Seeing as I've convinced my bandmates to play their own parts for Proper Preproduction Demos, I get to track real drums. I want to try things a little differently, just for the hell of it.

Kit is my drummer's usual kit. Four-piece Pearl custom maple whatnot, big, low-tuned drums. Minimal muffling in the kick, just a piece of foam. Hole in the front head. Snare is the massive thing he uses, like 8.5" deep or something. Small forest of cymbals (L/C/R crashes, ride, china, splash). He does a lot with the hats. Also, there's a tambourine (which does get used) and a Roland SPD-S sampling pad.

Mics available- AKG D112, 57s (x3), Beta 58s (x3), Rode NT5 SDCs (x2), Rode NTK tube LDC, Shure KSM27 LDC, Nady RSM-4 ribbon, old ham radio mic, a regular 58 we never use, and I could ask my bassist to bring back the i5, if he'd remember.

I have ten channels going into the 'puter; I need to save one for the sampler DI.

So- how'd you do it? I'm perfectly willing to try something weird and don't care if the overheads are matched or not.

Highlight what is interesting about him and his kit. Focus on getting a massive snare sound and a nice cutting hi-hat sound. Get the i5 use that for the snare and the 57 for the guitar or vise-versa. Since they tend to be two similar yet different sounding mics, maybe using them in separate places will help each other find their own sonic space. Put a really decent mic on the hi hats to get a really nice sound out of them. Everything else just normal I guess.

And stop listening to people who have only mic'd drums once or twice in their life.

Depends on what kinds of songs, what speed, what kinds of drumbeats.

I would expect trouble getting that whumpsnare to cut well in a mix, so i would give it at least two close mics to have something to work with. Prolly top/bottom, as i have been using the shell mic less lately, and doing a more traditional close top instead. For your band, i would aggressively gobo the top snare mic to cut as much cymbal and hi-hat out as humanly possible. It would seem likely to be very helpful to have a nice clear snare-only(or close to it) mic to work with.

I would spend a little time moving the kick mic around in the thing to find a spot where it sounded good enough to get away with not mic'ing the beater side for attack.

One mic on the rack, close just for support porpoises, same for floortom.

That makes five.

Of the four remaining, what kind of songs you are doing would probably dictate how i ran them. If slower heavier beats, then i would go simpler overheads and maybe more complex room mics. Like one slammed tall-ass overhead and some mid/side shit going on out front a ways. Or a couplefew randomly placed room mics(like floor level ones, next room over ones, harmonica mic into a DS1, etc)

If faster or more complex drum parts, then i might forego the room mic entirely, and use all four slots to spot mic cymbal groups in a nice stereo field spread. Which would aslo perhaps give some interesting bits, for to experiment with interesting, or odd, mixing experiments and choices.

Like, if there is fast hi-hat work, a dedicated hat mic is probably a good idea. Same deal with beats like that one he does alternating the hats and ride, the ride might like a spot mic for it, as well as the hats.

I would also, if time and motivation permitted, consider doing some drum overdubs. Which is a interesting way to get odd effects in a mix, drum parts removed from their drumbeats. Single cymbals that can be placed anywhere in the stereo field, a snare channel that is really literally ONLY a snare, that sort of thing.

Another thing that is really helpful, is that you have recorded with this drummer and mixed him before. Whatever issues you ran into with that process, you can modify the next time around, to make things work better. Whether that is moving mics closer or further, or just making different mic type choices for various spots, it depends on what you ran into the first time around. What needed fixing, what, if anything, couldn't you get to do what you wanted without heavily editing/modifying, that sort of thing.

And you'd be right re: getting that snare to cut. It can be made to work easily enough though. I've never tried the shell mic thing, though I've wanted to for a while. It seems like it would get the tone of the drum- the whole drum- pretty well, and I've long gravitated toward fairly distant close mics in a recording situation. 6"-12" off the drums. The side-shell mic is pretty well the opposite of a heavily gobo-ed close mic, though, and you're right, Chris, in suggesting the heavily gobo-ed close mic. I wound up gating the snare harder than I'd like. That's where something like the i5 Tony suggested might come in handy- a lot tighter pattern on that one (in addition to more top end than a 57.) If I did the side-shell thing, I suspect I'd use a big condenser there for that. And I'll bring a mic or two if there's something I want to use in the studio that they don't have in their collection. (And would acquire something for that purpose if necessary... EV 635a or Telefunken M80 if we're talking snares, for example.)

Re: the kick, I've been using the D112 inside the kick for smack! for a good while now; I haven't mic'd the beater side in a number of years. The D112 works for that. I have found the outside kick mic to be a lot less useful than I'd hoped, at least in this context. Yeah, it sounds cool, but I don't find much use for it in the mix. Now, the Subkick we used in ze big studio last time, that helps.

I'm sorta torn re: that whole snare/hat area in that I really want to capture what it actually sounds like(ish), but I'd like to have something I have control over in the mix as well. The spot mics on the hat and ride worked out very well in the studio last time around, and part of the pre-production thing, for me personally, is figuring out what we can make all of this do in the context of the songs. But yeah, the snare/hat area is going to receive attention, I think.

Re: toms, my close tom tracks usually sound eff'd up solo-ed. Very bassy, often limited and even distorted after I'm done with 'em. I only really use them to add weight and get the rest of the toms from the overheads/room. I was thinking I might try micing the shell of the drum, or underneath. Never done that with a tom before. And if I realize it sucks while getting sounds, easily replaced with a more conventional placement.

One thing that stuck out to me over and over while mixing the EP was my wanting to make the drums brighter. Now, I've worked with Jay, the tracking engineer at the studio, enough to know he's not at all shy about EQing on the way in- and that he also prefers much darker drum sounds than I do at any stage of the game. And Randy's kit already sounds that way to begin with; that's on my list of things to do differently this time vs. last when we track this stuff for real.

Re: drum overdubs, there are a couple songs I'd like to try that on. Live, he's triggering samples for some drums that aren't a part of his kit (a bright snare, additional large toms), and I think we could get a cool effect using actual acoustic drums there vs. samples. (This is independent of the electronic sounds he's triggering in those same songs.)

I like the idea of different overhead/room layouts. We wound up doing that, sorta, last time around in the studio, if only by virtue of having a ton of mics set up. Some got used a lot, some didn't. Obviously for preproduction porpoises we won't have Mondo Drum Room! to work with, but the concepts still apply.

As a somewhat of a general aside, RE: drum overdubs, i found this bit interesting for my own thinkings about drumsounds:



Which is a totally normal sounding simple drumpart sounding sixties popsong sort of thing.

What i found interesting was two things.



1. That is a single overhead, a single kick, a single floortom, a single snare. Four mics.
2. After the fact they ran two overdubs, toms and something else.

Why overdubs were necessary here is interesting. Why not just mic up the whole kit? I have my own thoughts about it.

But i find it in general, very interesting, that they chose to overdub drums in this sort of application. The more i think of that, it really starts to make me have ideas about how/why/where drum overdubs could happen.

Another classic example to me, is the second Refused record(Songs To Fan The Flames Of Discontent), which is chock full of very obvious hard overdub edits on the drum tracks. It is kind of, the opposite mindset to the Big Star track, which really, to me sounds fairly natural and hence my surprise that they chose to overdub at all there.

Both methods are very interesting. A third one that i have meant to actually do more with myself, is something like this(headphone use encouraged):



Or indeed, like the more recent Melvins/Big Business stuff with two full drumtracks running throughout.

My only point of this tangent which probably doesn't relate very closely to what you want or need for Garda, is that there is a strange and vast universe of fucking interesting things that can be done with drum tracking, that not too many folks ever get very far into.

Also notable, to me anyhow, is that for something as "unnatural" as even heavy drum overdubbing, none of these drumsounds mentioned come anywhere near sounding *really* unnatural. Disjointed maybe, larger than reality in some cases, extra dramatic in others, but never descending into the completely unnatural. Which is really, most likely why the concept interests me as much as it does. It can be completely fucked up, and completely normal, at the same time.

Get the i5 on the snare. That mic puts some serious weight on a snare, which could really set off that deep drum he's got. I'd put the Rodes as a stereo pair six feet up, getting a super wide stereo spread. It'd be so wide but fairly low in the mix, just to add some stereo orientation and fidelity to the cymbals which would comprise of mostly room mics. D112 on the kick beater, the NTK or KSM to get the resonant head on the kick... which ever one woofs better. Beta 58s on the toms. Whatever is left is room mics, lots of room mics, with different sounds and distances, whatever sounds best in the recording room. I think with nine of your channels for drum mics that means you can get two room mics.

Would stick the D112 in the kick, i5 as closemic on snare with the KSM setup as a sort of half hi-hat half snare mic. NTK as a mono overhead in pretty damn tight, like 36" and NT5s as wayoutthere stereo roommics, about level with the cymbals, 4 or 5 feet out, basically pointed at each other, essentially micing the sides of the kit in the most literal sense. Beta 58s on the toms.

Anyways, that is what my brain cooked up. Sounds fairly logical/looks right in my brain.

Hrm... I think everyone suggested i5 on the snare! Makes sense- brighter than a 57; big, low-tuned drum; much better rejection of hats. Gobo that up with some Hideous Yellow Foam™ and I should be good to go re: top close snare for a track that's mostly just snare smack and not a whole lot else. If this works out, the i5 may tag along to the big studio, 'cause they don't have one on hand. Additional snare I suppose I'll dick around with and see what works.

The more I think about a few of these songs, the more I think an outside kick mic is in order after all, at least for a few of them. There's space for a big, boomy, open kick.

Re: Beta 58s, I was planning on deploying those on the toms meself. Like the i5, tighter pattern than a 57. (Though the Beta 58s aren't quite as tight as the i5.) Also, I like the top end better. How much that matters in a close tom application, I don't know.

The idea of mono OH + big, wide room intrigues me. Aiming the NT5s at each other would be phase hell though. Still, plenty of places they can go. Also easy enough to hang from the ceiling if used as a spaced pair. I tend to like them for anything where the mic's a fair bit away from the source because they have a nice crisp top without being harsh, and aren't particularly bassy- so, instant natural 'verb.

I brought all my mics + the channel strips down there the other day; we were thinking of doing some guitar stuff this weekend, so I can give the pres a whirl on guitars, at least.

Funny how when you're drunk 4 or 5 feet seems "wayoutthere". Oh, that would present some phasing problems? The more ya know! What would the Science! on that be?

On second thought, maybe I'd do a super deep (in comparison to the typical application) GJ type deal. Like 5 or 6 as I said before.

It could sound it, depending on the room. There was an issue of TapeOp a while back- I think it was the issue with Kurt Ballou- where drum room mic placement was discussed, and there's a formula to it re: the ratio of distances between the mics/kit/walls if you want to make a room sound bigger than it is. I lent the issue to a friend of mine; I should see if he still has it. There was some good shit in that one.

Actually, that ties in with the Glyn Johns thing, too. Part of why it works how it does is the distance involved. Said friend who has that issue of TapeOp swears by 36 inches instead of 40 and is pretty nuts about measuring for the placement. Pulling them out farther could prove interesting; if yer going five or six feet out with them they're really starting to be something other than overheads at that point.

Re: phase, here's a quality Sound On Sound article that gets in depth and covers practical applications: http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/apr08/articles/phasedemystified.htm

But, in short, re: mic placement: http://www.recordingeq.com/articles/321eq.html. That explains is pretty clearly right away, better than I can at any rate. You're picking up sound at different points along its wavelength, and Weird Shit Happens when you combine the signals and the waves don't line up. Basically, crossing the streams. Now, there are ways to use it creatively- it's why the two 57s on a guitar cab (metal guys still calling this the Fredman technique?) thing does what it does (and behaves differently with different mics with different pickup patterns and frequency responses, and why it's important to angle one of the 57s to get the effect).

Multiple mics on a drum kit are basically never going to be in phase with each other. And the more mics you throw up there, the more likely Weird Shit is to Happen, like, say, your cymbals going all to shit when you bring up the toms.

If you're bored at some point and have a couple microphones and a guitar amp, mic up one speaker with two mics and see how the mics sound soloed, then combined to hear what phase is doing. Then move one of them around. You'll know nasty comb filtering when you hear it.

Yo, i scanned that tapeop drum article for Geoff, and probably poasted it somewheres around here. Lemme see if i can remember where.

EDIT: It should be here:



But isn't currently showing up for me. It probably is just imageshack doing something at the moment with whatever specific server is holding it or something, and i suppose it will re-appear shortly. Or perhaps it is already visible to you now.

Negatory. I tried copy/pasting the link, and I get a 404 not found.

Hmm. Maybe i can find the scan to re-up it. Kind of odd, i can still see the thumbnail via imageshack just not the full pictar.

Eh? (It is wider than the forum, so like rightclick>view image, or just save it yo)

Savéd. Thank you; I was trying to remember the room mic bit.

Also, that reminds me of the PA thing (Soundgarden's Superunknown and Tool's Aenima feature that as well, for more rock-flavored examples people here might be familiar with). Even doing it by accident with the vocal mics wide open during a break in rehearsal sounded badass.