Recording the Drums

[OxXSnOXxO]

I have all my drums miced , the sound that comes through is pretty decent but 2 problems. 1-The bass drum gets the nasty overtone sound that rings out after its kicked. 2- the toms sound way over driven. Can anyone give me some ideas or something that will help me get a clean punchy sound that I am looking for ?

Thank you,
-Cody [img]images/icons/confused.gif[/img]

[sugarfuzz]

There is tons of info out there on this subject, and Im sure you will get a ton of tips from here.

First and formost, you want to make sure the drum itself (kick, snare, toms) are tuned, and sound great all by themselves.

Then you want to make sure your mic placement is correct for the sound you are looking for.

You want to start with your overhead mics. Get them placed, and check for PHASING PROBLEMS.

Then I would mic the Kick. In the kick itself, I try and lat a towel, or something similar to lightly dampen the front head of the kick. I then place a decently weighted sandbag, or weight on the top of that. Then set up your mic. Check for Phasing.
Unless you have a control room, that gets o bleed from the tracking room, I suggest you record small clips of the drums, and see if the placement is working. If not reset, and try again.
I know this sounds like much, but its the prefered way if you do not have a great studio.

Do not over EQ, or COMPRESS. It will kill your whole mix. Try and get good sounds to "DISK"

How many, and what types of mics are you using?

Give us some info, and we will help you better.

Describe your room also.

Good Luck

[OxXSnOXxO]

My Microphones
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-Four TSM411(CAD) for the Snare , 2 toms , and Floor Tom.

-One KBM412(CAD) for the Bass Drum.

-Two Shure PG 81 Condenser Mic's for over heads.
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I am using a Alesis Studio 12r Mixer for the drums.
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The room is 16x32 , The walls are sheet rock with a rolled on texture. The floor is off the ground about 4 feet exact. The floors and walls are insulated. The outside is covered with wood log siding. The floors are also carpeted. There is nothing to kill sound , although I want to build and octagon partition that will surround the drumset that is made out of MDF board and some egg carton bed lay.
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Thanks,
-Cody

[Joe Egan]

"nasty overtone that rings out after it is kicked"

Either you need to dampen your drum heads. Could be the kick, could be a tom.

Or you have a strong resonant frequency in your room. You might need some bass traps or you might have too much reverberation in your room and need to treat your room.

[Jean Chile]

Originally posted by Joe Egan:
[QB]"nasty overtone that rings out after it is kicked"

Either you need to dampen your drum heads.

Or you have a strong resonant frequency in your room. QB]

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Don't forget that when a drum is tuned to a relative pitch of another drum, there are sympathetic vibrations. Make sure that the overtone isn't actually a tom resonating that is tuned closely, or relative, to the kick drum. I often have a problem with my 10" toms and my kick drums because of the way I tune my drums and the sizes of shells. So I compensate when recording by shifting the pitch of my toms to compensate... still staying within the tuning range of the drums that is.

For example: if your kick is tuned say at 80hz and your middle tom at 160hz you are going to have a problem. So when you hit the kick drum you are going to hear some tom resonance as well.

Hope this helps some.

[ReniuR]

I recommend taking the front head off the kick, if you haven't already, and place the mic about half-way in the shell. this may help. Other than that, the tuning and dampening recommendations others have made should be enough to locate and solve the problem.

[sugarfuzz]

Check this sight out.

You should get a good amount of info.

http://www.saecollege.de/reference_material/index.html

Just remember it takes a lot of time, and practice to even get to where your mixes start to sound like something close to a comercial recording, so be patient, and listen when these guys say do not over compress or EQ, it will save you a lot of time, and CDR's.

When I first started mixing, I compressed the crap out of everything, my master fader was clipping like crazy, then when I burned my mix to CD, and put it in the car, I was wondering why it sounded like the most ungodly thing you ever heard.

Tip Kick drum.

Compression: Depending on what kind of sound you are looking for try the digi rack comp with the preset of tight kick, or thimp kick. They should get you started.

EQ: Depending on sound, and mic place ment, but usually you can take out the boxiness of the kick by cutting a good chunk out around 400-600hz. I boost 2-3db in the 3-khz range, then a little more between 12-15khz.
For low end make sure to carve out some hols for the bass guitar. If you boost the Kick, around 60-80hz, then make sure to back of that same freq on the bass guitar a hair,
and visa versa.

Also do not muffle the drum too much, unless you are going for a really tight sound. I find that if I muffle too much, it makes it hard to get that low end thump on the kick.

Hope this helps some.

[Joe Egan]

Anyone else besides me think that the Digidesign stock compressor and gate plug-ins do a good job?

[kimaguresound]

yep
i use the stock comp quite often.
[img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[OxXSnOXxO]

Thanks everyone for your Replys ! I appreciate it and Im going to try and get the sound I want.

-Cody