letsjumpnow Posted September 24, 2003 Share Posted September 24, 2003 hey everyone! i'm alec, i'm new...i'm 17 and prepostrously fortunate enough to be playing a six piece ayotte kit (got a great deal, but i'm surely going to be mowing a lot of lawns to pay it off - theyre the finish of the drums that are on the main menu at www.ayottedrums.com) with an old 60s ludwig snare (with a 40 year old calfskin head, borrowed from my friends dad who hasnt touched his ol' ludwig in 30 years), a sabian 21" raw bell ride, zildjian 17" K china, and zildjian 16" a cust. proj. crash (i should have another 18" a custom proj crash, but i got ripped over the internet... ). right now i'm into "indie" type music - favorite groups off the top of my head would be enon, dismemberment plan, 12 rods, talking heads, jim o'rourke, lilys, basement jaxx, !!!, out hud, soul coughing (just their ruby vroom album, though...), things like that...but i also like alotta modern (billy martin is far and away my favorite drummer) and classic jazz, classical (stravinsky! stravinsky!), hip hop, everything... just wanted to say hi, and it seems i can learn a lot here. im just getting into recording with one steadman studio condenser (my friend's, not sure right now of the make) > mackie SBD > mbox > protools...i just learned a month ago what fantastic things compression could do for drums, and i learned yesterday that people usually use one raw drum track and put the same track compressed over it. can you guys fill me in on other similar drum recording stuff that i should immediately know? also, i'd like to start looking at mics. i'd preferably like to use one mic for each two (out of four) toms i have. if anyone can reccomend some good mics (or mic setups) for recording AND live, it would really be helpful - assuming i'm totally clueless. thanks for everything! can't wait to get to know some of you! alec Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Siberian Posted September 26, 2003 Share Posted September 26, 2003 Hey, welcome! I'm kinda new on this board too so we're in the same boat! For recording, there are so many mic choices out there to fit different budgets. You will run into limitations with the M-box though. It only has two mic pre's and does not allow you to record more than two tracks at one time... and there's no way to expand it that I know of. In that regard, the M-box is great for someone who is doing Midi recording with keyboards and drum machines, but for live drums, you are severely limited to two mics unless you do a sub-mix on an external mixing board then send the submix to Protools through the Mbox. The drawback to using a submix is that once you record to protools, you can't change the relative levels of each drum within the mix. The relative volume of the kick, snare, overheads, and toms etc... is going to be locked in to whatever you set your faders to on the mixing board. For mics, like I said, there are so many choices in different price ranges. However given your comment about mowing lawns... I'll assume you are on a tight budget. That said, I'd go for quality over quantity. You'll go much further with just two or three decent mics than, say, five or six crappy ones. Believe it or not you can get a pretty decent drum recording with just two or three mics. If I was in your shoes I'd probably start out with a dedicated kick mic, a large diaphragm condensor for an overhead, and a snare mic. With proper mic placement you can get a nice balanced drum recording working with just those mics. I won't go into detail about what specific brands and models of mics to look at because I really don't know what your budget is, and there are so many choices in all price ranges. I will say, however, that Audix and Shure make some pretty decent entry level mics for drums. Also you can find some nice stuff on ebay. I have "stolen" a lot of good mics that way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MadHatterTCM Posted October 11, 2003 Share Posted October 11, 2003 for mics what I'm using: Sennheiser e604 on each tom and snare Shure beta52 and shure sm57 the beta on the reso side, and sm57 on the beater side Oktava mk012's as overheads. That's running about 1100 dollars worth of mics though. BUT I got them all new from ebay for less than 700. SM57s are pretty nice, and there are packages from shure that make em cheaper. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
offramp Posted October 11, 2003 Share Posted October 11, 2003 "but i'm surely going to be mowing a lot of lawns to pay it off" cutting grass to cover ass. been there. Yeah, two or three good mics will bring you loads of pleasure over several cheaper ones. Seems to me you could probably get that mic count for about $600-700; I'm not totally up on all the options out there--haven't heard them all--but I'd look and RODE, Studio Projects, Audio-Technica, AKG. Not only that, but you wouldn't want to display that killer kit wired with RadioShack HoChiMinh specials. I've upped my standards; now, up yours. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
letsjumpnow Posted October 11, 2003 Author Share Posted October 11, 2003 madhatter - are you using those for both live and recording? what kind of kits are you guys using? thanks for the help! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MadHatterTCM Posted October 12, 2003 Share Posted October 12, 2003 yup. Sometimes I might switch the beta52 with an Sennheiser e602. Sometimes beta52's a bit tooo low and boomy. Which is why I also use a sm57 to capture the more natural sound. The AKG D112 is good but overrated because it tends to lack the boom. But the sennheiser e602 I find to be right in between both. So Depends on the sound I want to get. For live I just use the beta 52 and the sm57 (barely, keep at somewhat low volume). The toms - I've fallen in love with the e604s. The sm57 is also a good choice but they bleed so badly. e604 I personally think have a better sound as well. Very versitile, you can make em as natural as you want. Or eq to anything you feel like hearing. When recording I use the oktavas as well as a room mic. For the room mic I'm using a audio technica at4033 Now if I had some extra dough to spend. I'd buy some akg c1000 for overheads. But my oktava mk012s are still quite nice. Especially for their price Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
where02190 Posted October 12, 2003 Share Posted October 12, 2003 A great drum sound is 3 fold: Great sounding kit Great sounding room Great player the key IMHO to achieveing this sound recorded is to approach the kit as one big instrument. Concentrate on getting the full kit to sound great using just overheads. (My personal preference is the Shure VP-88 stereo mic, or a pair of AKG 414's.) Experiment, move the mics (sometimes the oddest positions produce amazing results!) and find a combination that works. Phase can be a problem, so always listen in mono for any dips in frequencies due to cancellation. Once you're satisifed with this, add a room mic several feet in front of the kit, about chest high to the player. (I love the Rode NTK for this) Now add a kick mic...Shure Beta 52, Sennheiser 421, even a 57 will sound good. Another 57 on the snare... If you've got the three ingrediants mentioned above, you should have a pretty solid drum sound by now. Leave the eq's off, easy on the compression, save this for mixing. A bit of compression can be good to get good levels without overs, but don't overdo it, as you're stuck with it once it's recorded. You can always compress again when mixing. Sennheiser e609 silver series mics are great on toms and are very reasonable at $99 each. (They aslo make great electric guitar mics!!) there are several lower priced (budget) condensers you can use for overheads, like the Octavas. A Rode NTK makes an excellent vocal mic in addition to a killer room mic, and is great on electric guitars and reeds as well. A great addition to the arsenal. Good luck and keep an open mind. Reading is fundamental, there's an incredible amount of info available via the web for free on this subject. Hope this is helpful. NP Recording Studios Analog approach to digital recording. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alcohol Posted October 13, 2003 Share Posted October 13, 2003 Nick, After recording the kit, and applying a gate or compressor to the various parts of the kit as needed, do think it unwise to then bus this mix and apply some overall compression to the drum submix? "The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in a period of moral crisis maintain their neutrality." [Dante Alighieri] (1265-1321) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Siberian Posted October 13, 2003 Share Posted October 13, 2003 Madhatter, I'm using the Oktava MK012's for overheads as well. They work really great, and for the money they are very hard to beat. My complete mic setup consists of... (2) Oktava MK012 for overhead (1) Shure Beta52 for kick (1) Shure SM57 for snare (1) Audix D1 for snare (2) Audix D2 for 10" and 12" rack toms (2) Audix D4 for 14" and 16" floor toms (1) Rode NT3 for hihat (1) Studio Projects C1 for room I recently discovered that I prefer the sound of the Audix D1 on my snare over the SM57. I know that's blasphemy, but hey, it is what it is. I sometimes use the 57 on the bottom of my snare... I'm still experimenting though. I also rarely, if ever, use the hihat mic track when mixing. I've found that I get plenty of hihat in the overheads, so it's almost not necessary. Nonetheless, I track it just in case. I got a lot of killer deals on the Audix mics off ebay. Found them used at a pawn shop, perfect condition, and paid about half of retail. Total cost for everything $1280.00 Beta52 $170 new SM57 $70 new Audix set D1, D2, D2, D4 with clips $350 used Extra Audix D4 $150 new Rode NT3 $140 new Oktava MK012 $99 each new Studio Projects C1 $199 new These are all high quality mics. And you could certainly get away with far fewer mics than this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
where02190 Posted October 13, 2003 Share Posted October 13, 2003 Originally posted by alcohol: Nick, After recording the kit, and applying a gate or compressor to the various parts of the kit as needed, do think it unwise to then bus this mix and apply some overall compression to the drum submix?Nope, I do it often. Typically I'll compress overheads, room kick and snare turing tracking and mix, and use a busss compressor as well. With the expetion of the room mic(which I love to nuke with a distressor during tracking) nothing gets more than a couple db of reduction at any stage.. Hope this is helpful. NP Recording Studios Analog approach to digital recording. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prof.Sound Posted October 15, 2003 Share Posted October 15, 2003 Alec, Consider the following two links for recording help. SAE Drum Recording Guide S.O.S. Publications Recording Real Drums Article As for me and equipment, visit the link below. Good luck. Author and new site of the As of August 2004 - New Home of the Drum Tuning Bible v3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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