Any secrets to recording real drums?

[mazz]

In the early 90s, I did some projects at a studio in Southern Oregon that was designed by a guy named Chris Huston, who at the time was just getting into studio design. I think he's pretty well known at this point in the business of design. He had worked as an engineer in the UK in the 60s and had recorded lots of the classic bands like Zeppelin, and had worked a lot with the band War in the 70s in LA, amongst many others.

As you can imagine he had lots of great stories to tell. He told one where he was in a studio and the engineer had oodles of mics on the drums and he asked the engineer what he was doing. The engineer said he was looking for the Bonham sound from some famous record. Chris said he had worked on that record and the guy asked him how he got that sound and he said: "I used 3 mics". The engineer was floored!

These guys came up recording classical music and they HAD to learn mic technique. It's a combination of the player, the drums, the room and the mics. The keys are where to put the drums and where to put the mics. A great drummer and a great set of drums tuned properly are also essential, no matter how many mics you put up.

As much as I'd love to have the room, drums, drummer and, of course, budget, to record live drums, I'll let the guys at Toontrack and elsewhere book time in Avatar, etc., and I'll benefit from the fruits of their labors by using their virtual drum instruments. There may be some badge of honor in being able to DIY a whole production but if high quality produced quickly is a requirement, I'll swallow my pride and load up Superior Drummer every time.

Have fun!

Mazz

[billg1]

Most of the time the drummer in the band won't be much into using Superior Drummer for the recordings, and you don't wanna piss the drummer off because usually they're the van driver! Yuck, yuck!

You mentioned going clean into PT . . . you may have to compress your drums on the way in to really get the killer sound you're hearing in your head. I can't really ever remember being in a session where the kit went to "tape" without compression. Although it's always best to track as clean as possible, a lot of the killer sounds we chase are created by someone making a "creative" choice during tracking . . . you know, by the really good engineer/producers that know what they're doing.

You're gonna need a good stereo (hardware) compressor though.

[ernstinen]

Most of the time the drummer in the band won't be much into using Superior Drummer for the recordings, and you don't wanna piss the drummer off because usually they're the van driver! Yuck, yuck!

You mentioned going clean into PT . . . you may have to compress your drums on the way in to really get the killer sound you're hearing in your head. I can't really ever remember being in a session where the kit went to "tape" without compression. Although it's always best to track as clean as possible, a lot of the killer sounds we chase are created by someone making a "creative" choice during tracking . . . you know, by the really good engineer/producers that know what they're doing.

You're gonna need a good stereo (hardware) compressor though.

Yup, I can't remember a session where I didn't at least compress the kick and snare drums. And I forgot to mention a quality EQ used on pretty much every drum when tracking, especially the snare. It's almost impossible to have the perfect mic and perfect position on every drum, unless you have a $500,000 studio! As a matter of fact, one of the best live drum recordings I've ever heard used SM-57s on EVERY drum! Not sure about the overheads, but you bet there was some EQing going on, even though 57s are the best bargain mic on the planet.

Experienced drummers do lots of experimenting with their snares. Most players have (at least) 2-3 snare drums, and dampen them (according to the song) in creative ways. I've seen some guys cut a hole in an old snare head, leaving the outside inch or two, then place that on top of the snare drum's head. Others tape pieces of folded up rags, foam, or even their wallets on the part of the snare that is giving them problems! (My wife just bought me a new wallet awhile ago, and I used that with duct tape on a snare --- not recommended! Man, was she pissed the next time she saw it!).

But damping drums is currently out of favor, because of the large rooms and the trend towards a more "live" room sound, with all the rattles and overtones left in. Sometimes that method sounds great; other times it just sounds sloppy!

Ern

[crs7string]

In the early 90s, I did some projects at a studio in Southern Oregon that was designed by a guy named Chris Huston, who at the time was just getting into studio design. I think he's pretty well known at this point in the business of design. He had worked as an engineer in the UK in the 60s and had recorded lots of the classic bands like Zeppelin, and had worked a lot with the band War in the 70s in LA, amongst many others.

As you can imagine he had lots of great stories to tell. He told one where he was in a studio and the engineer had oodles of mics on the drums and he asked the engineer what he was doing. The engineer said he was looking for the Bonham sound from some famous record. Chris said he had worked on that record and the guy asked him how he got that sound and he said: "I used 3 mics". The engineer was floored!

These guys came up recording classical music and they HAD to learn mic technique. It's a combination of the player, the drums, the room and the mics. The keys are where to put the drums and where to put the mics. A great drummer and a great set of drums tuned properly are also essential, no matter how many mics you put up.

As much as I'd love to have the room, drums, drummer and, of course, budget, to record live drums, I'll let the guys at Toontrack and elsewhere book time in Avatar, etc., and I'll benefit from the fruits of their labors by using their virtual drum instruments. There may be some badge of honor in being able to DIY a whole production but if high quality produced quickly is a requirement, I'll swallow my pride and load up Superior Drummer every time.

Have fun!

Mazz

Toontrack also hires some great engineers. The Nashville Expansion and The Music City Expansion were recorded at The Sound Kitchen Studio with Chuck Ainley as the engineer. I doubt he's readily available to help me out on mic placement

Chuck

[billg1]

In the early 90s, I did some projects at a studio in Southern Oregon that was designed by a guy named Chris Huston, who at the time was just getting into studio design. I think he's pretty well known at this point in the business of design. He had worked as an engineer in the UK in the 60s and had recorded lots of the classic bands like Zeppelin, and had worked a lot with the band War in the 70s in LA, amongst many others.

As you can imagine he had lots of great stories to tell. He told one where he was in a studio and the engineer had oodles of mics on the drums and he asked the engineer what he was doing. The engineer said he was looking for the Bonham sound from some famous record. Chris said he had worked on that record and the guy asked him how he got that sound and he said: "I used 3 mics". The engineer was floored!

These guys came up recording classical music and they HAD to learn mic technique. It's a combination of the player, the drums, the room and the mics. The keys are where to put the drums and where to put the mics. A great drummer and a great set of drums tuned properly are also essential, no matter how many mics you put up.

As much as I'd love to have the room, drums, drummer and, of course, budget, to record live drums, I'll let the guys at Toontrack and elsewhere book time in Avatar, etc., and I'll benefit from the fruits of their labors by using their virtual drum instruments. There may be some badge of honor in being able to DIY a whole production but if high quality produced quickly is a requirement, I'll swallow my pride and load up Superior Drummer every time.

Have fun!

Mazz

Toontrack also hires some great engineers. The Nashville Expansion and The Music City Expansion were recorded at The Sound Kitchen Studio with Chuck Ainley as the engineer. I doubt he's readily available to help me out on mic placement

Chuck

This is all true, but the op ask about tips for micing drums and getting a good drum sound. Good grief, the time will come soon enough when no one will remember (or even have the need to know) how to mic a drum kit, guitar cab, mic a leslie, etc. and i'm pretty sure that shortly everyone will be using a virtual vocalist software and guitarists won't even know what a real guitar looks like, BUT WE'RE NOT QUITE THERE YET! My hat's off the the ones who are still recording drums, although some may use replacement sounds after the fact all of the newly released music I like still has a real kit in the mix.

If your making tracks specifically for film/tv or demos it doesn't matter but if you're recording for an artist who has music based on a "band" sound, or if you're striving for a real band sound, actual instruments being played by humans is still the way to go for now (and the norm thankfully). It might seem unfair but indie bands (that sound like bands) now have to sonically compete with the best . . . here's a paragraph talking about how Ethan Johns records King's Of Leon, and this isn't that much of an exception;

"Johns used the modified Trident to track and mix. He recorded to a Studer 24-track aligned at +6 for 499 running at 30 ips, and mixed to a Studer 2-track. He went with Helios mic pre's and Fairchild compression for the guitars, EMI mic pre's for the drums and Universal Audio 610 pre's for the bass mic (a Neumann U67) and the vocals. As on the band's previous recordings, Caleb Followill sang into a Shure SM7 live during tracking"

I think this one came from that session . . . great sounding drums IMO
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puQeNshO ... re=related

to the OP . . . keep experimenting with your drums & you'll get it. And your music will thank you!

[ernstinen]

Whereas large rooms are "in" right now, there are notable exceptions! I read that on a k.d. lang recording from a few years back, they put the drummer and a REAL small drumkit in a 12x10' closet! Poor guy, but it sounded great.

And an infamous "small room" recording, if I remember correctly, was The Beatles' "Helter Skelter," or one of the other REAL LOUD songs off of the White Album. --- (Hmmm, maybe it wasn't Helter Skelter, because George supposedly ran around the room with a flaming ashtray on his head) --- But whichever song it was, they stuffed the whole band in a custodian's closet! Guess they wanted to capture the moment, and not worry about mics bleeding onto other tracks! --- They captured the moment, alright! --- Whew, what a sound!

Ern

[mojobone]

. . . great sounding drums IMO
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puQeNshO ... re=related

Gee, I wonder if anybody here could get a drum sound like that one from a drum VI. Maybe we should take this as a challenge?

[bigbluebarry]

. . . great sounding drums IMO
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puQeNshO ... re=related

Gee, I wonder if anybody here could get a drum sound like that one from a drum VI. Maybe we should take this as a challenge?

Challenge accepted

- Big Blue

[billg1]

Big Blue, if anyone here could do it it would be you . . . I wouldn't bet against you! Some of the drum sounds on a lot of these big budget recordings might also be analog related or big money outboard gear related. I can usually pick an analog recording because the low mids can get really BIG in analog recordings before getting muddy, that low mid thing can make the drums (and bass!) sound unreal like the bass in this (same session)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gbzjL9- ... re=related

However, I'm fooled a lot by recordings made on the old Radar II systems which are just hard drive based multitrackers. Any of you geeksters know anything about those systems? I know they're in a lot of top end studios but have no clue as to why they sound so good. I read an article that stated there were as many (if not more) hit records tracked to analog and to Radar systems than direct into PT.
(I'll try to find the link)

can't wait to hear your drums Blue!

[bigbluebarry]

Thanks Bill I've been wanting to do a Kings of Leon type track since they seem to come up frequently in the TAXI listings. I figured this would be a good chance to do that and push myself a bit on getting a bit of a different drum sound than I typically use. Should be fun and hopefully I'll have a track to pitch when I'm done as well

- Big Blue