The best way around this is a drummer who completely rapes the shit, so you can leave as much kick as you want in the overheads without fear of revealing the editing treachery.

It would help if the guitar tone was a little lean, as supposed to all up in everything. Definitely. But designating a narrow frequency for cymbals is exactly what causes the problem we are addressing.

Exactly. Someone who doesn't need fixing is part of it. Also an engineer/producer who knows when to leave that shit alone. Some folks just edit everything regardless, even when shit is not that messy. Modern metal is kind of a nightmare for that right now.

But the biggest thing is that the cymbals just have to be left alone as much as possible. In reality, the attack of a cymbal covers most of the frequency range. For them to sound most natural, they shouldn't be high passed that high, and they shouldn't have too many notches scooped out elsewhere. But it is a difficult balance, because they really are everywhere in the frequency range. And if you have cymbals that are as fucking loud and as fucking bright as the ones i have, you HAVE to do some cutting, or you simply won't be able to fit a bass/guitar/vocal in the mix. That is one of the biggest things i fight with in recording myself. Mixing without fucking up the cymbals or snare.

Even harder with cheap recording gear, honestly. Too many compromises in mic and preamp quality, and you basically just have to resign yourself to certain handicaps. A lack of clarity that needs constant trickyjiggering to try to work around, can be one of them.

Chris and Geoff covered it, pretty much.

The drummer doesn't need to be uberamazingmindblowing, either, just tight. Unfortunately, that seems to be a tall order, especially in the metal genre, with a lot of guys- at least on the local level- focusing on speed and flash over actually being able to fulfill the most important role of a drummer, which is keeping shit in time.

Luckily Ian keeps time real well (he ALWAYS practices to a metronome) which you can hear on the recording.
Some of his footwork is a little sloppy in parts, but otherwise his performance is quite admirable.
This was all one take in the room with the bassist and guitarist.

I have so many problems with modern metal production..

Would keeping the guitars a little thinner but having a big, high in the mix bass tone help somewhat in terms of the guitar getting in the way of the cymbals?
We are planning on having very audible bass as is, anyways.

I'd have to hear the raw tracks to evaluate that. Chances are a darker guitar tone would be in order to specifically do what you asked... though Chris is very astute in pointing out there's more to cymbals IRL than people think. (Hats, for one, have a fucktonne of midrange most of the time.)

It's less than easy to make mix decisions like that without hearing what everything sounds like recorded, assuming it's already been recorded, which you seem to imply. One could generalize, but there's gonna be idiosyncrasies regardless... If you could throw up a rough mix- or an unmixed track- set levels to even things out and that's it- that would help us provide some ass-istance.

LULZ.

Finally starting these fucking sessions Saturday. Have an assistant engineer and whatnot.

Mics available:

4x SM57
2x Beta 58A
SM58
KSM27 LDC

2x MXL V67g LDC, windscreen "mod"
2x MXL 603 SDC
MXL R144 ribbon

2x Rode NT5 SDC, matched pair
Rode NT3... MDC?

AKG D112
random middling AKG LDC, I forget the model number

Audix i5

2x Crown PZM

Nady RSM-4, windscreen "mod"

Pres:
4x AMEK console channel strips
4x ART DMPA
8x Focusrite interface
2x MOTU interface
4x Yamaha 01v console (only four direct outs)
some random preamps to run into line-ins on the MOTU if we'd need/want them? Nothing killer, but not terrible either, like SP VTB-1 type deals.

4 piece. Big kick and snare. Lotsa channels. Suggest things. I know what I'd use off the top of my head, but who has a stupid idea I didn't think of?

A couple room shots for perspective:

Now... i am a simple hobo so...

If you have the phantom power for it, i would probably use almost all condensers.

NT5s as overheads.
V67s on toms.
NT3 on the snare, maybe wif KSM27, SM57, or i5 as backup(meaning shell, or bottom).
D112 in/on the kick.
PZMs spaced out on the farthest wall as stereo room mic-age.

If you have an extra channel, maybe toss anything up on the hi-hats for a possible later phase reversal/hi-hat killer. Maybe see if you might need something like that first. Hi-hats can kind of suck and ruin things.

That would make what, nine or ten channels.

I don't know much about your pres, but i would probably aim to put the overheads, kick, and main snare into the four nicest ones you have.

I would put the LDCs on the toms pretty close(like within two or three inches of the heads), use them for the boom. As such, i would aim not to use any EQ on the overheads if possible.

Consider either the phase reversed hi-hat killer, some sort of snare mic hi-hat bleed shield/gobo, or both.

PS. It looks like the drummer plays his cymbals really low. That may make getting nice snare and toms sounds more difficult. It may also make the above anti-hihat measures extra advisable.

The hats are actually up fairly high with the snare as low as the stand will physically allow due to the depth of the thing, which is a plus.

FWIW, I was initially thinking of going with the 67s in Glyn Johns configuration with the NT5s on the toms for punch, but there's probably something to be said for using the smaller, brighter condensers for OHs and not EQing them. The live drums are, at least in our vision, supposed to be very open and "live" sounding to contrast against the electronics.

The KSM27 is nice on snares, really nice actually, but gets lotsa hat bleed. The NT3 might be a good choice there. Or the SDC taped-to-a-57 (or i5) trick. The i5 I vastly prefer to a 57, but the 57 has a mid thing going on that could work in combination with an SDC for crack.

I was thinking D112 in the kick/ KSM27 outside of the kick.

Ribbon in front as a "kit" mic.

PZMs taped to the walls or somesuch as a stereo room, yes.

Maybe a random mic- 57 or whatnot- hanging from the ceiling above the kit and smashed to all shit with a compressor?

The hat thing is problematic 'cause there's lotsa hat work going on- disco beats, 16th notes, alternating hat/ride patterns, alternating with mondo snare hits on 2 and 4. We've got some bigass chunks of foam in the back room to make gobos out of if necessary. Luckily our drummer is a good sport with studio experience who'll move stuff if necessary and plays well with sound engineers. There's a fair bit of distance between the hats and the top snare head, but his tambourine is kinda mounted to the hi hat stand and is in the way a bit. There's an i5 in there right now that's got a good 6" from the heads and sounds decent, but it's only for his in-ear mix.

Pres, we're going with the AMEK strips for kick in/snare top/OH, ART full-voltage tube channels for toms and probably snare bottom and kick out, unless we want to drive them into compression on the room. This is off the top of our heads.

And we gots phantom on every channel. Phase reverse on some of 'em too.

Hats are a dick and a half. I suppose a 57 would work as a hatkiller, or one of the little MXL condensers.

We could go all Steve Albini and mic the bottoms of the toms... but that's probably overkill.

Here's a betterish shot of the kit:



The top head of the snare is roughly even with the top of the kick drum. The hats, which are half-visible, are up way above the snare where the rest of the cymbals are. The ride is superlow above the floor though.

Yeah, all of those cymbals are pretty low for tracking, IMO. You can totally do it, and i often do when i am feeling too lazy to move them(i don't have that much ceiling height to work with down there anyhow) and/or don't care to remember to reach higher so i don't destroy my hands or miss them ... But the close mics will not be able to do their thing as well as they possibly could, with shit hanging that low.

Mic'ing the bottom heads always seems a bit overkill to me. Then again, i don't have enough channels to really ever consider mic'ing the bottoms, so i haven't messed with it too much, and they aren't really high on my list. When i did mess with it a ways back, it didn't really do much for me. I don't have a big open space to work with like Mr. Albini, so what i found was that i just wound up with tons of channels of the same cramped loud assault of bouncing waves. In smaller spaces, i like less mics.

If you have the channels, i guess why not. But me personally, as a simple hobo, i would aim to use the bare minimum. It will also make mixing simpler, and possibly better. I am generally reasonably happy with what i get for toms between the overheads and close tops. I.e. for what i want from them, i mean.

If i were to add one more mic than my first thoughts, i might try a third overhead, or maybe go all out with some sort of close mic situation on each of the cymbals, so that the attempt could be made later to place them with more control within the stereo field. Again, in a smaller space, sometimes you have to test it and see if adding a mic actually adds anything, or if you are just falling prey to moreisbetterism. When more is available: we must remain vigilant!

Honestly, I've never felt it necessary to mic the bottom of anything, and actually prefer not to mic the bottom of a snare for my purposes. It's a pretty deep snare though so I might go for it. I threw the bottom mic suggestion out there only because I have the channels.

Guesstimating looking at the kit in the room right now I'd say the hat is 18" or so above the snare at the moment. I'd like stuff as high as possible, but I'll see what I can do.

The individual cymbal micing might be a bit... modern metal for my tastes, though the idea of having the control in the mixes- which will be dense ones- is appealing. I do prefer most of my drum sound to come from the overheads and kick mic though, with the close-ish mics (that's another thing; I like the close mics fairly far back ) really there to add body to the hits.

I'm not concerned that it'll come out badly- I could throw six dynamic vocal mics up there right now and it would be fine. The drummer is good and the kit sounds good. The room is decent. There is a GIGANTIC room in the building I could ask to use that's an old bank vault that's massive and cavernous, but that might be on too short notice. And honestly, for these songs, I think the smaller tighter room sound would not be inappropriate. I'm mostly throwing ideas out there to brain about it a bit and see if we can come up with something that's supercool.

I agree in theory with the idea that close mics on cymbals seems a bit modern metal.

But then i remember something like this:



Which produced a very different sound. In fact, somewhat of an antithetical one.

But yeah, right there: Led Zeppelin II.

Crammed in a corner, close mic'd cymbals, and all.

...and we know what a tiny drum sound that is.

Fuckit, I'm texting the building manager about using that vault, the thought of metalkids interrupting my work irks me. I do miss our sixth floor space for that.

We got the fukkin' vault. My drummer and assistant are down with it. Very, very down with it. Let's see what we can make it do.

Toan is in the hat.

I should have my drummer wear a hat.

Just like...
Plug in the mics.
And like..
Put them around the drums.

I'll put a couple 57s on the floor.

Any more than that, and you are really just showing off, you know?

If you can't do it wif a pair of 57s, it doesn't need doing.




























AMERICUH!