Tips for tracking heavy metal drums?

[six_wax]

I start tracking a metal project this week, which is a bit of a departure for me, in terms of drum tone. The producer says they're looking for a "big, heavy Melvins meets Meshuggah drum sound". Allegedly, the kit will be suitable, and the player is solid, so I've got that going for me.

Any tips for mic approaches for this kind of record? My ears tell me, lots of condensors to really get the skin and the transients, and some strategic room mic'ing for 'bigness'... but I'm sure there's much additional science that ye ole salty veterans can drop that wil help...

I'm looking forward to your responses!

'metal' would be the genre, not the material the drums are made of, btw.

[JohnMcD]

'metal' would be the genre, not the material the drums are made of, btw. -six_wax

Ha ha! Made of metal drums...hmm.

I'm not a verteran, but I have worked with a few metal bands as well as having been in one a long time ago. Anyways, about drum "bigness". Your best bet would either be:

A) Spacious room with either high ceiling or reflection.
B) Good reverb slapped everywhere on critical percussion pieces

I remember listening to the Melvins back in the early '90s, so my memory may be fuzzy. As for mic approaches, the key is less is more (Charmin{cha cha cha}). More mics equal more disturbing stereo images if placed wrong. But if you are really critical with placements and have a lot of mics set everywhere in perfect measurements, you'll have one rocking recording. My experience is that it is a lot of luck getting 8 or more mics aligned in the recording within a short amount of time. If you've got the time, by all means, experiment.

One tip though, focus more on getting the frequency spectrum covered on the drum instruments recorded. Don't hi pass or low pass to tape. Thus also the importance of mic selection. You can always make it sound like something else later. Like the kick. If you need a beater sound, I wouldn't recommend jerry rigging a taped quarter and hi passing etc. If you got the frequencies recorded, just use your trusty compressors and EQ's. They work wonders. The reason why I suggest no hi pass or low pass to tape is because once scratch A has been recorded of the kit playing. Pull up all the drum track faders to unity. Listen carefully to how every track interacts with each other due to your mic placements. This will be a quick indication if you really got a good kit depending on how the frequencies masking, colliding or are seperating. Thus, this should help determine how you'll approach the mix for your sound you want. This leads to what I stated earlier in making things sound the way you want. If you don't have all the frequencies, it will be hard to make a sub- sonic boom out of a "tap" or a bright click out of a "woof".

Good luck, and I'd love to hear how it turns out.

-John

[six_wax]

thanks for the thoughtful reply, John.

I'm definitely a phase-coherency freak (freq?), and we've scheduled some time to play with placements, etc. so that bodes well.

Any tips for a first round of mics to throw up? Will have a good sized locker to draw from that day, and I'll happily hire some additional in if they're must haves.

[six_wax]

there is also this thread: http://www.gearslutz.com/board/showt...threadid=10318 which is rich with knowledge...

anyone want to add some thoughts?

many thanks!

[7rojo7]

What you want with metal is control. you can easily use 22 mics and eat 12 tracks depending on the kit (2 KIKS, 2 Snares, 5 toms, 17.000.000 cymbals. pedal hat, hi hat 2 ride cymbals..) I tend to put top and bottom every drum and mic every cluster of cymbals and one under every important cymbal. the metal sound for ambience is usually digital reverb ( 4, yamama roland lexicon ). don't waste time looking for things that don't belong to the music (stereo image, warmth, depth). Metal is about daggers stabbing you in the ass and rats eating your face while you're dying etc.... If it's fast paced stuff you'll want to take everything as dry as possible for clarity's sake.
take everything without compression because you may end up triggering quite a bit, so be careful to leave enough dynamic range for the gates to work (kik and snares)

[antti]

Originally posted by six_wax
The producer says they're looking for a "big, heavy Melvins meets Meshuggah drum sound". Allegedly, the kit will be suitable, and the player is solid, so I've got that going for me.

Any tips for mic approaches for this kind of record? My ears tell me, lots of condensors to really get the skin and the transients, and some strategic room mic'ing for 'bigness'... but I'm sure there's much additional science that ye ole salty veterans can drop that wil help...

Room(kit) mics play a big part in those recordings. So get the whole kit sounding nice with a pair of ldc, ribbons, whatever and then add close mics to the picture to add more attack/definition on individual drums. Also, record a pair of far-room mics so that you can blend them in if there's enough space in the arrangement.
At least try to use them as a substitute to reverb. Another idea would be to have a couple of 421s or 4038s behing the drummer's seat (on a seat level) and add those with close mics to get a little more boom. Also, you should check how low guitarists tune as this wil help you to decide what the room mics should capture. In other words how much space there is in the low (and low mid) register.

7rojo7 is right. A lot of metal has been done that way (black/trash/death) but Melvins stylee stuff is more about capturing drums with room and getting all that magic air around the drum kit. Think
Albini.

Heh.. I'm actually going to see Melvins playing later on this month. I think it's one of those bands who hasn't been able to capture their magic on 'tape'. I do like like some of their recordings but imo they are about 150 times better live. Good luck mate!

[DirkB]

I would try to keep the close and overhead mic's as clean as possible, e.g. as little reflections as possible, perhaps you can use some gobo's. I'd also try to capture everything seperately, e.g. the overheads are cymbal mic's (perhaps you need more than two), so go for maximum separation. I would compromis some tone in favour of separation.

Also try to capture some ambience, could be usefull in slower parts of songs.

Then, try to use bright mic's, use drums/skins to emphasize attack and especially on faster songs, tune the snare and toms higher pitched.

Good luck!
Dirk

[JohnMcD]

Well, be careful of your overhead placement. I didn't say things correctly in my original post, I was trying to squeeze more info in a small amount of words. The overheads will be critical to be aligned for stereo imaging. So much so, that it is the most important. If it is out of whack with everything else, your recorded kit will have less impact and may be a little undefined. I know from doing some make or break recordings with good overheads and bad. The difference is astonishing.

Anyways, it is good to know you'll have plenty of time for setup.

-John

[mml]

Well, I'm very familiar with the Melvins sound, and a big part of it on the Atlantic stuff was re-amping to get that larger-than-life room sound. They would record it huge, then re-amp that through a PA in a large hall and mic that. Compress/delay to taste and mix that back in. The other thing you can do that's a variation of this, is to take sends as you're recording of the close-miced stuff without the cymbals, and run that into a PA that is in the room with the drummer. Then, the OHs will pick that up as sounding like the drums are being played by a giant. Of course, having Dale Crover helps tremendously. And tuning. Tuning is the biggest thing.