Newbie In Desperate Need of Help

[thirteeninvitations]

I have been trying to get a good drum sound for a few weeks now, but it only seems to be getting worse... So any help I can get would be very much appreciated.

My setup so far:

Interface with up to 16 tracks going into computer. (no latency issues)
Mic for each of 5 toms + snare
Mic inside kick, and Mic just infront of kick (catches a punchy sound)
4 condenser mics above the cymbals

I have tried moving the condenser mics close, further away, and sometimes I will put one close to the snare and ride. Then I will hit record and play some beats. After that I pan everything (or already had it pre-panned).

Then I will try to get the volumes right, and use the software to process the drums. So far I used some gates on about everything, but only have decent results on the snare, kick and a little on the toms. When I use gates I can then use replacement on those tracks, but preferably don't like doing this. It makes the recording sound better, but there must be a way to make it sound good without doing this.

The overheads/condensers catch the entire kit, so it seems almost impossible to gate them, because the cymbals don't jump out enough, in fact, the snare usually is the loudest signal coming through them. I was hoping to find a way to isolate the cymbals. The closest I got to this was when setting the mics very close to the hi-hat, or ride, and opening up a EQ filter and dropping all the low frequencies, and then using a gate on it. Once more, the snare is usually still cutting through to hard (so does kick and toms at times).

Anyhow.. I was thinking about switching back to recording with the electric kit, because it sounds a lot cleaner with, well, about zero work being done. I could see the recordings I'm making now being good if, perhaps I were playing pop music and the drumkit only used a snare, kick, hihat, ride, and one cymbal, but that would only be because the snare and kick tracks would be replaced, so that would leave just 3 cymbal sources being real. (Also a lot of pop drums don't have that much going on.. what I'm doing has a lot of different drum pieces being hit, and it just sounds too cluttered).

So what I'm asking... is there something I'm missing or need to know to get this to sound better? I can't give up.. because, well there's nothing else I like but making music, and I've been making recordings for years, nothing that spectacular, and up until this point, always with programmed drums, or electric drumkits. While the feeling and groove is better with the real kit, the quality of hits/sounds went down.. Please help if you can.

Oh yeah, I wanted to add this final thing. I think my drum recordings (can I say this?) sound like complete ass. There's gotta be a way to stop this, and clean up the recordings. It's strange because my old mixing board, which I got at a pawn shop, a Yamaha ProMix-1, made in 1993, going into the computer through the microphone jack recorded onto 1 track.. sounded better than the ability to manipulate up to 16 different tracks through Firewire. Anyone ever heard this statement before? So to wrap this up.. I'm extremely frusterated, so if there's anything you can do to help me, please do. (and yes I have been reading a lot of the other messages/blogs on here and testing out what has been said, so i am trying, and doing tons of experimenting).

Thanks
13

[brandondrury]

Interface with up to 16 tracks going into computer. (no latency issues)
Mic for each of 5 toms + snare
Mic inside kick, and Mic just infront of kick (catches a punchy sound)
4 condenser mics above the cymbals

5 toms is a mega pain. The more close mics, the greater the need for gating and more phasing nightmares.

Individually micing cymbals is one way to go. I did it one time and it turned out alright. The second time it was terrible.

The overdependency on close micing is the #1 cause of bad sounding drums in home recordings. When all of these mics are you using mix together, I'd expect there to be extreme issues with phase unless you know exactly what you are doing.

Drums are the kind of instrument that must sound damn good with just one or two mics before they will sound good with 20 mics.

The overheads/condensers catch the entire kit, so it seems almost impossible to gate them, because the cymbals don't jump out enough, in fact, the snare usually is the loudest signal coming through them.

I couldn't imagine wanting to gate the overheads. That kind of defeats the purpose. The snare should be the loudest thing in the overheads BY FAR.

The main issue I'm seeing here is you are looking at the drum kit as 10 individual components. That's not how it works. The drums are one instrument and should be looked approached in that way.

I was hoping to find a way to isolate the cymbals.

I'm not sure why you would want this, but there is only one way. You do the gimmic trick where you track with no cymbals and then you go back and overdub the cymbals. I have no interest in this one.

is there something I'm missing or need to know to get this to sound better?

I'm not digging your overall approach. I think you need to decide if you really want to be an audio engineer or if you simply want to capture your drums. If you decide you want to get into this audio engineering business, you need to understand that it is a craft that is just as difficult and requires just much work as playing drums.

Some of your ideas make sense to the laymen but don't really work when you really get into this. I go into great detail on this in my upcoming home recording book.

I think my drum recordings (can I say this?) sound like complete ass.

Yes, the word "this" is allowed on this forum. ha ha

It's strange because my old mixing board, which I got at a pawn shop, a Yamaha ProMix-1, made in 1993, going into the computer through the microphone jack recorded onto 1 track.. sounded better than the ability to manipulate up to 16 different tracks through Firewire.

This is exactly what I expected. With the power of 16 tracks requires the responsibility of 16 tracks.