drums on a budget

[Jay Kahrs]

Keep in mind that you RNC's are either mono or stereo. To do kick, snare and a pair of overheads you'd need three of them. Also, it's worth repeating that not everything needs to be compressed. I, and a lot of other people rarely compress overheads.

[Drumsound]

I just did a live record using a Mix Wiz. It's a pretty good sounding little board. I did bring some outboard for the money channels, but the bulk of the drum-set, the bass and guitars and the room were all on the Mix Wiz to the RADAR. It's sounds pretty nice.

I don't compress Overheads either!

[drumzy]

thanks guys.

Jay and Tony..good point about not compressing the overheads.

Tony, do you use the direct outs on the mix wiz? where are the direct outs in the chain?

I was reading a thread about the specifics fo rewiring the direct outs on the mix wiz's for a more optimal arrangement, but for the life of me I cant find it by searching here....It might have been a different forum. If this rings a bell please let me know.

[jdier]

I would suggest starting out with just the overheads. Make measurements to make sure they are equa-distant from both the snare and the kick. This will put one mic directly over the snare about 3 feet up and the other mic over the drummers right shoulder (almost sitting on it). Someone gave me the hint of using two drum sticks end to end to set the distance of the mics from the snare center. I then use tape measure to make sure I am equa-distant from the kick.

Listen in the mix until both the snare and the kick are centered.

After that the kick and snare mics become more like 'spotlights' filling in the voids.

I have successfully used Oktava 012's and Shure Beta 57's for overheads in this set up.

You can hear a kit mic'ed like this with Beta 57's here:
www.soundclick.com/rmutt - song: virginia

And mic'ed with the oktavas here:
www.soundclick.com/danwhitakercountryband - songs: all

[Jay Kahrs]

I've also done plenty of stuff with two different mics for overheads or just a mono overhead. The mono mic works well if the drummer has a compact setup and there isn't a big spread over the kit. I might stick it over their shoulder or maybe over the ride cymbal, hardly ever over the snare.

[Drumsound]

Originally posted by drumzy
thanks guys.

Tony, do you use the direct outs on the mix wiz? where are the direct outs in the chain?

I was reading a thread about the specifics fo rewiring the direct outs on the mix wiz's for a more optimal arrangement, but for the life of me I cant find it by searching here....It might have been a different forum. If this rings a bell please let me know.

Yep I used the direct outs. I used a rented Mix Wiz. I didn't use any EQ because I was not sure if the makeshift control room was right or not. I set the input trim and them used the faders to put the level where I wanted it on the RADAR. I believe the Mix Wix is -10 but I had plenty of signal over to the RADAR via TRS-DB25 snakes I bought for the gig.

[drumzy]

thanks for the replies guys. Jdier, I listened to some of your recordings and they sounded impressive especially considering the use of only two budget mics. I was frankly surprised to hear the fullness in the kick. What pres were you using?

[jdier]

Quick clarification... In addition to the overheads (which very much drive the sound and account for most of the kit feel) I also 'spotlight' the kick and snare with additional mics. I have a SM57 top snare, Beta57 bottom snare, and a Beta52 and SM57 in the kick. I also have a Studio Projects B1 about 5-6 feet out front of the set at the drummers head level.

For everything you heard the only pres I used were the ones built into my Aardvark Q10's.

I am getting ready to track my own project now and am planning on using RNP for the Oktavas for overheads.

For the full kick sound I have wound up (on the country stuff) using the beta52 for 66% of the sound and the SM57 for 33%.

The Beta52 is set right outside the drum pointed right at the center of the batter head. I have it very lightly compressed (with the timeworks compressor that comes with SonarXL) but with no EQ.

The SM57 is inside the kick right up at the beater head and I did not compress that one, only applied some eq until the kit sound came together.

Hope I did not mislead you too much with my first post.

[jpaudio]

Originally posted by Jay Kahrs
Keep in mind that you RNC's are either mono or stereo. To do kick, snare and a pair of overheads you'd need three of them. Also, it's worth repeating that not everything needs to be compressed. I, and a lot of other people rarely compress overheads.

Ditto... I wouldn't even suggest worrying about compression during tracking. I'll EQ like a madman on the way in if I need to, but compression is very dependent on the mix IMHO, so I'll wait on that (unless i'm going for color or an effect, which you wouldn't really want RNCs for anyway, but of course YMMV).

As Jay mentioned regarding the RNCs, they're stereo units with only one set of controls, so you can't run kick and snare into one unit and have seperate control over each. If you're looking for budget compressors, i'd suggest checking out some DBX 160Xs or XTs... they can be found relatively cheap and work well on kick and snare. An RNC may work well on OH if necessary, or you could try running your whole drum mix through one... that might work out nicely.