Tracking drums

[Lenz take II]

Hi
I am about to track some drums on 2", and i want to make sure that I don't screw anything up. This time it has to be perfect.
One of the things i'm worried about is phase cancellation.....i hate phase cancellation....all my drumrecordings sounds like they suffer from it....don't wanna hear it anymore.
I've heard some engineers talking about phase clickers....what's that?, and how can they help you obtain perfect phase between the mics?

I plan to use these mics

2 451's for overheads
1 421 inside the kick
1 TLM 103 outside the kick
1 57 or 421 on the the snare top (depending on hihat bleed)
1 57 on the snare bottom
2 57's for toms
1 421 for the floortom
1 Soundeluxe U195 for ambience
1 Neumann M149 for ambience

I need smacking ROCK drums, maybe a bit like the "Wheatus Teenagedirtbag song" for these recordings, so i think i have to work a lot with the ambience mics.

I also plan to eq some of the drums in the recording this time. I've got some nice eq's to play with: Ashly graphic, Fairman, NP's.

Well....i guess what i'm looking for is recording tips and techniques or other mic suggestions/configurations to try out for a modern Rock drum recording.

I'm preparing the recording and sound tomorrow and track monday.
But please post you'r tips even though it will be too late moday.

See ya, and thanks for this forum.

 

[miketholen]

I use a minimal amount of mics for drums. I find I can get a much better sound from3-4 mics than trying to wrestle 11 mics into phase coherant relations to name one reason.
do you have any ribbons available?
they are wonderful OH-ambience mics.
I havn't mic'ed a tom in years, the OH mic gets it perfect.
always flip the phase in/out while your getting your sounds-when you feel the bottom drop out then you've hit the wrong one!-correct yourself-

I use
D12e-kick
beyer 201-snare(most times it's not needed)
Coles 4038-OH
Coles 4038-room
if you nuke the room with a Distressor you'll be very happy.
use a slow attack and a fast release.

 

[Lenz take II]

Haven't got any ribbon mics.......never heard one....they are usually quite expensive aren't they?

Distressor...that's a compressor right?

 

[miketholen]

Haven't got any ribbon mics.......never heard one....they are usually quite expensive aren't they?

Distressor...that's a compressor right?
ribbons are not expensive.
Beyer makes some "cheap" ones. (less than $500 USD) the M260 is a hypercardiod ribbon that is nice on OH. http://www.beyerdynamic.com
a Coles will run you a little over $1,000 USD.
a Distressor is a compressor, yes.
a quite cheap ($1,100 USD) very versatile kick ass sounding unit.
http://www.empiricallabs.com/

 

[sign]

Mike is right, a D12E inside the kick will do a fine job. If you don't have one the 421 must do it.

The 451's as an ORTF pair behind the drummer above his head, pointed to the cymbals. (17cm between the capsules, 110 degrees angle)

A Beyer 201 will have less hi hat bleed on snare than a 57, a 421 on snare will have more hi hat bleed than a 57.

The M149 is a great room mike, I don't know about the soundelux since I don't have one but it seems to be a great mike.

Succes!!!!!

 

[atlasproaudio]

Originally posted by Lenz take II:
Hi
I plan to use these mics

2 451's for overheads
1 421 inside the kick
1 TLM 103 outside the kick
1 57 or 421 on the the snare top (depending on hihat bleed)
1 57 on the snare bottom
2 57's for toms
1 421 for the floortom
1 Soundeluxe U195 for ambience
1 Neumann M149 for ambience


Hmmmm...I agree it is slight overkill. If you have an incredible drummer in a great room with well tuned drums you could use do the minimal mic'ing thing (5 mics--two overheads, single snare, single kick, mono room about 20+ feet back), but options are good too. How big is your room? I would move the TLM103 and M149 to overheads (two M149's in Blumlein/figure 8 would be nice). D112/12 or 421 inside the kick as mentioned above, 57's will work on toms, but not as nice as a meaty large diaphram condenser (I like U87's or TLM103's...the U195 would sound nice on toms also if you had 3 of them).

If you have automation on the mix, be very detailed about those tom mics, I wouldn't suggest leaving them open 100% of time. Some frequency dependent gates would work well also like the Drawmer 201/501/404 if the drummer is somewhat consistant. 57's will work for snare too...sometimes the bottom doesn't need to be used and sometimes it does, it is good to mic it and use your ears later whether you want it in the mix. Again depends on the drummer and his drum tone. I have had guys hit so hard with such a tight snare that all I used was a little bottom mic with no top mic just to make it sound like a snare, and others where you need both mics boosted and compressed to $*^t because they couldn't hit to save their lives. Good Luck.

 

[Lenz take II]

I'd love to try the Beyer201 on the snare some day, but for now all i've got is these mics from above. It seems i'm never really got good results with the 57.

The room is not that big.........about 25 m2, but in a very odd shape.....i'd imagine there was better sounding rooms out there, but it has to do.

BTW....i'm not happy getting the m149 too close to the drums....is there any danger it would harm the mic?

The reason i'm using all these mic's is that i'm insecure if i'm gettin'the right amount of punch vs detail's in the recording.

If I stick to the U195 and M149 as the room mics, I should find some nice sounding spots and put them in omni mode right?
Would you consider one room mic enough?

Thnx again

 

[miketholen]

The reason i'm using all these mic's is that i'm insecure if i'm gettin'the right amount of punch vs detail's in the recording.
using less mics in the right spots will yield results much better than using alot of mics ANYWHERE.
one room mic if fine.
you won't kill your M149.

don't use 11 mics on the drums.

 

[sign]

I learned from the Neumann site (pinboard) that you will not harm the M149 on drums, unless you hit it with the (kick)batter

About snare miking: although I have a Beyer 201 I also use the 57 many times on snare, just don't mike it too close, for you will get a boxy sound.

Another thing that's most important. If you want a good drumsound first take care of the drumkit and the drummer. You will never get a decent sound from a lousy kit or/and a bad drummer.

It's still sunday in the Netherlands

 

[MadMoose]

Originally posted by Lenz take II:
If I stick to the U195 and M149 as the room mics, I should find some nice sounding spots and put them in omni mode right?
Would you consider one room mic enough?

It depends on what you want. Sometimes I'll use cardiod room mics if I want a tighter sound from them. My room is pretty small (11'x20') and I use one room mic. When I'm in bigger places I'll use two room mics for stereo but in here it didn't seem to matter that much.

 

[drumsound]

I sometimes use one room mic and move it around randomly for different songs. It's kind of fun sometimes.

 

[ok computer]

im no pro on the subject but something that has worked for me, (if u want to use this many mics, but not really necessary):

2 PZM's in stereo taped to the furthest wall away from the drummer as ambience (very important as this will make all the differance in the sound)

the rest is pretty standard:
1 or 2 SM94's for OH's
D112 on the kick (i think having 2 seperate kick mic's will create more problems)
57's for toms
57's for snare top/bottom, phase switch one maybe

u should get plenty of hihat through OH's etc.

every1 feel free to yell at me if this is no good!

 

[Ang1970]

Originally posted by ok computer:
every1 feel free to yell at me if this is no good!

Hey, if it sounds good don't let nobody yell at ya for it... except in praise!

 

[Lenz take II]

Thanks for all the tips

I ended up using:

2 451's behind the drummer above his head, pointed to the cymbals. (17cm between the capsules, 110 degrees angle) as overheads.

421 on Tom 1
AKG C3000 on floortom
421 inside kick
57 snare top
57 snare bottom
M149 as room mic

I also "nuked" the roommic with a TC compressor, which brings out the life in the drums.........take that away, and the drums sound flat and boring like a roland keyboard.

"Nuking" the room adds alot of unsmooth cymbal sound, but thats a sacrifice i'm prepared to make.
The drums I got defenately suits the song, and that's the most important thing.

See ya

 

[sign]

Glad it worked out fine. you did a good job didn't you?

An ORTF pair behind the drummer always works for me. I very much like the stereo image of it.

I recorded 18 choirs a week ago in a big church with only an ORTF pair, sounds great.

 

[Bob Olhsson]

I think the drummer makes a huge difference in how many mikes you need.

One of the nicer things about digital recording is that you don't lose punch by breaking out drum mikes to seperate tracks the way you do with analog. I place my overheads so that they work just fine by themselves with the kick.. Then if I need to use the spot mikes to balance it out, they are available.

 

[innerbooty]

This is a really interesting thread. I'm about to go into a studio this weekend and record some drums to 2", then be dumped to Pro Tools. The setup will be a variation on the one described by Lenz.

The reason I am interested in using many mics, is that in the end I may want to mix some of the tracks with more of a 70's funk sound, ie. tight and close mic'd. I love old Ohio Players drum sounds (Contradiction), and Parliament Funkadelic. If anyone has any tips on how to record and mix to get these tight, fat, relatively dry drum sounds I'd appreciate it.

Thanks!

 

[Ang1970]

That type of sound can also be achieved with a few mics, as long as the room is relatively dry and tight, and the drummer controls the dynamix of each drum.

I know, asking a lot... hehe

 

[mikemoritz]

generally what range of compression are you using when you "nuke" the room mic?

Peace,
Mike

 

[Ang1970]

"Nuke" refers to brick-wall limiting. No matter how loud a signal is, even a nuclear blast, the output level will not budge.

This type of compression was made popular by an "accidental" setting on the 1176. The maximum compression ratio of the 1176 was 20:1... but someone figured out that if you smoosh in all 4 ratio buttons at the same time, something much higher than 20:1 occurs, along with a satisfying kind of distortion.

Go figure.