Newbie!/Drum mix, Bruford-Eddie Offord style

Posted: Thu Apr 17, 2008 12:42 pm

Hi guys!

Well, this is my first post! I´m a violinist and aspiring record producer of Argentina. About a month ago, we joined forces with a friend to form a professional recording studio. And as you´ll know, recording drums might be the ultimate test in achieving a good reputation.

One of the things I find appaling about modern mainstream records, is that the drum sound sounds too artificial when compared to the sound in old LP´s, especially the ones from the 70´s (think of Close To The Edge by Yes, or Trilogy by ELP). Besides playing styles and instruments, the recording technique switched from using maybe 4 microphones (i.e. Glyn Johns style) to the actual setups of lots of microphones.

So, I invited a friend who is a great drummer and has a beautiful portable drumset, has a very nice hit and we used the Glyn Johns method found on many posts on these forum.

I´m very glad with the sound (on the style of Bruford on CTTE I tried!), but now that the mixing part has come, I really don´t know where to start. Any opinions on how to make it stand out in the mix, while at the same time retaining that "natural" quality will be gladly welcome.

I´m uploading a short sample of the whole drumkit, and you tell if I should post the separate takes of each instrument.

http://www.imeem.com/people/bZFcoJg/music/xr2bVQlv/herman_ringer_drum_test/

We used a Samson CO3 for the bass drum, an old AKG 190 E dynamic mic for the snare (on the top, no mic for the snares), two nice sounding fake SM57´s for the toms and two Samson CO2 as overheads.

On a sidenote: it´s not that I want to copy exactly that Bruford sound, but I´d like to get something crisp and in that vein, if you know what I mean.

thanks guys!

Herman

Posted: Mon Apr 28, 2008 9:23 am

Well, seems nobody around here, of 88 people who viewed my topic was kind enough to comment and give me a hand on my job of learning to mix drums.

Thanks guys, seems like this is not a good forum to ask for help. I´m signing out. See ya.

Posted: Mon Apr 28, 2008 12:03 pm

Calm down. Not everybody here is qualified to give you a reasonable opinion and the ones who are are generally busy because they work for a living.

I listened though on my crappy computer monitors at work. The drums sound fine. Something you didn't mention and another factor with recordings from the seventies is what medium you are going to.

When you talk Yes and ELP you're pretty well talking analogue tape. One thing tape does better than any digital medium is saturation. The subtle distortion that happens when you push the tape just a little too hard.

When you say more real, what do you mean? More live? Add more of the overheads. Maybe part of the equation is also the room you are recording in. Is it a very dead room or can you get some nice live sound from it? So many variables. I'm hardly the one to make suggestions but it takes some time for people get around here. The ones who's opinions count are busy and don't get to check in 24 hours a day so be patient. If you must bump your post like I just did now so that it will move back to the top of the recent posts list.

Posted: Mon Apr 28, 2008 5:45 pm

Yeah....ya gotta be patient......not everybody is sitting at their keyboard drooling over the next post to go up.

I get where you're coming from with the drums. I began my recording in that era and all those sounds have stuck with me over time.

As for 'getting' those sounds today, you have to be able to recreate the room and as Hueseph said, recording to tape makes a huge difference.

Even tape emulation software cant quite replicate that sound.

And then theres the point of an engineer like an Eddie Offord bringing the tracks through a console like a Helios and having a crapload of very high-end mics to capture with.

But I do hear where you're coming from with this drumsound and its totally do-able with what you have.

I would want the kik tightened up a bit as its got a bit of a ring in it... as well as I think I'm hearing a sympathetic ring in one of the toms. You can tune all of this out or possibly gate the toms. I dont recommend gates unless you have some experience with them. So tuning will be the best bet. You can live with some ring but tune it so its your friend rather than something you're going to have to deal with in the mix.

The thing about great drums, is you know when they're right when you have very little manipulation to do to them at the mix.

Posted: Tue Apr 29, 2008 5:51 am

The drums sounded ok to me but I would say that the kick drum sounds pretty flat compared to the rest of the kit.

Hope this helps;)

Posted: Tue Apr 29, 2008 10:42 pm

hueseph wrote:

Calm down. Not everybody here is qualified to give you a reasonable opinion and the ones who are are generally busy because they work for a living.

OK, I´m calmed. But after all, I got you guys to answer. And that´s what I wanted: comments. I have learned much with your 4 answers guys, keep them coming.

The tom tuning thing for example. I didn´t notice the ringing you mentioned. And tobacco_slammers, I totally agree: I still don´t know what to do about tha kick drum sound. We filtered some of the low frequencies with Nuendo´s track EQ. Doesn´t seem to be a good idea!

Davedog, if you were around that time, well: I wanna learn all I can from you! Smile

The tape warm thing I understand, but we live in a digital world nowadays, and a nice analogue 24-track here in Argentina is totally out of question, so... Anyway, I want to learn about stuff like tuning, mic positioning, etc.

Our studio is quite dry. Does anyone know if the ambience on, say, Advision (again on the Bruford/Offord trail...) is natural of that studio, or was it, err "added" by reverb plates and stuff...

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