How did they get this drum sound? (Mayday Parade)

[TehGuitarist]

Before i start getting flamed with; Good drums, good pres, good mics, good positioning, good room. Yes, i know, i understand this.

Now to the point. I was listening to Mayday Parade's song "Walk on water or drown" from their album "A lesson in romantics". Youtube #2
or samples on amazon or itunes are there too i think. Actually anything on the album is the same i guess purevolume which is definately better quality than youtube.
To me, this drum sound is amazing, its huge, its fat, its punchy, its amazing! Now i realise this is completely my opinion. But i ask you, the gearslutz, to help me atleast understand how they got this drum sound as i personally have never heard anything like it, parallell compression? massive eq? The only hints i have are this picture located here and the fact it was recorded at tree sound studios with zack odom and kenneth mount.
It looks like a 414 on top of the toms, 421 on the bottom, 57 on the snare, a beta52? inside the kick and a d12 outside? or maybe the sennheiser kick mic? His snare is nearly as big as his rack tom!!


Any help would be great.

[mattdjenkinson]

It's probably a combination of really good tuning and mic placement and some samples.

Matt

[alcohol]

I listened to the song on some earbuds. I didn't hear any cymbals. The snare sounded exactly alike on each hit. I heard no snare ghosting at all. I suspect it's all sample replacement.

[erock]

Tracked in "The Cave" at Tree Sound. It's a big room used for events, rehearsals, etc...but so many drummers have complimented the sound of the room that they started tracking drums there.

Mixed on an SSL. That's all I know off the top of my head. You should just ask them, I think they're fairly responsive.

Zack Odom-Kenneth Mount Productions studio on MySpace Music - Free Streaming MP3s, Pictures & Music Videos

[mikethedrummer]

I can't listen right now, so I'm going off of memory. I know that Mayday's drum production has always been different than the other big pop punk bands such as all time low's or new found glory's. my take is that the drums were compressed like crazy, especially the bass drum and snare drum. if theyre close micing the top and bottom every drum with way nice mics, i doubt theyre using samples. imho its too much, too overproduced. they have a phenominal drummer, i feel a more natural mix would have suited him better.

[BLUElightCory]

Originally Posted by alcohol

I listened to the song on some earbuds. I didn't hear any cymbals. The snare sounded exactly alike on each hit. I heard no snare ghosting at all. I suspect it's all sample replacement.

I find myself agreeing with this assessment.

[fakiekid]

i personally think thats all down to EQ. lots of scooped low mids-bass and lots of presence. D6 kick kinda style. big drums thin heads with muffling.

the vocal sound on tht album is immense!

[TehGuitarist]

Kinda sucks if its all samples, could it be a combo?

I added them on myspace and i'll ask if they can shed any light on this.


Actually i think the entire production on the album is really good. The vocals just sound crisp and yeah.. i don't know how to explain it :P. Good stuff.

[larry b]

I could be totally wrong about this, but good lordy it sounded like sample-replaced drums. One of my clients has a very similar SJC drum kit and ive actually recorded it in the past with a similar mic setup, 414's on the toms, D12, 57's, etc. Chandler and API pres, Apogee conversion. And no matter how much i could have futzed with EQ's, i would never have gotten it to sound like that. In fact, my recordings sound COMPLETELY different as far as varying dynamics, natural room and drum tone, ghost notes all over the place on the snare, and on and on.

IMHO thats just another straight up example of what drumagog can do to help/enhance/fix/make your drums sound like everyone elses in an emo song.

[erock]

I disagree. I don't think it was replaced that much, blended yes. Especially the kick. It sounds pretty natural to me. I used to like the sound of the drums/this album, but now I don't. The vocals are wayy too limited for my taste (and I like CLA style vocals if that says anything...) the guitars sound too amateur, and I personally would have played with the room mics WAY more than they did. I think with the amount of gear they have at Tree, ZK could have done a better job.

just my .02

Now back to the drum sound...Sorry for digressing.

[CeretoneAudio]

That just sounds like 100% sample replaced drums.

It sounds just like everything else i dont really see whats so great about it

[DGrimmett]

agreed.

[slaves666]

Sounds like samples to me......A lot of top on the snare, kick and toms.....so they all punch through at the top of the mix, almost over each other......

[sonicjosh]

The kick/snare/toms had to be replaced, probably kept the oh's and maybe some room mics. I'm in the middle of a hardcore album, we tracked the drums in a big basement, i have good mics, daking pres, lucid converters and i know theres no way I'd get that big/punchy consistent sound just with EQ/Compression and a bigger room. The band said they wanted a really raw type of sound, so what do they play for me? NOFX and some hardcore records that clearly have all replaced drums. You gotta be careful when bands use certain words describing how they want things to sound before the project. If you're going to be working with a lot of modern emo/punk/screamo/pop/hardcore etc. i suggest getting drumagog. That $100 (i think it was on sale for a month) was one of the best purchases I've ever made.

[TehGuitarist]

But why use mics like that just to replace it all... wouldnt you just use whatever mic on the top?

[photoresistor]

if you've got nice mics then why not use them? that way if you change your mind about replacing entirely with samples, or if you decide you want to just blend in samples behind a good natural sound you have the best possible natural sound you can get! makes sense to me... shoot for the best! (that way when i inevitably screw things up in the mix later maybe itll still sound decent hahaha)

[This Is Poison]

I know I'm wayyyyy late on this (I just came across the thread!) but Zack and Kenneth tune the drums to the key of each song and then take a sample of each drum before tracking. They replace any slightly imperfect hits with the samples. So they DO in fact use their own recorded samples. They're super nice dudes too!

[TehGuitarist]

First person who knows!! thanks heaps dude!

[This Is Poison]

hah. no problem man! my band recorded our EP with those guys back in January. The huge drum sound has a lot to do with the room. The cave is HUGE and sounds amazing. On our record, they used 4 different room mics, two somewhat close (10-15ft) and another two super far away. Each drum had a top and bottom mic, and the kick was miked with a D112 on the inside and a D12 on the outside. The total mic count on the kit was between 16 and 18. I'm guessing their approach on the Mayday record was pretty similar.
I still keep in contact with Kenneth regularly, so if you have any questions at all about how they do things, feel free to ask and hopefully I can help you out!

[TehGuitarist]

that pretty much gave me exactly what i needed, ah for lack of a huge room... just have to use some big reverbs. Thanks heaps and thats awesome. If anything i'd love to hear your band if its rock. I don't suppose you remember what they used on toms or the other mics, i know that just because someone used some mic doesnt mean anything, just really curious on how it all came together.

[This Is Poison]

I have a tonnnnn of pictures from our venture down there. (they actually have our record hanging up on the wall in Tree Sound now!) If I find those pictures, they'll help refresh my memory in regards to all the mics that were used...
Off the top of my head, I don't remember them using 414's on the toms like they did with MP, but 421's instead... The O/H's were U87's... The far room mics were two U87's, the closer ones were some sort of tube Neumann mics that were unfamiliar to me (I'm on the very low end of things :p) I think the hi-hats and ride were miked with KM 184's...
I'll have to search for those pictures later tonight and maybe post some.
Oh and they used a different snare on each song with us.
Their biggest thing was tuning. They stressed to our drummer and myself how important it was for the drums to be tuned properly to the song, which they would do at the start of each new song. This allows the ringing of each drum to blend better and not sound so awful (like my recordings!)

Side note: Their vocal chain is amazing! Telefunken Elam 251E ---->API 3124+---->1176
The sound I was getting in my headphones was RIDICULOUS. It was like I was hearing the finished product played back while I was tracking.

If you're into MP, you might like my band. Our myspace is: The Doppler Effect on MySpace Music - Free Streaming MP3s, Pictures & Music Videos

The singer of Cartel did guest vocals on the first song. Let me know if you don't think it's too terrible.

[TehGuitarist]

I like your stuff, wish there were more bands like you in Australia that actually pulled the music off, i know they're around you just have to dig really hard. everything is indie and this indie alternative and then singer songwriters these days.

But awesome stuff, sounds great too. Oh wow you've played with Mayday, sweeet. Thanks for answering all the questions, might have to buy a cd the music is growing on me. (shock horror, i buy cd's!) I don't suppose you remember where they started with tuning the drums, i tinker a bit but i leave the drumming to drummers and only some of them know how to tune properly.

[s34nsm411]

Late bump, if anyone has some of their drum tuning info. Do they just pick the closest note in key?

Does anybody have tips for zeroing in on a drum note too? I try by ear sometimes but im no drummer so I always second guess myself and try to let the drummer decide. One time I tried monitoring autotune on the tom mic to find the note haha, didnt work as well as I had hoped

[All Souled Out]

Well let me be the "emperor's new clothes" guy. The drums are punchy but, damn that track was just compressed crap. The drums began to bore the shit out of me in ........oh 10 seconds. Sorry, I just love the sound of Bonham, Old Robin Trower, etc. etc.

[Sk106]

I mostly agree with the "all samples" party. It isn't what I hear that makes me think so, but rather what isn't there .. what is missing. It's also the feel of the playing. Quantized drums have a specific feel to them which we recognize instantly, and you hear that feel in the intro fill right away (but not over the whole track).

This could be recorded drums, with plenty of audio quantizing and/or editing to "tighten the drums up", and then sample overlays added on top of that. Then you mix in the live recorded drums just enough to create some dirt, space and make sure that the ear cannot distinguish it as several sound sources. From what I've heard of the demos, Steven Slate seems to be a relevant choice for this type of sound.

Also, if you are going to try to achieve this sound by straight up mics, recording and processing .. you'll spend 10 times the workload to get the same result you'd get with programming and samples right away ... so save yourself the agony and either program the drums or use sample overlays right away.

as a sidenote, once again we see how people expect what they hear to be a relatively true representation of what the band guys do, and of the "recording" process itself .. when it really isn't, and how confusing and disturbing it is to people. I don't like this development.

[mmarxetc]

I think these type of drums are pretty dope. I know the kids dont give two s***s if the drums are over produced and sample replaced. Its all all all about the hooks, the production and songwriting really. They prefer it, thats the sound thats all over the pop rock genre and it's a big part of what makes the genre. If the drums sounded any other way then nothing at all else about the track would mesh. kids eat this sound up!

[ToneAddiction]

digging up an old thread i happened to stumble upon....drums are deff NOT all replaced. and the samples that are used, are the ones made from the person's kit, no generic pre made ones (atleast as of a year or so ago when my band worked with zack and ken).

used the cave...lots of room/ambient mic placement to create a ton of natural reverb stages (some neuman pairs as far as 20-30 feed back and about 15-20 feed up in the air along the rock climbing wall... (they didnt use one bit of verb in post on the snare). they dialed all the tones in by ear. at the time it was mostly 1073/api on drums...if i remember correctly a focusrite red3 and some other random things but nothing out of the ordinary. zack and ken just know whats up. they dial it all in by ear. like one of the first people said in this thread...good room, good signal chain and 'mostly' good players/bands.

though, these days they are doing alot more out of their own space. don't hate on the new school sound. its punchy, huge and slams like no other.

-rk

[JP11]

Originally Posted by ToneAddiction

don't hate on the new school sound.

I ain't hatin' or nothin, but this is new school?

[ToneAddiction]

Originally Posted by JP11

I ain't hatin' or nothin, but this is new school?

not trying to hate or be rude either...BUT....what would you consider it then?? in my opinion it would most deff be the more new school tones/sounds/process. most of their work in the past few years has been pretty hi fi, slammed and really punchy. quite the contrast to the very open, more vintage almost 'live' sound (hell half those records some of the people were speaking of WERE tracked live and all at once hah) . just diff styles. i was just giving some insight to what i KNOW happens during zk's process as i've recorded at treesound with them. anyway, no worries. just thoughts

-rk

[mikethedrummer]

I think people sometimes just overlook or forget the fact that samples had to come from somewhere.

I would not be shocked to hear that a majority of the snare and kick hits were sample replaced with a good solid hit recorded on the spot by their drummer before each song. Automating snares and kicks to stay consistent is a bitch, limiting and compression never evens them out the way I want, and assuming the drummer happened to play that way is far fetched (as talented as maydays drummer is.)

I almost always do this during the straight 2 4 beats or anything really besides fills. Fills deserve some extra focus but the rest of the time consistency is king.