s' cut in 3" long. use the 2" side pre drill put a thick 4" nail going through one side and two 3" dry wall screws going to the opposite side ) so you basically have four 3x2" blocks per panel with a nails sticking out of them , That's you support for the wall panels. simply screw them up and stick the panels on nails, works like charm. Its a hell of a lot of work, but i'm really glad i did it.


So now i have a tight side and a not so tight side of the room. tight side for close miking, the other side for mono room and room mics, XY for room mics ( not over heads ) have been working for me. takes care of phase issues/ comb filtering often get in smallish room. Also i use overheads as cymbal mics not " overheads " forget about overheads in small rooms. just my opinion. Now here's the thing that most exited me. With door open I put a PZM shure beta 91 outside the room in the hallway. slighty down the hall on a small step latter against the wall. put on 1176 all buttons mode. bam ! there's your dirty bonham room. This all works for me to get that profession - tight punchy yet big room sound.

I usually put the drums with back to corner where the wall panels are arrayed out. and towards the center of room but not dead center. where the ceiling clouds are, this seems to work the best.

Also get individual drum sample hit's ( light - med - hard -rim etc ) if bleed is killing you just replace and or blend in if necessary . i use drumamgog

[ZombieMorg]

No one's mentioned it yet, and I would only advice it as a last resort, but sampling could help you out.

Obviously, tuning, placement, compression and EQ are they key to a good drum sound but sometimes you have to work with what you've got.

If you have a tiny room and you're looking for that big drum sound then the chances are that it's going to be very difficult to get.

[mattjew24]

Originally Posted by ZombieMorg

No one's mentioned it yet, and I would only advice it as a last resort, but sampling could help you out.

Obviously, tuning, placement, compression and EQ are they key to a good drum sound but sometimes you have to work with what you've got.

If you have a tiny room and you're looking for that big drum sound then the chances are that it's going to be very difficult to get.

It was mentioned but all is well.

Ive done some decent drums using my Roland Vdrums and Steven Slate Drums EX sample program. Got that for like $30 a few years ago

[Rascal Audio]

Try moving the drums out of the corner to the middle-ish of the room. This will drastically reduce strong early reflections off the walls that are likely contributing to smear and filtering in the mics.

Also, I'd clear the room out of unneeded stuff to liven it up a bit. If you have standing waves (echoey, resonating reflections that can even come across as a single pitch or note) then place an obstacle (book shelf, dresser, chair/sofa) in such a way as to break them up.

If you like the 'liveness' of the room, but are getting too much mid/hi-mid resonance in the room mics, try nailing cheapy Walmart bed pillows in the upper corners of the room, one pillow per corner. Mid frequencies really congregate and reflect in these corners (three close planes convening at right angles). Putting pillows here absorbs this resonance significantly while leaving the reflective walls alone. Seriously, a little goes a long way with pillows used like this.

The clip you posted sounded rather mono to me (through headphones off my laptop). Yes, I hear the tom panning, but the room mic is so strong that it feels mono overall. I can't really tell if you have the overheads panned, though I assume you do. I prefer to have a very stereo (natural, but clearly stereo) room sound and would rather have mono drums with stereo rooms. Ideally I can have solidly stereo overhead image as well (again, natural, not filtered or somehow weird, but definitely stereo).

Try using a spaced arrangement for your overheads (one over the left side of kit, one over the right side). Use a mic or guitar cable or a piece of string to measure from the center of the snare head to the capsule of each of these mics -- this needs to be the same distance for each mic. This will eliminate any head-spinning phasiness of the snare sound in the overheads. The mic on the side opposite the snare will have to be a little lower than the one closer to the snare in order to keep the length from the middle of the top head equidistant -- this is fine, don't worry about it. This spaced approach will create a wider stereo image that you can tailor with panning as you mix. X/Y just doesn't produce a wide enough image for me, personally. I'd rather be able to tame a wider image with narrower panning than to have to reach for some stereo processor to try to enhance the width of a naturally narrow image.

Also, try to ensure that the angle of the mics relative to the snare drum is, for the most part, the same. This will ensure that any off axis coloration will be matched for each mic, again, making the snare image in the overheads more natural.

I'd use two of your C01's for the rooms and experiment with placement to get a wide, but natural sound. X/Y (with capsule 90-degrees or a little wider) may produce enough width or you can space them 6 feet apart, whatever. To avoid HMF hash from the cymbals (which can happen in a small room with hard walls) you may try placing them higher in the air, pointed down at the floor, so the sound is more off-axis, pointed toward a less-reflective surface. This can tame the harshness of cymbals in a small room with inexpensive mics.

The toms sound quite dead in your clip, which isn't necessarily bad, depending on what you're going for, just be aware that however the toms sound in the room, when miked closely with dynamic mics they tend to translate even darker. For this reason I often favor single ply heads tuned to the drum's midrange, because when miked they sound bigger than just listening in the room, but this is a matter of preference, of course.

Don't be afraid to back the mics off the toms a little and let them breath. I often see people sticking the mics right on the heads, and this just makes them artificially tubby, and not in an authoritative way, but rather in a way that would make me filter that mud out in the mix trying to get back to a more clear, present tone.

And point the floor tom mic toward the center of the drum rather than the edge. The larger the tom the more likely to have more LF content and greater resonance, so backing the mic off a little and pointing it toward the center gives a better balance of attack and resonance. Smaller toms can have mics closer and pointed more toward the edge to emphasize resonance a little. Playing with placement in this fashion can fairly equalize the character between the toms, making them sound similar in tone without the use of an equalizer (the less filter electronics you use, the better).

Tune the snare's bottom head very tight, and don't over tighten the snares themselves -- snare response should be crisp when the drum is played at very low levels. If the drummer is a heavy hitter check the tuning of the snare between takes, otherwise you'll get a pretty dead snare sound in short order. Change top head as needed (which might be often if the drummer is a neanderthal).

I like two mics on the kick: one for attack and the other to fill in with tone/resonance. I'd probably try the D112 placed inside the drum, close to the batter to get the attack and then use the PG52 outside the drum to capture the bloom. Use a heavy packing blanket to build a tunnel outside the kick to help isolate the outside mic a bit, so any future processing you do to it won't also process (and emphasize) the bleed this mic would otherwise pick up.

And don't be afraid to use very little muffling in the kick. Too much packing will reduce the kick to a 'click' or 'snap' on the track rather than as a large, authoritative drum. You can tame the resonance with processing later, if needed, but you can't really increase it (at least not without increasing the bleed in the process). You can always replace with a sample later, but I'd prefer not to if it's not necessary.

When it comes to mixing, there are lots of tricks with sidechaining dynamics processors to control and isolate the kit elements, but this is all useless if the original tracks aren't good.

Oh, and I've been using two top snare mics more recently on snare rather than a top/bottom combo. I've been enjoying an SM57 and a modified Oktava MC012 (cardioid capsule) placed with diaphragms equidistant from the center of the drum. I've got nicer pencils than the Oktava (though modified it sounds quite lovely!), but I'm just not totally comfortable placing a more expensive mic in harm's way. I find that the 57 give more balls and body and aggressive attack, while the pencil mic fills in the gaps with clarity and naturalness. It has been working really well, so you might try that too, FWIW.

Hope this gives you some useful ideas. Peace,

Joel