[brandondrury]

Okay, my turn.

#1) The direct guitars aren't happening. If it's practical to mic a real cabinet, I'd recommend trying it.

#2) I'm hearing nothing but a bunch of cymbals and fizz. The mix is cymbal heavy and guitar fizz heavy. The solution to this is shoving your foot up the drummers ass and having really hit the damn snare. I'm serious. Country drummers smash their snare's WAY harder. If he cries about his arm hurting (which a lot of heavy drummers will) kick him in the balls or punch him in the face. (Then his arm problems won't be such a big deal anymore.)

The kick is....boomy for the type of music. I'd rather hear more definition (maybe 3K, maybe higher).

If you could get the cymbals down (which is 2/3 the drummers fault and 1/3 the mic placement of the overheads and get the fizz out of the guitars, you'd have a pretty decent mix.

I know you are using 3 mics on drums, but no one ever said they had to be overheads. Why not underheads? Take some type to get a great balance with your "overheads". In my room, I got where I was putting one mic about 3' off the ground and about 2' from the floor tom. Then I'd put the other mic several feet above the snare. Actually, I'd measure the distance from the mic on the floor tom side to the snare and make sure the mic above the snare was the same distance for phase reasons.

Why did I put these mics in this position? Easy! I wanted less cymbals and more floor tom in one mic. I wanted less cymbals on the other mic (on top of the snare) but I was getting too much hihat keeping it low. So, I moved the mic away from the hihat. A caveman with spare time could get a good recording!!

I'm not hearing boxiness in the drums which happens to be the biggest problem for drum recording at home.

#3) Yeah, I also hear the excessive limiting on the 2bus (master fader).

I can see that you are going to be pretty damn good at this if you stick with it and work out some of your bigger issues. Keep hitting it.

As far as getting the drummer to get what you want, put a single mic about 3' high and 7' feet in front of the kit. Have him play the song. Have him listen back to it. If his kick and snare aren't obviously the loudest parts of the drum kit, he has failed. Tell him to do it again. Repeat until the kick and snare have power.

Brandon