recording the new drums

[filtercap]

Here's my first try at recording the kit I got a few weeks ago, just to see how things turn out. I thought I'd start with simple-n-mellow -- so here's a cover of a Damien Jurado song.

EDIT: I did a couple slight remixes -- here they all are if you're feeling extra downloady -- the most recent is first.

version the third

second version

original version

I like the idea of minimal-ish microphone setups. I used three Shure SM-57's on the kit, plus one oddball Shure public-address mic with a built-in cable, dangling from a nail overhead. Since you recording geeks will want to know, the nail is an eight-penny bright finish nail.

Comments welcome. Vocals too far forward? What? Turn the vocals off? I hear ya.

[Sloan]

screws usually give a warmer sound than bright finish nails IMHO.

[Doog]

Comments welcome. Vocals too far forward? What? Turn the vocals off? I hear ya.

Mix is pretty decent, although I'd personally probably bring the guitars in a smidge, and roll off some of that 6K THWACK off the snare... plus bring the kick up a bit, it's getting a bit lost.

Nice track

[Ian]

Im listening on a laptop, so I can't really pass judgement at the moment.

When I get home I'll listen. But the tuning on the drums might need a tad bit of work. The snare soudns thwacky as doog said.


Minimalistic approaches rock.

BTW, not sure how you setup that overhead, but you might want to try putting it directly above the snare. And then depending on how you are recording... line the track up to be in phase with the snare, or if you've got it in phase to begin with...

[filtercap]

Thanks for the comments!

Sloan: I figured a bright finish nail would give me more cymbal detail. No? What do you think of galvanized?

DoogIan: I did a couple more versions last night to see about the thwackage. Test-boosting 6K on the snare channel brought out some chirpy overtones that didn't seem to be a very strong part of the snare sound. However there were some EQ settings that peaked in the 2K-3K range on the snare/rack-tom channel and the overhead channel. I flattened these, which pulled the snare back in the mix a little and toned down the hat/ride (all good things, I think).

I'll edit my first message to contain links to the newer mixes when I'm done posting this, so people worldwide can go crazy downloading and bring the internetz to its knees. The second mix has the above EQ stuff, plus a little more kick drum and rhythm guitar. I also shifted the lead guitar EQ bump a tad lower to warm it up a bit.

The third mix has still more kick drum. I have a little bit of limiter on each mix, just enough for some snare beats and a few other peaks to show up on the limiter. In the third mix, I backed the limiter off farther to reduce its effect on the snare sound. None of the drum tracks have compressors on them BTW.

Speakers/ears being different, I'm curious to know how much of a difference you hear, and whether I really tackled what you consider the "thwack" part of the snare sound, or something else.

What type of speakers/headphones did you listen through?

[Doog]

What type of speakers/headphones did you listen through?

Listen to all music at home on em, plus do all my mixing with em.

Like Ian said, I think the snare sound was more down to the tuning than an overbearing overtone or anything.

[Ian]

aye, I'm on another laptop now, but I can really hear the snare better now.


Whilest the snare sound is neat, and has it's own little flavor. and I respect the pavementness of it. I do offer an alternate method than your very loose snared, thwack sound.


Use a good single ply head. Remo ambassador's I believe are single ply. Crank it up, really tune it until you don't think it should be any higher, if you still hear a weird weird un-natural tone (buh OINNGGGG), you haven't tuned it high enough. Then once you have a natural snare sound, Mute it with moongels (available at an GC, or drum store) or cover your snare in *cheesecloth* (beatles recording trick?) And just keep the snares at a relative looseness. Not as loose as on that recording.


But, I could always be wrong... I do like its thwackiness. Is that what you are going for?

[Ian]

BTW, what is your recording setup?

[filtercap]

filtercap: Ah yes. Those are hard to get here. I hear they're kind of, uh, low-resolution. doog: >THWACK<

Ow. Seriously, what are they, tho?

So we reach the black art of Snare Tuning. The guy that owned my basement's previous resident kit liked his snare pretty low and loose, and what with him being a Real Drummer, I more or less matched how his snare sounded. The sound I was going for was "let's see what this sounds like recorded." I like the loose dark sound for some things, tho looking back I probably should have come up with a super-minimal song arrangement to use that sound with. For the arrangement I ended up with, maybe an early-REM Bill Berry drum sound would be good.

I've read up on about five totally different ways to tune snare drums. After recording these drum tracks a couple weeks ago, I re-tuned both heads. The batter head's now tuned about a fifth higher compared to this track; I don't know how the resonant side compares. It seems like there's less sympathetic buzzing from the rack tom now, I can tighten the snares more and get sounds I like, and I don't need to dampen as much. I use one Moongel on the very edge of the head (Ambassador) unless I'm goofing around with brushes.

BTW, what is your recording setup?

I'm using Garageband at the moment with a Presonus Firepod as the interface. Monitors = KRK Rokit 5, no subwoofer. Headphones = AKG K240 (older low-volume version).

[Doog]

filtercap: Ah yes. Those are hard to get here. I hear they're kind of, uh, low-resolution. doog: >THWACK<

Haha..sorry..

VideoLogic Sirocco. Not the most famous setup out there, but sounds great to me.

[Ian]

Yes, drum tuning sucks..

Resonant heads.... you tune those to the lowest note they'll resonate.

It's important to get the heads on evenly around the rim. But once you have them tightened up, you don't have to follow a tuning pattern when making fine adjustments.

Some people stretch the heads out on drums by standing on them. You just have to experiment and find your method. For snares, it really does help to crank the fuck out of the top head though, as well as using coated single ply heads. They sound best for recording. At least for pop/rock music that is.

[Sloan]

yes!
i lov this thred.

[Mike]

VideoLogic Sirocco. Not the most famous setup out there, but sounds great to me.

AWESOME.

That's what my company used to be called, or my division of it anyway.

[Doog]

Hee-hee, cool. They're really good speakers, the sub is way handy when mastering.

[Ian]

For anybody who cares, if you ever want to like hearing *sound* or music again. Don't buy yamaha NS-10's. It's like looking at a fat girl naked, if your fat girl is your song.

Nothing will sound good until it's professionally mixed and mastered, at least through those speakers. I'm uncapable and unequipped for mixing and mastering. So I'll stick with headphones til I get a nice mix back.

[James]

I think the point is if you can make it sound good on them, it will likely sound good almost everywhere. Having flattering speakers to mix on is a stupid idea.

[Mike]

Hee-hee, cool. They're really good speakers, the sub is way handy when mastering.

I know the very people who designed them, I'll pass on your kind words.

[Ian]

I think the point is if you can make it sound good on them, it will likely sound good almost everywhere. Having flattering speakers to mix on is a stupid idea.

Yes that is true. But I'm just saying, if you want to like yourself and your music while recording. Don't use NS-10s.


But yeah, they are really great for what they do. You can listen through CD's and tell which ones were probably mixed with NS-10's in mind and then which ones weren't. And it will be great to make sure whoever is mixing my music is doing a damn good job. I say, if I planned on mixing my record on my own, I would embrace the NS-10's oh yes I would.

[filtercap]

I like a project the most when there are only a few backing tracks down. That level drops down as I add the vocals and other tracks that turn the imaginary possibilities into harsh reality. But at that point I've invested too much energy in whatever I'm doing to turn back. The excitement comes back a bit when I'm mixing, and then usually drops when I go play the finished product over some "foreign" speakers. The mix may hold together fine, but it's just... different.

For the price, these KRK's have a decent reputation for "translating" well, which is why I chose them. But who knows how a particular system is going to color the output, especially with all the little EQs and "enhancers" that apps like iTunes and Windows Media may have running. I should probably drag a pair of these very average Dell computer speakers down to my lair and use those alongside my monitors and hedphonez.

Doog, do you use the subwoofer when mastering, but not when mixing? Also, how do you keep the subwoofer from causing you to over- or under-compensate in the bass frequencies? Do you play a "pro" CD through your system for reference, and then match your project's bass content to what you hear from the CD, or ??

EDIT: that last sentence was on drugs or something. Fix't.

[Mike]

I think the "play a CD you like the production of" method is a good way to get yourself in teh frame with what stuff sounds like on your setup.. however I suck hardcore at mixing. I have NO patience.