Interface VS Mixer for drums help

drumdrum · 14-01-2011 3:10am #1

Hi guys,

Im primarily a drummer (hence the name!

) and I am looking to be able to record myself playing both for practice purposes, and to be able to lay down a proper drum demo quality drum track at home when needs be.

Now I'm not a total newb when it comes to recording (but Im fairly green still), and its was recommended to me to build up my own collection of drum mics rather than get one of those mic kits. To start, I am looking into getting a pair of NT5s for overheads, a D-6 for the bass drum and a SM57 for the snare top. I will probably expand upon this in the future with individual tom mics, but for now (due to budget reasons!) this is all I can afford.

Now heres my question...

Would I be better off routing these mics into a mixer and from the mixer into my audio interface card (and then into the computer), or would I be better off getting something like this Profire 2626 and routing the mics directly into my laptop? My budget for getting whichever is at MOST €500, so is the profire the best one I can get for my budget?
If money was no object, which one would you recommend (Im guessing I could maybe save another month or two if the quality is noticeably different)?

Im guessing that by going the mixer route I would only get 1 track on audio into my DAW for processing (maybe I'm wrong on this), but surely with a good mixer set correctly would this matter?
For information, my laptop is a MacBook Pro running Logic 8.

Thanks for any help you can give guys.
Cheers!
-DD

DamagedTrax · 14-01-2011 10:31am

you could do it either way. both have pro's and cons.

a mixer will give you a stereo track back into your daw but you'll be limited with what you can do with that track and you'd really need to understand mixing levels, eq and compression (if the mixer has it) before you start commiting.

an interface in the equation will give you a lot more control after the fact as each seperate mic will have its own mono track in the DAW. the drawback is that to get the required amount of channels for a full kit micing set-up you'll spend quite a bit on it.

the profire is a great interface and if it's 8 channels (which is expandable) is enough for you then this is the route that i'd recommend.

GTE · 14-01-2011 11:23am

An interface would make the most sense in the long run.
An eight channel interface should do you fine. You are best off also to get one with ADAT in and out at the back if you can afford it should you ever expand significantly or want to record more instruments at the same time.

i57dwun4yb1pt8 · 14-01-2011 12:06pm

my advice is - if you wish to create home drum tracks of good quality - dont bother
it isnt going to happen without alot of pain and frustration.

if you are only aiming for practise and very rough demos then by all means - do it.

recording and processing drums is a tough call even in a top studio , never mind at home .
you need good audio skills to pull it off ,

i did it ( took me years to learn ) and the time it took to get it right was not worth the hassle

here are some things that will make it alot easier - but still not top quality.

1/ you have either a great sounding live room with a high ceiling above 10 feet

or

a totally dead low ceiling room

to record in

this is to avoid phase and comb filter effects from the ceiling , and the usual amateur 'boxy' sound

2/ a well treated mixing room seperate from the recording room - this is essential -
good headphones may be useable here , but I dont advise it.

3/ decent pre amps and mics

4/ do not use more than 4 mics - to minimise phase effects - until you get alot more experienced.
even then i wouldnt bother .

so use two overheads ( nt 5's are ok - bit bright and a touch harsh , but acceptable )
kick - d112 is a good start
and snare - 57 is good

the d6 is not a great kick choice for home recording either as it is a very processed sound
( ie mid frequencys are non existent - you need mids in the kick for most genres )

if you only play metal or dance music its fine though

5/ use at least a 4 mic interface , or 4 good preamps into a 4 input interface , and firewire or adat is best - USB is usually grief .

REAPER is a great daw to begin with software wise.

i recoomend setting the overheads up in a modified recorderman ( or glynn johns ) setup )

keep the snare exactly the same distance from each mic , and capture the local tom to each mic as well
as any local cymbals to each mic .

i set them up a bout a foot in front of the kit at front pointing down the crash at the small tom and snare
and about a foot beside the kit pointing down the side crash / ride and floor tom to the snare

eq the mics in mixing to bring out more tom body if you need it -
i used jospehson c42's when i did it - and eqd about 5 db at 120 hz on a low q to bring out the tom low end

you dont need seperate tom mics for home stuff.
you may need to reverse the snare mic phase for this overhead setup , try it and listen

you also need to play the kit in a balanced fashion ( ie hit the hats / cymbals weakest and the toms hardest )

in truth ,
any of us drummers who took up home recording ended up buying V drums and Superiour drummer 2 samples sets .

some of us ( like me ) still record live hi hat and ride , with the vdrums samples and blend with the sampels .

you will get excellent quailty tracks this way .

im only saying this to save you the pain and hassle and expense of attempting home drum recording and expecting to get pro results or even good quality results.

also , alot of the quality comes from how you mix and process the drums tracks - if you do not have a decent mix room you will not obtain great drum tracks.
if you do not have decent mix / engineering skills you will not create good drum tracks .

if you wish to do it to learn - go right ahead , but please have low expectations.

it would take me a day to get a decent drum track using real drums and mics , where as it takes an hour using samples and vdrums.
the quality difference is like night and day.

good luck , and again think carefully before going ahead with it .

drumdrum · 14-01-2011 2:23pm

Hi guys,
Firstly thanks everyone who gave me feedback. Its very much appreciated.

Thanks DaDumTish, your post has definiteyl given me food for thought.
I've played drums in studios lots in my life (being recorded, not doing the recording) and one thing I noticed is that alot of engineers use programs like Drumagog to re-sample all of the live hits. In the end the kit I use sounds nothing like the output on the drum track (at best they would blend in the original kit slightly with drumagogs samples).

I will investigate the V-drum with SD 2.0 samples approach. That said, for budget reasons any decent v-drum set (with the mesh heads, the rubber heads dont feel right IMO) start at about €1800 + so for budget and learning purposes it might be an idea to go the mic way.

Would it be an option to use mics on my kit and to use a re-sampling program like drumagog instead of needing to splash out on a vdrum set? Could I control the mic bleed with some heavy gating to remove possible "confusion" for the re-sampling program? Would this allow me the best of both worlds, so to speak?

also, does Superior Drummer 2.0 act as a re-sampler tool similar to drumagog? Or are you simply recording the MIDI track via your Vdrums and using that to program SD2.0 hits?

Thanks guys....

Oh and just to mention, I currently use EZDrummer to make my drum tracks and I program it using a MIDI track. I find that it sounds ok at best, but sometimes I want that big compressed professional "rocky" drum sound (think Fightstar, Paramore, Muse etc etc) that I cant seem to get with EZDrummer. Maybe I'm just not processing it correctly but I find EZD hard to get that big punchy sound without clipping my mix.

i57dwun4yb1pt8 · 14-01-2011 5:41pm

1/ i tried the drumagog approach and it works , but its even more time consuming than plain miking
and you do need to have good mix skills and mix tools / room to get it sounding natural.
its up to you , but i wouldnt bother with it unless its just a learning experience.

2/ SD 2 plays back samples to midi track played and recorded by yourself on an ekit module
you dont need a great ekit - id reccomend recording the kick , snare , toms and crashes on an ekit
while recording a real hi hat and ride with your nt 5 mics. ( close mike each one )
sd 2 does not resample .

sd 2 has great sounds feel and production capabilites to make a very pro sound .

ez drummer is the same , its like a light version of sd2 you can get a big pro sound from ezdrummer, but it requires mixing / processing skills - this is where most home drummers fall down - in the mix skills .

id say half you probelm is lack of mix skills , so it might be a good idea to plough ahead with real drum miking to learn the mix skills needed ( its not easy though ! )

or

work harder on your ez drummer processing to get better mix skills .
you need to use compression and eq / reverbs etc to create big drum sounds at home .

first off, you need to expand the ezdrummer tracks into seperate tracks , and start grouping processing them

say

room ( maybe some compression )
overheads
toms ( compression eq , maybe a reverb )
kick ( compression and eq )
snare ( comparession eq, a reverb )

and a group for kick and snare toms to send to parallel comprssor to add bigness.

and recombine them into overall master drum track group

I could go in to greater detail, but its a long explanation

my overall advice is to get a setup that allows you to concentrate on playing and making music
instead of consuming loads of time trying to fix issues / quality etc

this is what ive done - ( the hard way ;-) )

if you pm me i can link you to some tracks using my method.

Interface VS Mixer for drums help

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