Bad Drum Sound

[D2dadub]

Hey,

I am guilty of all the things not to do described in this forum, can someone help? Brandon?

Issues:
Small room - I get a ton of bleed into the snare and bass mic. It takes me forever to mix it out. I have been recording in a smallish room with glass doors. From reading the forum I assume I am getting a ton of reflection and that is what I am hearing. I can open the doors, and or move the drums. I assume that should help. Thoughts?

Tom ring - So bad when I mix it out I get a weak tom sound. Advice? I try tuning, but have resisted taping the heads up. What is working best in other home studios?

Too many mics - I am close miking 8 channels because I can - what would you recommend. I want powerful bass snare that cracks, and toms that rattle entrails... Please advise

Thanks for any help...

[brandondrury]

Small room - I get a ton of bleed into the snare and bass mic. It takes me forever to mix it out. I have been recording in a smallish room with glass doors. From reading the forum I assume I am getting a ton of reflection and that is what I am hearing. I can open the doors, and or move the drums. I assume that should help. Thoughts?

This depends. A very live, small room will cause lots of bleed. However, you are still going to get quite a bit bleed in your your snare mic. The snare mic is not really a snare mic. The snare mic is a "spot mic" which is designed to give you a signal that highlights the snare drum. There is no way for a mic to completely ignore other noises in the room ( like the loud assed cymbals, for example). You can try gating, but this shouldn't be necessary if the drummer knows how to play.

This brings up a much bigger issue. If the drummer isn't hitting the snare at an absolutely insane intensity, he probably doesn't know what he is doing. This opens up about 30,000 possible problems. If a drummer doesn't know how to hit drums properly, good luck!

The biggest problem with a small room is boxiness. This adds a coat of 400-600Hz onto everything, but EQ isn't the best solution. A better sounding room is the right solution.

Tom ring - So bad when I mix it out I get a weak tom sound. Advice? I try tuning, but have resisted taping the heads up. What is working best in other home studios?

The source is everything.

If your toms suck, you've got to figure out a solution. Tom tuning is extremely important. Using the right tom is important. How you angle the tom is important. Using drums that are not warped is important. There are a thousand possibilities here. Sometimes you need the toms to ring a little bit. You can always go in and cut that out. Sometimes you need a bunch of stuff to kill the ring. Sometimes you don't need any.

Also, the tom issue goes back to the drummer. If he tries to cram too many tom hits into a fill, by default, the toms will sound small. Hitting less toms with more authority is a giant part of the big drum sound process.

So bad when I mix it out I get a weak tom sound.

What are you doing exactly?

Too many mics - I am close miking 8 channels because I can - what would you recommend. I want powerful bass snare that cracks, and toms that rattle entrails... Please advise

I'm guessing
kick
snare top
snare bottom
tom1
tom2
tom3

What else are you close micing?

I don't consider overheads to be (close micing). Let me know if you do.

Are you using a room mic? If so, did it help in any way?

Brandon

[xBTWATWDx]

As a drummer, I must admit that I hate tuning my drums. I decided to pick up the "drum dial." It cost about $60 i think but it was worth every penny. It makes getting the tension at every lug just right easy, and will also make it much easier to get the sound you want out of your toms. The unfortunate truth is that to find the right sound can take hours of adjusting the tension on both heads of each tom. Tuning is really frustrating, you just have to sit down and do it untill you find exactly what you want.

[brandondrury]

If you live in a City, you should call up an engineer that is awsome at tuning drums, buy him a steak, give him $30, and have him show you how to do it. It'll save you a billion years of frustration.

Brandon

[thesilentdrummer]

Ringing toms: I used to have this problem. What I did was switch to Remo Pinstripes (though others on the site suggested in addition Remo, Aquarian, or Evans coated heads). After I seated and tuned them correctly, I played around with the tunings on the drums to get them to give least amount of ring with the best sound I could get. I am really happy with the sound now, but it took a total of 3-4 hours to tune, seat, adjust just 3 toms (I screwed around with the snare and kick enough to get them where I want them to be).

[vipvop]

we deaden the kit with washing up sponges, restrict the drummers use of cymbol or make them use our custom very dead cymbols. we've found it's easier to get a big solid sound with analogue so use a 2 track 1/4" reel-to-reel for the drums then mix down with reverb and eq to a digital recorder. 3 mics are enough for us since we pick up so much of everything in the other mics, just the toms kick and snare - it's too small and bright a room for overheads to be of any use. The room doesn't sound particularly good so a room mic isn't appropriate.

[Irish614]

"custom very dead cymbols"? (correct spelling of this is Cymbals but hey this isn't english class) sounds like a bad horror movie, you could always just put a gate on the cymbals or place 2-4 pieces of painters masking tape on the cymbals to deaden them works like a charm. Also why do you deaden the kit? do you mean you deaden the KICK? Drums are meant to resonate if they are tuned properly they should sound good without dampening like Brandon says the drummer should beat the hell outta the kit if you want to sound like the big boys go big or go home, stop killing the drum sound by dampening!

Ringing toms: I used to have this problem. What I did was switch to Remo Pinstripes (though others on the site suggested in addition Remo, Aquarian, or Evans coated heads). After I seated and tuned them correctly, I played around with the tunings on the drums to get them to give least amount of ring with the best sound I could get. I am really happy with the sound now, but it took a total of 3-4 hours to tune, seat, adjust just 3 toms (I screwed around with the snare and kick enough to get them where I want them to be).

Tuning drums is a pain if you don't know what your doing. I recently found a real easy way to tune them faster than the old days. I used to be a huge fan of Remo Coated Emperors until I realized that when you get remo pinstripe the sound is amazing. I tune my bottom heads slightly tighter than the tops on the tom toms. The top heads I give about 2-2 1/2 turns after seating and making each of the tension rods are finger tight, they will loosen so be sure as you go tightening with the drum key that you tighten the ones you have yet to tighten with your fingers again. As for the bottoms I give about 3 turns. If you want an amazing kick go do yourself a favor if you haven't already and buy the EVANS EQ3 kick drum head, absolutely amazing! Also make sure your going in a criss cross pattern don't try and tune the drums in a circular pattern go diagonally from one to another it's a sure fire way to make sure your adding the right amount of tension to each tension rod. Try placing the mic underneath the tom instead of on top and see if that gives you a good sound because thats what I do except on the floor toms, as always make sure the mic is placed towards the middle. Happy drumming.

[brandondrury]

you could always just put a gate on the cymbals

That also sounds like a bad horror movie!

A drummer has tremendous control over the ring of his kit by how he plays it. It's fairly obvious that the harder you hit the kit, the less ring it will appear to have simply because the attack part is so much louder.

I think people get really wrapped up in stopping the drums from ringing because they are soloing the drums too much. In other words, if you really want to see what the drums sound like, have the whole band play half a song. Do a super quick mix and listen. Most of the ringing and such is completley lost in a mix. Hell, I sometimes have trouble getting the snare to cut the way I want it to.

With that said a drum can ring too much, but this is usually from a kit that just sounds like shit anyway or has been tuned by an ape.

Brandon

[dannyman]

Two words for the home studio: ELECTRONIC DRUMS. Yes, they can sound as good as an acoustic set, and unless you play jazz, they are pretty much superior for recording, especially if run individual outs, but even if you don't, there are tons of settings, like: Q's, filters, EQ's, layering different drum sounds, decay, mic placement, and much, much more that will enable anyone to achieve their perfect sound, regardless of where they record. If you're serious about home recording, sell your acoustic kit or somehow get the money to buy an electronic kit. Yamaha's top of the line kit costs a measly $2000, and the sky is the limit: you can even program your own sounds into the kit. When you think about it, an excellent acoustic kit costs at least $4,000, then you add on great cymbals, drum heads, not to mention microphones (OOOUUUUUCCCCCHHHHHH!!), and, of course, you'll be replacing the heads and cymbals in no time. Not only that, but you need to tune your drums every time. Then there's acoustically optimizing your recording space (more $'s). Electronic drums win, hands down, unless you are sponsored by a major drum company and can afford to spend $2 million making a record.

[Irish614]

Originally Posted by dannyman

Two words for the home studio: ELECTRONIC DRUMS. Yes, they can sound as good as an acoustic set, and unless you play jazz, they are pretty much superior for recording, especially if run individual outs, but even if you don't, there are tons of settings, like: Q's, filters, EQ's, layering different drum sounds, decay, mic placement, and much, much more that will enable anyone to achieve their perfect sound, regardless of where they record. If you're serious about home recording, sell your acoustic kit or somehow get the money to buy an electronic kit. Yamaha's top of the line kit costs a measly $2000, and the sky is the limit: you can even program your own sounds into the kit. When you think about it, an excellent acoustic kit costs at least $4,000, then you add on great cymbals, drum heads, not to mention microphones (OOOUUUUUCCCCCHHHHHH!!), and, of course, you'll be replacing the heads and cymbals in no time. Not only that, but you need to tune your drums every time. Then there's acoustically optimizing your recording space (more $'s). Electronic drums win, hands down, unless you are sponsored by a major drum company and can afford to spend $2 million making a record.

Absolutely no way would I sell my acoustic kit for an electronic, you say Yamaha's top of the line kit costs $2000, I could buy a custom built kit for that and have explosive sound rather than some digital crap. The only thing I find electronic kits useful for is getting sounds that real drums don't/can't produce and thats it. How much does it cost to replace one of those rubber pads once you break them 100$? I can get a whole pack of remo heads for $45, sticks 10 for 10$ and imagine breaking one of those fake rubber cymbals, how much does that cost for the good ones, I'm sure it adds right up with the price of quality cymbals. You said "you'll be replacing the heads and cymbals in no time" of course you'll have to eventually replace the heads, but I have NEVER had to replace any of my cymbals I have cracked ONLY 2 cymbals in my lifetime and I beat the hell outta them so I know they can take a beating. As for tuning I prefer tuning it the way I like it instead of having to flip through the sounds of *acoustic drums* recorded to play back when you hit one of the drum triggers. Come to think of it electronic kits are good for people who don't know how to tune real drums.
Now about the drum microphones, yes they can get expensive but that's what studios and jobs are for, spend your $ on your kit/accessories for your kit instead of buying Susie that pretty pink dress she wants for school. If you're serious about drumming you already know that acoustic offers much better quality and durability.
Stick with acoustic drums, if you know how to tune them and can actually play you will be thankful that you didn't buy some imitation drum set. Thats my 2 cents.