Room / Mic placement suggestions (drums)

[DCSports92GSR]

My bands recording our first EP soon (tracking the drums on the 25th), heres what we have to work with:

(1) SM57
(1) SM58
(1) MXL 990 (large diaphragm condenser)
(1) MXL 991 (pencil condenser)
(1) KM 212*
(3) TM 211*
(2) CM 217*
(1) SN 210*

*from this kit Buy CAD PRO-7 7-Piece Drum Microphone Pack online at Musician's Friend

Our interface is a tascam US-1641 in to a mac book running garage band.

My kit is tuned VERY well, and is high quality. As an example, the drum track for the song "Give In Thieves" on our myspace (myspace.com/petrathepoet) was recorded using only two mics... an sm58 on the kick and the MXL 991 about 3 feet above the snare and hi-hat.

Heres pics of the 'room' we're going to use. It's the basement in my house, and it decently large:

Looking at the drums from the back wall (most of our equip including the rest of my kit
is at my guitarists house)

Looking from the wall behind the drums towards where the last photo was taken.

Theres a lot of room down here, this is just to show the design of the room.


Anyways, heres what I was thinking (for 8 tracks... well I guess 7 because one of them is stereo):

1) Snare (SM57)
2) Kick (Either KM212 or SM58)
3) Stereo Track (Overheards in 'recorderman' setup)
4) Tom 1 (TM 211)
5) Tom 2 (TM211 or KM212 if we use the SM58 on the kick instead)
6) Hi-Hat (MXL 991)
7) Ride (MXL 990)

I'll play around with trading track 7 for a snare bottom, but I have a feeling the overheads / snare mic will be good enough (my snare cuts through very well).

Anyways, I'm just posting to see if you all have any ideas about what I can do (for free, we've exhausted our budget) to help this recording sound the best it can... acoustics / placement etc. I'm a talented drummer and like I said I have good sounding drums, so I guess that leaves mic's, placement and room / mixing?

Also, on the OH condensers theres a -10db pad and a high end roll off... any advantages to using other in the setup I have listed?

Thanks everyone!

-Kenny

[DCSports92GSR]

Originally Posted by McGee

Wow, I didn't realise you could record 8 track simultaniously on Garage Band, it's really coming along.

To be honest, that untreated basement looks a little scary for drums, especially if they're going to be played loud. If the drums are played quietly you might be able to work with the room and get a kind of a room sound going. But if they're loud, they're just gonna sound harsh and boxy in there.

I could be wrong, it's impossible to tell exactly what a room sounds like from a photo.

One way of improving the room accoustics would be to fill it with 'stuff'. You know - the kind of things that usually fill a room: Sofas, bookshelfs etc. Anything that has mass, and random geometry. Diffusion is not expensive, in fact if you are clever, it's free.

I do play somewhat loud, and I plan on moving the couch, and two chairs in front of the wet bar... do you think that would help?

What else could I do to help the acoustics?

[allencollins]

Originally Posted by McGee

Are you in that house at the moment?

If so, go and clap your hands in the middle of that drum room. Does it have a zingy robot echo?

If so, this is a flutter echo caused by reflective parallel surfaces (the walls). Some people can live with flutter echo for certain types of recordings - all depends.

Personally, if I was recording drums, I'd try and remove them by building some temporary diffusion.

yeah if you get that sound just get some of those heavy moving blankets from uhaul or whatever. Those absorb that up nicely

[DCSports92GSR]

Originally Posted by McGee

Are you in that house at the moment?

If so, go and clap your hands in the middle of that drum room. Does it have a zingy robot echo?

If so, this is a flutter echo caused by reflective parallel surfaces (the walls). Some people can live with flutter echo for certain types of recordings - all depends.

Personally, if I was recording drums, I'd try and remove them by building some temporary diffusion.

Theres a slight echo like that, nothing huge though. Like I said I'll move the couch / chairs over there, you think it would need more?

[DCSports92GSR]

Originally Posted by McGee

Moving just a couch and some chairs in isn't going to help. If you want to diffuse the room properly, there is tons of cheap diffusion advice around.

Are there any other rooms in the house you can use?

Not really, theres no space in any of the other rooms.

We could use my guitarists basement, but it's shaped like an L with hallway like width and tile floors / drop ceiling... I thought the room I have it setup in now would be better than that... am I wrong?

What about setting up the kit from the perspective of the third photo... facing that way... would the walls / more random geometry / increased length help the acoustics?

[DCSports92GSR]

Originally Posted by McGee

Yeh, that third photo looks like a better space. Move the kit in there and put more 'stuff' around the kit: stacks of full boxes, a standing fan with a heavy rug draped over it, whatever.

Like I said before, it's hard to know exactly from a photo. You first room might sound incredible for drums, but I think that's pretty unlikely.

The best thing I can recommend is getting the volume of your drums down. Playing lighter is the best way to do this. Diffusion is another.

I found some carpet rolls and etc, heres what I have now




the couch will go in front of the poker table (haha) eventually... is that better?

[DCSports92GSR]

Originally Posted by McGee

Oh my god...


Looks like you've got yourself some poor mans tubetraps (the carpet rolls) got any more of them? You need more stuff in there.

What's the ceiling made from? Are you able to drill into it? (probably not, ok).

Ummmmmmm. Ok this is going to be a bit crazy, but if you do it, I promise you, you'll have a more usable drum sound.

I'm guessing you might be in trouble if you start drilling into the walls and ceil, so what I'm going to suggest is hanging carpet diffusion panels, mounted to those ceiling light fittings. You need to find more carpet rolls.

Can you please take a close-up photo of one of those light fittings (switched off) with lightbulb in/light bulb out. We are just looking for something inside the fitting that we can attach to.

Warning! If you go ahead with my crazy scheme, you'll need to disable the power to those downlights (gaff up the switch and put a sign that says "DO NOT SWITCH ON")

Find some alternative lighting. Might be a blessing in disguise - get some lamps and shit and get a studio 'vibe' going he he.

LETS BUILD THIS STUDIO!

(any other ideas anyone!!!! I got mixes to do..)

As exciting as that would be, this is my parent's basement here so no drilling allowed. And I can't cut up the carpet rolls :(

Is the room really that bad? I guess I could do it in my room, but I don't see how such a small space would be good to record in... heres an old pic... its basically the same:



We also have my guitarist's laundry room where we jam, theres hanger racks with lots of clothes in them, but the walls / floor are concrete and its a very small space.

[DCSports92GSR]

We did the drum tracking today. It ended up sounding REALLY good for a home recording (I spent more than a week with mic placement), and the room didn't really cause any fuss. I'll have sound samples up when I can, but heres some cool pics we took for now :-p

[chrisso]

Yeah, you can't really judge room acoustics by the way they look (unless it's a square box made of steel or concrete).
I've had to work hard in amazing looking, professional rooms, and conversely got some amazing sounds in untreated living rooms.

[seaneldon]

If you're recording music in a less-than-ideal space...you must learn to EMBRACE THE SPACE. It isn't gonna sound like Capital "A". Get over it. Also, no one on the internet, even after seeing a picture, can REALLY tell you whether or not rolling up carpets or doing this or that or the other thing is going to work for you...because they haven't been in the room for a single snare drum hit. End of story.

Your microphones probably suck (note: I haven't used these exact microphones, this is just going on personal, unfortunate experiences with EVERY SINGLE "drum mic package" from a guitar store). To get them to produce a pleasing representation of the drums/what you're looking for/whatever, they've gotta be like...100% in the right spot. In my world, getting drum sounds for a week just isn't gonna fly...but if you're recording your band in your house and you're on no particular schedule/have no deadline...COMPLETELY different situation. Move those shitty little things around until they're in the right place. LISTEN to it.

When I'm in a crappy sounding room and I have to make it work...my first action is to walk around the room holding a snare drum at roughly stand-height, hitting it every couple steps. When it sounds notably better than it does elsewhere in the room, stop walking. Set up the drum on a stand right there. Now move the kick drum there. Do they both sound good? If so, this is where the drums should probably live. If the kick is kinda "eh" you can still probably get away with it, because a close kick mic can become 90% of the kick drum sound and has absolutely nothing to do with the room you're in.

Next I'll put up my main "kit" mics (If you're playing drums, you'll have to have someone else take care of this step...or just have someone else play the drums for a few minutes). These microphones are not necessarily "overheads". Overhead mics rarely sound the way they "should" when you're in a basement. More often than not, you've gotta take another approach. I plug one ear, and turn the other one towards the kit. Instant monitoring of a decent transducer. Move around until your ear likes what it hears on one side of the kit, put a microphone right there. Do the same thing on the other side of the kit. Pan left and right, read and weep.

If it sucks, keep trying. Your ear is always a good starting point, though.

[BLUElightCory]

I realize it's too late now, but in the future you might want to drop the hat and ride mics and do a stereo pair of room mics instead. It will go a LONG way in gluing the drum sound together, and will give the kit added depth and a more natural feel than just close mics and overheads.

Just something to keep in mind.

[Jeff16years]

Originally Posted by McGee

Wow, I didn't realise you could record 8 track simultaniously on Garage Band, it's really coming along.

To be honest, that untreated basement looks a little scary for drums, especially if they're going to be played loud. If the drums are played quietly you might be able to work with the room and get a kind of a room sound going. But if they're loud, they're just gonna sound harsh and boxy in there.

I could be wrong, it's impossible to tell exactly what a room sounds like from a photo.

One way of improving the room accoustics would be to fill it with 'stuff'. You know - the kind of things that usually fill a room: Sofas, bookshelfs etc. Anything that has mass, and random geometry. Diffusion is not expensive, in fact if you are clever, it's free.

+1
working with a room like that, I would move your couches and set up the drums over in the carpeted area. Try to make it as dead as possible. Then maybe place a mic over in the tiled area around the corner where you had the drums originally.

most importantly ...nice bar!!!

[Jeff16years]

oh now I see it, the whole area is carpeted....that's good.

put the drums in the biggest area (where the walls are the furthest away from each other)

isn't that the room with the stairs?

i see it's too late but there is always a next time...