When I try to mix the shiz in Reaper it is not making noises through my phones upon playback. So I tried to fix the booboo somewhat by guessing level changes after rendering it and listening to it for one go around (though this only applies to the first clip).

SM58 under snare, D112 on middle of the kick (no ports) and MXL990 quite high up from the kit from what I have typically seen.

http://soundcloud.com/cameron-heck/drum-mic-test-1

SM58 on top of snare, D112 lowered and reversed (lowered to capture more kick and less room) and MXL990 lowered a foot and a half.

http://soundcloud.com/cameron-heck/drum-mic-test-2


Playing's really sloppy. But it sounds alright-ish, I guess. I haven't listened to them enough yet other than to figure out I don't think Iike the sound of the bottom of my snare.

Oh, and I probably need to port my bass drum.

I've changed my mind, I'm actually quite pleased with the snare sound having stepped away from the recording for a little. I dig the sound I am getting out of the overhead as well. Primarily, it is the kick sound (in both clips) that I have beef with.

For recording, i just pull the resonant head off my my kick entirely. It even has a port in it, but it is easier for me to move the mic around to get a good ammount of boom or attack with no head on the front at all.

For a minimal mic setup like that i would probably stay away from the undersnare mic, unless you want to go there on purpose to get that low-fi buzz sound rattling away under your toonz.

The topmic'd snare clip sounds much much better to me though. I also think the overhead sounds nicer at that height.

As for sending Reaper to your headphones, i suppose you mean, through the US1800? Probably you could figure it out messing with the audio settings in Reaper looking specifically at what the Output Range is set to. I don't know what you will see there for the Tascam, but you might be able to figure out how to get the output range set to send the mix to the headphones there. Otherwise, it would probably be a matter of screwing about with the master channel's routing a bit.

Any processing on those drums?

Nah, it's straight up microphone.

I am not positive which I like better, in terms of the snare mic'ing. I like the top because it sounds quite a bit more like what the snare sounds like when I am sitting there drumming but I like the nastiness of the bottom mic. I have enough mics/inputs to use both, so I guess I could do just that.

If you go with both mics on the snare don't forget to flip the polarity on the bottom one.

If you want to try playing with some processing, check out parallel compression for the overheads (ReaComp makes this easy as there's a slider for the dry and wet signals) and expanding on the close mics (ReaGate makes that easy, for the very same reason... bringing in some of the dry signal will make your gate behave like an expander)

Agreed with Chris here. The second clip seems to have a more "solid" and substantial sound to it overall.

With a real minimal setup like that, I probably wouldn't go too nuts with the gating/expansion unless I really wanted it to sound like a drum machine. 'Cept for the kick. Kick in general is one of those odd sources where doing unwholesome and degenerate things to the track is perfectly acceptable-even normal- and not a sign of failure on your part. So I wouldn't get too hacked off if the kick isn't quite to your liking straight-up.

Re: two mics on the snare, my usual MO there is to gate the bottom mic pretty hard and highpass it pretty severely and just use it for the wire snap and then use the top mic for the body and ring of the drum.

Where do you have the mic placed on the snare, and at what angle and how far back? (On the top of the snare, specifically)

On the bottom mic'd snare, it was a foot below the snare probably, maybe a little more, aimed right at the wires. Top snare clip was 3" above snare, probably an inch or two away from the outside rim, aimed at a 45-ish degree angle at the center of the snare.

However, last night I got bored and took off my bass drum resonant head and ghettohacked my mic stands so they could be used with the adjustable boom right at the base of the stand, rather than at the end of a 4 foot tall pole that can only telescope out and not in. So I did this with my kick and snare stands so i could get lower/more precise. As of last night it was probably 6 inches above the snare snare further back, I am hoping this will add some mo' body and whatnot. I also messed with what I thought would theoretically look like a good sound overhead position. I lowered it from the second mic test by a foot or more and turned it so one side of the capsule was pretty much dead nuts aimed at the low tom/ride and the other side of the capsule is aimed at the ceiling, with probably 4 or 5 feet between it and the ceiling.

OH, AND. I moved my drum kit further into the middle of the room, I am hoping this will liven the room sound a bit more. I will be posting up some clips a little later after I have smoked/ate/unlazied.

I just realized I AM getting sound in the headphones, it's just ballssilent. The fuck's up with that?

http://soundcloud.com/cameron-heck/anot ... m-mic-test

I think I like the snare sound and bass drum sound best here. But I am not sure if I like the OH as much as in the previous clip. And is it just me, or does my low tom sound kinda poopy? I have tried to tune it, but I am not sure exactly what it is I am trying to change in the low tom sound and how to achieve that change.

Floor tom actually sounds well-tuned. But tuned high. I would use that sort of tuning for when i was playing surf rock.

What kind of floortom sound are you looking for?

My own preferred rocksound for the floortom, i prefer a loud, low, slightly dead boom. I start with no top head on, and then tune the bottom so that is is just about the same or slightly lower than the pitch you have your top head tuned to. Then i put the top head on, and tighten it the least possible amount, just so that it barely even makes a note.

That gives a deep "JUDD" with decent sustain. From there, i will, if the ring is excessive, put some tape on the bottom head to kill some. But i don't use much tape at all when i use any.

Alternately, i will (very slightly) detune just one lug on the top head so that it makes the noise i want.

Or some combination of both, it depends on which floortom, and whether it is in my basement, or some other room.

I just want something deeper, I guess. I want it to sound low without getting shitty, which just might not be what this tom wants to do. The reason it is higher is because it seems to lose impact and thunderingness when I lower it, it just gets really dead sounding. And I have not messed with the bottom head much, I tried for a little once but soon gave up. I did not seem to be doing what I wanted to, I guess.

The kick is clearer, and the snare has more crack to it- interesting as you moved the mic in closer; usually I find the opposite as I move the top mic closer to the head. But angle has a lot to do with everything. And I'm all for more crack to the snare.

The floor tom seems like it's tuned up pretty high to me? I don't know if that's what you're going for though.

Is this with the kit in the center of the room? Positioning is totally a YMMV thing, very dependent on the room. The center is gonna give you the most standing waves (assuming it's a square/rectangular room)- which aren't so great, but that's gonna depend on the room and construction, and you're also farthest from reflective surfaces- which may or may not be a good thing. There's some solid reasons why you often see drum kits in studio corners. But what works in your room is what works in your room, and if any rock instrumentation lives or dies by the environment it's in, it's the drum kit.

You've made some progress, so keep it up. Drums can be a flaming pain in the balls to record well, but good drums make everything else sound better.

Yarr, i like to keep the kit within five feet or so from the walls in my basement, maybe a little less. I used to run them in the center of the room, which would be about twice as far away from the walls, and i was less into the sound of that. Definitely something that depends on the overall size of the room, height of the ceilings and general ratios of the distances between mics and drums, mics and walls, drums and walls.

Cam'ron, what size stick are you using? Stick weight has a bit to do with what sounds good in low tuned toms, vs, what sounds dead.

Also, it might be worth it to record what sounds to you like a crappy low tuned floor tom. It may not come across that way, recorded.

Part of the trick is separating what you think things sound like, from what the mics pick up. That is why, in my estimation, people have so much trouble recording drums. What you think they sound like is not necessarily exactly what they sound like. Particularly after they make their way through the microphone capsule.

I am rocking 5Bs. And I am pretty goddamn close to a wall. Where I was placed before was so close I would hit my elbows on the walls if I wasn't conservative with my movement. The more recent clips, I probably moved my drum forward a foot or two. My room isn't particularly large in floor space, just it's high ceilings. I've gotta bed and other shit in there competing with the drums for space, but next time i record I'll move the drums into the very center of the room (which would probably put another 3 feet between myself and the wall I was bumping originally).

Thankuh you.

I would also say, that you don't necessarily want to go too crazy trying out a billion different things right off the bat.

What i mean is, that the point of messing with the setup should be in response to needs that arise from mixing full band-style arrangements.

Some things, like too soft kick sounds, are obvious. But other things like floor tom tunings and snare mic distances, you can mess with for weeks, only to find, for instance, that the sound you come up with won't cut through your guitars in a mix well enough. Especially if you are just starting with recording drums, and don't really have a learned experience of what will or won't work yet.

In my opinion, the best thing to do once you get decent enough quality(you are there already IMO) is to just jump in with recording full arrangements of the rest of the instruments with the drumsounds that you are getting. Then, in the context of a mix, if you don't like the sound of something, or how it fits, it is easier to know what you need to adjust or do differently.

EQ that kick