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so we are having a lot of problems with getting good drum sound when recording. especially the kick drum. i have a quick sample of me playing (not very well) on the set for you to listen to and critque. if you could give any tips, they would be very appreciated. thanks

kevin

Comments

anonymous Sat, 03/05/2005 - 13:45

First off it would halp if you gave us a little info on what kind of kit your using and how your recording. It would help us out.

For the bass drum it seems your lacking the bottom end. Try moving the mic away from the drum so the bass frequency's can fully devolop or tune down the drum a little bit. Try moving the mic around so it's closer to the center then move it out towards the edge more. It will give you a different sound when you do this.

The toms seem a little dead. Try to tighten the bottom head so you get more tone. Right now the toms sound like your hitting cardboard.

THe cymbals sound very tinny. Not much ring to them. I'm not sure how you can fix this since I don't know what your playing on. It might be a recording issue or it may be a gear issue. Overall it isn't that bad. Just needs some tweaking.
Andrew

anonymous Wed, 03/09/2005 - 14:53

ok so we changed some stuff around and now we have a better sounding kit, at least the bass drum is a little better anyway. we also took some pictures so that you can see how we are micing the drums. we have 5 mics in all, the second bass drum is not being miced right now because we dont need it at the moment. those mics all run into a behringer mixer which has a "tape-out" that runs to the back of my computer. thats how we are recording in a nutshell. we think our sound is pretty decent at this point, our style is hard rock with occasional pop influences, so we are shooting for that type of drum sound. any advice tips or critiques on our sound would be very much appreciated, and thanks for waiting for me to post again.

anonymous Wed, 03/09/2005 - 18:21

Good job. I can definitly hear an improvment on your sound from the first clip. The bass drum has a nice punch to it.

The toms still sound dead. Try taking a paice of tape or two off of them. Remember what you are hearing now will be different when you record the rest of the band.

Last last suggestion would be to buy a nice set of small condensor mics to place above the drum kit panned left and right to taste, to capture the cymbals. Then you can take the two other mics and put them right on the toms. This way you'll get a nice cymbal sound that your missing. And overall you'll have the sound you want.

To tell you the way I mic my drums to give you an idea. I mic the snare with a Dynamic mic about an inch from the rim pointing away from the high hat, Then a large condensor or dynamic mic about a foot from the front head of the bass drum and then two small condensor overhead mics. Placed evenly over each side of the drum kit, Which for me is over the floor tom and over the snare. Mix to taste and hit record. This has worked for me but feel free to experiment. Try different configurations and you'll hopefully find one that works for you. I hope to hear another clip with more improvent soon. Your on the way to getting the sound you want.

Best of Luck
Andrew

anonymous Thu, 03/17/2005 - 16:39

Everything seems too overmuffled, generally you want more open sounding drums when recording. Definitely put some bottom heads on, and tune them well. Take off alot of the dampening, if you take the time to really fine tune the drums you wont need it. Consider getting some lighter heads, maybe emporers on the top with clear ambassadors on the bottom. If you have a bass drum head for the resonant side try putting that back on a cut a hole for the mic. An easy way to cut the whole is the heat up the bottom of a can and push it onto the head.

Another simple, but vital thing, is your technique. Check the basic things to make sure your playing well, for example; hitting in the center of the drums each time, opening up your playing a little to let the sticks naturally rebound more, and don't overplay or play everything as loud as you can.

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