Better drum sound?

[thesilentdrummer]

Hey everyone:

Over the last few months, I have been steadily adding to my recording knowledge and am trying to lock in to a good drum sound. So I experimented with placement, compression, and eq and this is what I got (please excuse the playing-I was kinda making this up as I went). My main concern is the snare. Last time I tried out my drum sound, Brandon said it didn't have enough crack, and that I needed to crush the drums more . I tried to take that to heart and apply it here, but I am not quite sure that I succeeded. Lemme know if this is ballpark for some rock sound. Oh, and I didn't set up overheads, so excuse the weak crashes too.

Thanks

[.tom]

too much verb ta really dig in to a critique. cmp attack is too fast and... is this a stereo buss cmp? the hole tang sounds.. pizza box is wut he'll say. hahahaha.. sorry. tell a bit about the capture -how many mics.. close micing description.. and how u applied cmp(compression)..

[thesilentdrummer]

Sorry about the sea of reverb... it just made it the stuff sound better, so I left my experiment on there when I rendered it down. Attached a no reverb clip.

SM57 on snare, about three inches up pointed past center (if you kinda understand what I mean -- that is, instead of pointing downward at the snare center, its pivoted more upward, more towards the side of the rim closest to the drummer). Kick is an Audix D6 inside about 6 inches away pointed at the beater. Tom mics (3) are PG57's, about a fist's (I dunno, maybe 3 inches) distance away pointed between the rim and center. Compression was pretty much the same for all drums and the bus, so I'll tell you the drum buss compressor settings: 8dB Threshold, Infinite ratio, hard gain reduction, 15ms attack, 112ms release. Oh, and there is a master limiter post gain set to a threshold of -6.

I take no offense to the pizza box sounding snare comment. I'd rather hear the honest answer than think I have a good sound only to record something that actually means something like that and be disappointed by. All I know is that I tried some different tunings and this sounded good to the ear, so I slapped the 57 on about an inch away pointed at the near rim. All I got was attack, so I moved it back, and more of what I was hearing in the room was coming out of that, so I kept it. I guess this illustrates that I settle for even the slightest improvement, however small it may be. I haven't been able to get anything good out of this snare head, so I'll probably end up getting a new snare head. Suggestions anyone??

[Full Sound]

Sound to me that technical part is ok. But your drumming not.
That's why most people say 60% of the drum sound comes from the drummers hands and the 40% from the kit, room and engineer skills. Get a skilled drummer to play with your set up and post the clip again. That way we can give you a better opinion.

Cheers!

[thesilentdrummer]

Just curious, but is there something that makes you say that another drummer would make this better?? I mean, this was complete improvisation as I went, so I want to know if you think if I actually planned out what I was gonna play, would it be better?? Or am I doing something wrong with technique? Is my skill level not high enough to be worthy of recording??

I ask because the kind of music I listen to (and would record) is generally very simple stuff. I by no means consider myself a great drummer, but I am bad enough that I should go out and find someone to play for me?

Please be honest: don't worry about hurting my feelings (I have none). I posted to improve my recordings, not get praise for my drumming.

[Full Sound]

No ofense dude. Are you an engineer/ producer or a drummer?
Does not sound to me that your main thing is playing drums. I'm sorry.
Even for an improvisation the hits just don't sound right. Don't mean to offend you.
I can't play drums...not even a single hit. But if you want top notch drum sounds you need to start with a really skilled drummer, a well tuned kit in decent room.

[thesilentdrummer]

Hey, no offense is taken. In my current state, my main instrument is vocals, but I've been at the drums for 6 years, and an "engineer/producer" for almost a year (this is what I am trying to get good at). I understand completely what you are tying to say. No matter how good your recording chain is, and how awesome your instrument is, with out someone who can make it sound good, your thousands of dollars of gear is useless. Thanks for the comments.

[.tom]

oheds are essential to a drum capture. set them up and do another take. don't use cmp.. since u apply cmp digitally, it wont matter if it were applied pre or post recording. just make a simple mix w/o cmp/limiter and post it here...

[thesilentdrummer]

will do. thanks

[.tom]

btw, ur not a shitty drummer. there are bars where u are on. certainly u need to get it even. practice with a clik. slammin is good with rok. brandon is right. but i cant help u with the drum sound if it's masked by poor applied compression. when u put those oheds up, make them equal distance from the center of the snare drum. somewhere like 45->65 inches from the snare... also about 6->7 feet hi... height doesn't need to b even. point down but not straight down.