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Pro Sounding Recorded Drums In Your Living Room? 
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Simethicone
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Post Pro Sounding Recorded Drums In Your Living Room?
PRO-SOUNDING RECORDED DRUMS IN YOUR LIVING ROOM. THIS EXISTS. :hypno: :shock: :o

I heard this last night with my metalliband, The Forgotten Ones. We cut drums for preproduction demos for a six-song EP. Only five of which have drum kit drums on them, the other being a Dead Can Dance-ish thing with hand percussion. Our guitarist is the guy who engineered the drums on the Garda stuff, and what he's rolling with now beats the trousers off of that. Here's what we used:

Ludwig Epic-series six piece, either a 20" or 22" kick (we left the vintage 24" Ludwig in the back room), 10", 12". 13" and 16" toms, stock wood snare off the kit, with the brass DW getting the back room treatment as well. We had another 14" floor on the hi-hat side, but the drummer- you heshers will love this dude, he tears it the fuck up- found it "distracting". Hats and ride were Paiste Rudes, crashes were Meinl and Zildjian A Custom, china was some broken-ass thing that sounded cool.

Mics were thusly: no front head on the kick, AKG D112 aimed at the beater, MXL R144 ribbon aimed at the shell. Sennheiser e609 on the batter side. DDrum trigger to trigger an expander, but we blended the sound of the trigger itself in versus using EQ to add top. No samples, all natural kick. Everything else was straightforward- Shure Beta 57 on the snare, regular 57s on the toms, modded MXL v67gs for overheads Glyn Johns-style. Now, the floor/ride-side mic here, to do it right (this is important) isn't really an overhead, it's down low near the ride. Don't ask me the physics of why this works, but it does. That and getting the snare mic placement right so that the bleed is actually what makes shit better. The D112, Beta 57 and OH mics ran through Langley-modded AMEK channel strips.

My bass was a Groove Tubes DI and a POD XT for dirt; it will be re-cut. Same with the guitars- :snax: straight in, to be replaced later. We played through headphones, nothing in the room but the drums, and we're thinking we'll rehearse this way- everything was really, really clear.

He did a quick rough mix with the drums before we left- no EQ, just compression, and they sound like a million bucks. Slow attack/fast release comp on the overheads to bring out the ring/body of the snare. (Try it, you'll like it.)

Save for the channel strips (which he got racked up with a power supply off CL for $350 for all four! You can find these on Ebay sometimes.) it's all shit you can just go out to GC or wherever and buy, nothing esoteric. It does help to have an amazing drummer and really well-tuned kit, I admit. That's a big part of it right there.

Remo Ambassadors for heads, by the by. Yeah, they're thinner and less durable, but they sounded great, especially on really resonant drums like the Epics, which have thin shells of alternating maple and birch. And we took the Superkick II off and put the stock head that came with the kit back on, and it was an improvement! And I :love: the Superkick II and so do you. But for that kick... :idk: I think plastic beaters on the pedals, but I don't recall. Could be anything, hard rubber, wood?

Yes, there will be clips, but I doubt they're even mixed down yet. I'll post up some raw drums when I get 'em to cut my bass to.

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Fri Apr 29, 2011 9:16 am
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Winston Wolf
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Post Re: Pro Sounding Recorded Drums In Your Living Room?
Super. I await them clippies. Well-tuned drums go a long ways in the art of recording them, I agree.

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Fri Apr 29, 2011 10:04 am
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Simethicone
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Post Re: Pro Sounding Recorded Drums In Your Living Room?
There's something to be said for getting it right at the source- player/instrument (amp if relevant)/room (if relevant). Then there's nothing to fix. EQs and compressors suddenly become tools for shaping sounds.

But yeah, hearing the playback of the drums on the monitors was mindblowing. The room itself has a high vaulted ceiling and lots of random surfaces and is asymmetrical, with the drums having brick to the side and glass behind, the rest being wood and plaster. Carpeted floor, pretty dry sounding, surprisingly. We were thinking of putting a bigass piece of plywood under the kit.

There's really no magic trick or piece of gear to it, alas, as long as you've got some decent stuff set up right, in a room that doesn't sound like buttocks. Just lots of tedious practice recording drums (which is a difficult skill to learn) and how to use a compressor (which is a difficult skill to learn)... basically the two things that take people years to master. :lol:

I hope this turns out as well as my initial impressions. It's the product of many long phone and barroom conversations about really geeky stuff, and could prove to be a cool resource. Should get some pictures.

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Fri Apr 29, 2011 10:41 am
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Pendulous
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Post Re: Pro Sounding Recorded Drums In Your Living Room?
That's a lot of channels for the kick drum! I'm curious what just the trigger sounds like, and how it contributes to the whole thing.

Yes indeed the Glyn Johns is a curiously effective way to do things. The mics don't seem to be so cymbal oriented as they would be with a spaced pair, so the toms and other things are getting a lot of help. And I suppose that sounds natural and real.

Want to hear!

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Tue May 03, 2011 9:44 pm
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Simethicone
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Post Re: Pro Sounding Recorded Drums In Your Living Room?
I got stems last night but haven't had the chance to listen to them. And you're right, that's a lot of channels for the kick. Two rack toms, two floor toms, two overheads and snare for the rest, nothing crazy. But four tracks of kick drum. :lol:

The trigger on its own is real subtle, but it's a consistent top-end click that's not varying with how hard the hits are. I may or may not have the actual tracks for this. We were just taking it to get a clean consistent signal to the expander for the double-kick bits, but we'd read about blending it in and decided to try it. It's a cool way to add some top end to a kick drum without resorting to crazy EQ or samples.

The Glyn Johns thing doesn't look like it should work but is somehow great. Not the technique to use if you're planning on editing a weak drummer with sketchy sounds in a questionable room. :lol: The overheads in this context are really kit mics versus cymbal mics, and any close mics you throw up are really for reinforcing the body/bottom end of the drums in a mix where you have something like, say, big distorted guitars and EQ alone isn't gonna cut it.

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Wed May 04, 2011 10:05 am
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