Same difference - equally bad in a bad room.

If you experiment enough, you might find a position for the XY pair that is acceptable, where that would be more difficult for RM. Are you thinking of miking the kick and the snare as well?

I have a bad room, too, and to speak experientially, I feel the RecorderMan technique is much more finicky about precision placement. I don't try it unless I have at least an hour to devote to getting drum sounds and a performer who's patient -- realistically, I only use it when I want to cut the tracks.

Take also into consideration that RecorderMan's method requires that your kick drum doesn't scoot, your snare stand doesn't tilt or lower through abuse, and that you're willing to compromise comfort (cymbal heights, tom locations, et al.) if it means a more balanced result.

why not fix the room?

I mic the snare top and bottom, bass drum and each tom.

gullfo wrote: why not fix the room?

Possibly because I am not made of money?
Its a grand idea though!

That's probably too many mics on the kit, even in a reasonable room. You're in danger of creating a muddy sound due to phasing differences between all the mics and also from the room reflections. If you have less than ideal acoustics, the fewer mics the better. You could start with the kick and two OH and see what that sounds like. Add a single snare mic if necessary. As Remy keeps saying: less is more!

Remy thought my recording sounded bad ass.
The more mics the better is what I have found in my experiences. Its just knowing how to use them.

=)
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AllInRuins wrote: Its just knowing how to use them.
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Okay, the drums in this piece are clearly samples. It's true that you "know how to use" microphones mechanically--that is, you can get them to transduce acoustic energy from the drums into electrical energy--but I'd suggest you take some tips from Boswell if you want to learn how to use them musically.

Um these aren't samples. LMAO.
You're a real genius.

Ya.. lol these are not samples...
What made you think they were samples?

Here are a few tracks I uploaded for some one.

Click for help files

I'll preface by saying that even geniuses are wrong sometimes. However, as I listen to this performance, I'm all but positive--positive--you used drum replacement.

AllInRuins wrote: What made you think they were samples?

Focusing on the snare: the consistency of the performance and the quality of the signal are dead giveaways. Most damning, perhaps, is the fact that the snare as heard through your kick drum mic sounds nothing like the up-front snare in the mix. Just to sate my curiosities, why don't you tell me a little about your signal chain and mixing techniques.

Many third-graders can and do use microphones well enough to let Drumagog and few samples do the work. And there's nothing wrong with this approach. But Boswell's advice about using exorbitant mic'ing on an all-acoustic kit still stands.

If you can, Patrick, take a look at those tracks in an editor.

Every hit is clipped hard, lots o' square waves!

It's hip to be square [wave]. Thanks, Bent.

No problem!

Dead give aways to what?
I didnt use samples so your "third grade" reasoning is flawed.

I run the mics into a fired pod, and then into a mac book pro.

Im sorry bro just give it up, we didnt use drum replacement.
Maybe I can just hit a snare drum consistently? IDK, Thats the only thing I can think of.

And saying things like even a third grader can do it, and that you are 100% certain even though you really have no idea is one of the most logically flawed statements one can make. It just makes me think you are some one high on their ego, thats all.

Im sorry if I just play my drums consistently.

Consistently into clip?

I'd feel like the fool if my drum tracks sounded like samples to other guys, especially if I knew the reason for their thinking was that I clipped them every step of the way!

What does clipping have to do with performance?
And how would clipping mean I use samples?

Thats a really weak argument if that is all the proof you have.

AllInRuins wrote: ...if that is all the proof you have

Bent's deductions were only further evidence of the fact that you audio-plagiarize and lie about it.

You cant be serious... you are a joke.
Get off your know it all high horse.

So because:

#1 The drums clip
#2 Sounds consistent
#3 The bleed into the bassdrum sounds different than a mixed snare drum with many different elements coming into play

I use samples.

That sure is a solid argument there.
Just the fact that you were not present for any of the recording mixing and editing is enough for anyone with a brain to need more evidence from your side than that.

What's a joke is getting called out on something and becoming defensive.

Even Metallica used samples, "bro." There's no shame in it.

If by called out, you mean wrongfully accused with a very weak argument... sure I guess its a joke, if that is how you see it.

You're just another egotistical know it all audiophile.
Dime a dozen, and highly laughable too.

And what on earth does Metallica have to do with this?
Look up the term Red Herring. Its one of the many flaws you have in this thread.

Im sorry bro just give it up, we didnt use drum replacement.
Maybe I can just hit a snare drum consistently? IDK, Thats the only thing I can think of.

What does clipping have to do with performance?

Nothing.

However, consistently clipping your inputs can make your recorded performance, to a trained ear, sound like it was a bunch of triggered samples, hence Patrick's response, which in turn caused you and your buddy to rush right into name-calling when you could have just said "No, dude. You are mistaking square waves for samples." But, your buddy's knee-jerk reply: "you're a real genius", that is very unprofessional.

Moreover, I do not think you used samples or drum replacement, nor did I ever suggest you did.

I simply believe you do not know what you are doing because if you did you would know that square waves can COOK SPEAKERS!

You'll notice that right next to my initial consistency allegation was my disbelief of the quality of the signal. For someone who:

1.) admits to having a crummy room
2.) seems fairly green regarding recording quality drums (i.e. "The more mics the better is what I have found in my experiences")
3.) has bottom-rung equipment,

I'm a little skeptical that you'd be able to get tones such as the snare heard in your recording. No, I'm not flattering you. Frankly, sir, the initial reason I jumped on you about this is I didn't like your presumptuousness towards Boswell's suggestion. That is until you called me wrong--which I'm safely not--and this became personal.

So now you are telling me my personal experiences are wrong.
And you are wrong. We didn't use samples.

Okay.

bent wrote:

Im sorry bro just give it up, we didnt use drum replacement.
Maybe I can just hit a snare drum consistently? IDK, Thats the only thing I can think of.

What does clipping have to do with performance?

Nothing.

However, consistently clipping your inputs can make your recorded performance, to a trained ear, sound like it was a bunch of triggered samples, hence Patrick's response, which in turn caused you and your buddy to rush right into name-calling when you could have just said "No, dude. You are mistaking square waves for samples." But, your buddy's knee-jerk reply: "you're a real genius", that is very unprofessional.

Moreover, I do not think you used samples or drum replacement, nor did I ever suggest you did.

I simply believe you do not know what you are doing because if you did you would know that square waves can COOK SPEAKERS!

Thats fine I never said I knew what I was doing.
All Im trying to say is we didn't use samples.

Do you think its professional to tout yourself as the source for everything recording? Because thats how patrick came off. He basically said in a fronting way that we "cheated." That we were lying.

You cannot take everything you read online as a personal attack, that's rule number one.

Do not type anything else, please.
That is currently rule number two.

Some things I know for sure:

I'm wrong a lot of the time.
I can be arrogant when I think it's justified.
The anonymity of the internet facilitates confrontations like this.
I use drum-replacement techniques often in my recordings. As does Hollywood.
Your initial question was answered to the best of our collective abilities/desires.

As I said, your waveforms are severely clipped.
This can be misconstrued as "samples".
Big Freakin' Deal.

You say they are not, I agree they are not.

You can fix that, but, I gotta tell you, after chasing my tail trying to find Lars' sound, I think you got it. Clipping is the clue.
But.... Are you clipping at the proper place in the chain?

I think you clipped, somehow, in your DAW.
I dunno, maybe I'm talking out of my ass now, but I believe it would have been better to clip at the input.
Or, is it possible you did clip at the input and that's what I'm seeing?
Do you know where the clipping happened?
Was it In The Box, or prior to it?

I have no idea dude.

We weren't really paying much attention to detail we did this in about 2 hours.

Clipping shouldnt occur anywhere really, correct?
The "lars" snare sound isnt from clipping its from a mic we placed up a stair case.

Garage Band doesnt have a wave editor, but I wasn't aware of very much clipping during the process, perhaps at the end the final mix was clipping for sure I wouldnt doubt that but the individual tracks we didnt know.

I always try to track at about 3/4 to 0. So most likely it happened in the mixing.

Well, I wasn't really talking about the snare sound. I'm more concerned with the kick.

But, both are definitely clipped.

Clipping shouldnt occur anywhere really, correct?

That's not necessarily true. In digital land it's bad, but in analog, sometimes 'clipping' or more appropriately 'saturation' is a good thing. This is why I asked you where you think you might have clipped your signals. If it was at the pre, that might not be so bad. If you did it in Garage Band, ooops, probably not the best idea...

Most likely in Garageband.
Yes the kick is highly processed. Compressed, EQ'd like crazy.

I opened my garageband project and found that the snare batter mic is clipping, but the kick mic has much room for boosting before clipping.

Eh, oh, well then.

I mean, it's not bad...

Just try to get at those saturated sounds before you hit your DAW, OK?

Clip is not your friend, much as he'd like to make you think he is...

Haha well to be honest I had read that clipping up into the +6 range is ok for digital. Now garageband doesn't have numbers just a visual reference and I cannot see beyond 0 so there is no way to tell.

Im not trying to clip, but I guess that for some reason the snare cant be heard in the mix until its at the levels we set them at.

I always read and believed that there are no rules, if it sounds good to you, you have done it right, but I do suppose you are right too, I mean speakers do have limits!

Right.
Cool.

Smoke break!

Yea im going to bed.
Good chat, thanks for the help!

Anytime!

I don't want to beat a dead post, but I'd just like to apologize for my initial comments, Patrick_Like_Static. This is a friendly forum with people who are just trying to help and I should have known better. However, being that I played the guitars on the track and was involved in the tedious process of getting what we thought was a good "real" drum sound and recording it, I evidentally took it a bit personal.

We're not audio experts and most likely weren't aware that the clipping of a track would invoke such a heated debate. We were proud of our results only to see our hard work and effort's "authenticity," if you will, put on the spot.

In the future, I promise to be more mature in my responses to such posts. However, this problem would have been easily avoided from the get-go had the greivance regarding "sampling" been formatted as a question rather than an accusation. We would've been glad to answer a question such as "are you guys using samples on your drums?"

-Dan