Drum Rooms: Church or Attic?

[Powerpop451]

Okay, So I am in a bit of a problem here. I have recorded drum tracks for my band's five song EP, in a room in the converted attic of my house and got some pretty decent sounding drums using 4 mics and doing a good bit of EQing on them.

However due to our drummer's lack of ability to play to a click track in time we have decided to redo the drums once more in order to hopefully get a better performance not using a click and have hi just play to the scratch tracks which were played to a click. So we will see how that goes.

But anyway the point of this is that our drummer now wants to record in a rather moderate to large size sanctuary in a church we have access to, with A-frame type ceilings and carpeted floors. I don't know how I feel about this because I really don't want to have to deal with any unwanted reverb being picked up by the mics and I don't have room mics to benefit from any of the room sound anyway. So I would be close micing the snare, kick and using two overheads.

So would you recommend tracking drums in this attic space room like we have been doing or do you think the drums would be benefitted from the large church room? By the way the attic is also A-Frame 13' x 18' and the ceiling is about 8 feet in the center and then comes down on the sides from the 8 foot center.

And if the church is a more ideal spot what sort of micing positions would you suggest to get rid of most of the room verb on the kit. Plus our drum plays the cymbals quite hard and I have and the problem of the high hat and crash being picked up by the snare 57 almost as loud as the actual snare.

So you see I have quite a few issues to deal with here. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks a bunch!
Mark

[.tom]

typically a church room is good for drum capture. it'll make the capture sound bigger and more balanced. Best to close mic and a pair up top with one room mic or a stereo room mic setup. get those oheds up high and point them almost straight down at the drums in a diagonal where, on a righty drummer you'd have (symetry about the snare/kik) your (mix)left mic back abit shooting down at the floor tom, middle tom and cymbals. the (mix)right mic would then be around the outside of tom 1 -the little one, pointed down at the tom and cymbals on that side. Placement i'm suggesting would be reccomended using matched SDC pencil mics like the Rode nt5 or Octava mk12 and even LDC like the Rode nt3, nt1 etc. These mics are fairly focused cardiod pattern type mics.

If you are using a less focused mic set then you'd want to get the spaced pair closer to the drums. Always use a tape measure to place overheads. keep the distances symetric and you'll keep it all clear when they play back together. it's not just about the source it's also about accurately retaining or reproducing the room delay times when capturing drums.

the other two mics you have could be your "close mics" on kik and snare.

Tell your drummer to hit those drums hard. he can work on balancing his kit in the future but for now just tell him to focus on hitting the drums louder. try moving the oheds to capture a bit behind him or about parallel to his drum stool but again a bit on the diagonal to keep symetry.

if you list the mics and pres you'll get more specific advice. do you have any analog compressors? analog gates?

[brandondrury]

Simply recording in an unknown room because it is bigger can lead to results that you didn't anticipate. I had an 80s style hard rock band ask me to record drums in their big shop which was entirely wood and probably 25' x 50' x 15'. As ideal as this sounds, the room wasn't what I expected. They had a ton of stuff in the room, carpet on some of the floor, stuff hanging on the walls, etc. The ambiance was really knocked down to practically zero.

Any gains in longer early reflections and such were nullified by the fact that my studio monitors sounded TOTALLY different. I had absolutley no idea what they were telling me. Not a clue!

Working in a totally new environment made me realize how much I missed my space. I had cables in a certain spot. I know where the outlets were. I didn't have this weird whine sound at home. I had a method for isolating the amps at home. You get the idea.

All in all the recording was a shit ton of extra work and I don't think it sounded any better.

I'm not trying to scare you from trying new things. I'm just saying that I would go to the church ahead of time and clap your hands and yell to see if it's the kind of ambiance you hear on a Motley Crue record (or whatever you are trying to do).

Brandon

[.tom]

ya, those are good points brandon. In a sitch like that I'd use a pair of AKG 240DF to monitor. the defused field setup gives me very clear info about the sourcing. as you say, if the room sounds good with a clap then it'll sound good. you want to remove any objects that would resonate or quiet them using a blanket etc.

[brandondrury]

In a sitch like that I'd use a pair of AKG 240DF to monitor.

Good call! I wish I would have just done it with headphones. Not only did I have no idea what my monitors were telling me, I scratched them up in transit. I don't care about that really, but if I ever want to sell them, I'll be paying for it.

Brandon