Zoom HD16 a bag of mics and a shoot in the dark

[CatCalledDog]

Hi folks

This is my first post on here, so I thought I'd jump straight in with a new thread....

Ok always dabbled in the world of home recording, eventually building my set up to a half decent bit of kit. Pods, gt8, emu 1616v card ,cubase 3LE, V-drums and BFD. Had varied results and mainly had to make do with DI..ing everything (As I don't live in a converted barn in the country with no one around for miles) Had some success and it has given me and the lads (the band) a great base to write and rehearse. However, as of late the drummer has been getting a bit twitchy about not using his much loved sonor kit, and as we are preparing to gig again we've rented a live room to get us in shape.

So i'm using the oppurtunity to capture as many takes of our tracks using the 'Real' drum kit as possible with the view to bringing them home and overdubbing the guitars back at home. This has led me to purchase a Zoom HD16 along with a 7 pcs set of Eagle drum mics(Cheap I know but that was what was left of my budget). We are a post rock, progish sounding 3 pcs band with no vocals one guitar, one bass. If possible I will DI the bass and Guitar through a headphone amp to cut out any bled. The room is lined from top to bottom with rockwool and material so there are no real hard surfaces to reflect from........

And thats it, what I need to know is....well what do I need to know? Advice please

[brandondrury]

However, as of late the drummer has been getting a bit twitchy about not using his much loved sonor kit, and as we are preparing to gig again we've rented a live room to get us in shape.

You are gonna have your work cut out for you beating the sounds in BFD.

The room is lined from top to bottom with rockwool and material so there are no real hard surfaces to reflect from........

Yuck! Rockwool is my preferred material for absorption when I want absorption. When I record drums, I want a big room that sounds ALIVE in almost all cases. Going overboard with Rockwool is going to make mixing extremely difficult if your tastes are anything like mine. This could be good for the old Fleetwood Mac drum sound from the 70s.

Most of the drum kits focus on close micing. All the excitement and balls of a drum kit comes from mics that are further from the kit. Close micing is there to blend in with the natural sound of the kit which you can find in overheads and room mics. So be very careful not to depend too much on the close mics. You will be disappointed if you do. I go into extensive detail about this subject in my upcoming home recording book.

Brandon

[CatCalledDog]

Hi Barndon

Thanks for the reply and thanks for this website.

Originally Posted by brandondrury

You are gonna have your work cut out for you beating the sounds in BFD.


This could be good for the old Fleetwood Mac drum sound from the 70s.

Brandon

Funny you should say that, as we wound the drummer up after the session saying how one of his patterns he plays on the toms reminded us of 'The Chain'. I'm actually a big fan of that sound. Anyway the session went well and really suited our stipped down 'post-rock' sound. It was very much a live recording as the better sounding tracks were actually the ones were we mic'd the bass and guitar up (instead of DI'ing). This obviously caused a bit of bleed on the overheads but as we made sure the guitar and bass were tuned in it sounded fine after I put a second guitar down back at home.

Was really pleased with the results of the cheap set of mic's i'd bought although I think a set of 57s as overheads would have sounded a bit more crisp. But hey the whole set of 7 (Eagle) mics cost me £110 ($250ish im guessing) the bass drum sound is great and the Zoom HD16 is fantastic. Its so simplistic in its design that the basic functions take minutes to master. I havn't used much of the editing function as I dumped it into Cubase 4LE(which comes bundled with it) and mixed it from there.

Theres nothing worse than recording a band when your actually one of the musicians playing the track. The pressure can get too you, but the HD16 makes easy work of it as you can just leave it running and split the tracks later.

So far i've mixed one of the tracks down and the band was pretty knocked out with the results. Ok so I'm sure plenty of people would have plently of things to say about it, but for me I never dreamed that home recording could be so 'Real'. When I think back to the early 90s messing around with a fostek 4 track (which probably cost £500+) trying to write drum patterns on a yamaha drum machine and now for just over £600 i'm recording a full band. For us the joy of writing and documenting what we've done and being able to knock copies out to our small fanbase is good enough. None of us need to make a living out of music anymore and so all the bullshit that goes with that is irrelevant. It's about nice guitars good beer, decents PA systems a decent line-up and being able to give our music away (for FREE) to anyone who's interested.

Cheers again.

[brandondrury]

I never dreamed that home recording could be so 'Real'.

Yup! It's pretty damn cool if you ask me!

Generally speaking, the recordings that intended to sound "real" end up sounding the best. It puts everyone in a state of mind where they must create the exact sound they are looking for.

You should post a mix in Recording Reviews. I'd love to hear it!

Brandon