Drum recording - tips and techniques please

Is that Ste from Soundproof? If so give us a holler and I will call up to ya and give ya a run thru if you want?

DaDumTish wrote: »

to be honest , I would advise scraping the money to track the drums in pro studio bring the files home and do the rest in your own .

or use ez-drummer

its not all about tracking either , its having a great mix room / monitoring
and knowing how to process the drums to get the sound you want .


if you really want to do it ,
I would do it in either a room with a 10- 12 foot or higher ceiling

or in a low ceiling totally dead room - bar the floor .

I agree with this post!

Before you hit the studio, save yourselves the time and money and sort out how exactly you want the drum part to go like. I've done sessions on many artists who are fine up until the day of the studio and suddenly its like "ooh! what if you try a beat like this?" or "try this fill" and them often not communicating their wishes to you properly. Only wastes time and money so it does (not to mention the drummer patience! )

you could always try to borrow an ekit and connect it up to your computer to record the drum parts that way. There are some amazing sample libraries out there that are used either on their own or mixed into a drum track. This is even done on a professional level and no one really seems to mind. Such libraries include Superior Drummer 2.0, BFD and Steven Slate Drums. you can achieve amazing results with these.

Drum recording IMHO is a true art form in itself which can take years to master. So many variables involved.
If you are dedicated to recording your kit just be aware of a few things:

- Drums are SUPPOSED to resonate. That dead sound that you hear is processing on a drums or a drum kit that has been muted in the studio. The drum shells have depth for a reason (to resonate the sound) so dont be worried if your dry kit sounds too "boomy" or "ringy"...you can adjust "ring" with Moon Gel or go heavier with the dampening for a more "deadened" sound.

- Always have fresh or relatively fresh, ie. less than a month old and not-that-worn skins. I know how expensive drum skins can be but its worth it. Personally, I'd probably suggest clear skins for the toms and a coated snare if using sticks. If using brushes I'd use coated on all.

- Tune your kit. A neat trick is to try to tune the toms to the key of the song, if you have the time (this can get quite tedious and time consuming if you're mot careful) but its not essential. But what IS essential is to get he drum tunes correctly on both the batter and the resonator sides of the drum (ie, the top and bottom!) There are tons of tutorials and youtube videos on this. Its very subjective but two safe bets are either to tune the bottom skin to the same pitch as the top for a rich "singing" sound, or to tune the bottom skin a major third below the top skin for a less "singing" but with a slight descending decay tone. IMHO, use your ears until you are getting a nice rich singing tone that you like. You can dampen later but its generally gives a slightly better tone, even when dampened.

- Listen out for squeaks particularly with the bass drum pedal and hi hat stand. WD40 the bass drum pedal chain(s) and springs tends to help this. Also check that the pressure of the beater on the bass drum skin isn't causing it to "squeak" around the edges. Push the beater into the drum slowly but strongly in and out a few times to check this. A squeak from the skin is usually caused by unequal tension around the head so break out that drum key and get tuning!
Oh and listen out for individual squeaks and rattles from other hardware also.

- Cymbals close to drums will resonate a little when the drum is hit with force. This is due to the transfer of sound energy off the drum upwards which causes the cymbal to sound lightly. It's never an issue in live play, but for any strong tom-tom sections, it can cause some unwanted noise. You can usually gate this out, but you can also lose some tom quality. To eliminate this just move the cymbals farther from the drums a bit.

- Get the sound you want right at the source (if possible, which with some clever thinking it often is!). This'll leave you with less to do during mixing and generally a better sound overall.
The most important factors for drum sounds are the player, the kit and the room. Mics etc play a part too, but aren't as impactful on a kit than say a vocal (IMHO).

The player - No, I don't mean a self obsessed ladies man (we're the drummer after all not the singer! ) but check your drummer style. If he uses sticks, what kind and how hard he hits will make a big difference. Kits sound different when played hard and played softly. I'm not saying that he needs to go Captain Caveman on them, but often a kit sounds its best when it is hit with a moderate to decent amount of force. Softer just sounds wimpy and whacking them can give too much attack. This is VERY much subjective and genre dependent to keep an eye on your drummer style and try to keep a few different stick types around. There is not real right/wrong about this sonically, so again a few different stick types gives you more options.

The Kit - The quality of the kit itself is a huge factor for a good drum sound. You can do all of the above on a Pearl Target kit and it'll at best sound "meh". Do the above on a Pearl Reference kit (I like Pearls! ) and chances are your drum sound will be amazing. You can get great results on lesser kits sure. Again it depends on the sound you want, but just like with guitar, the better the instrument, generally the better the sound.

The Room - This is a big factor almost as important as the kit itself (IMHO). The kit sound will sound different in different rooms....fact! Reflections from the kit hugely affect the perceived sound and a great kit in a bad room will make the recording sound crap. That said a crap kit in a great room will probably also sound crap. Its a tradeoff. A great room can be anywhere really - there are no rules for it. If you find a great room that has a good sound bring your gear to it. You can move gear, but you cant move a room. A good test is to bring a snare and a floor tom to the room and move around the room hitting the drums, listening all the time for any nasty resonances or room modes. If you find a room you like, then use it!
There is another route you could go which some engineers like. This is to find a DEADENED room where the drums sound fairly flat and dead. The engineers add in artificial reverb during the mix to "add life" to them. This can yield great results, but I find it a bit finicky and I believe that if you can get the sound right at the source, it'll solve many an issue later in the mix stage.

- Lastly I will say a fe bits n bobs:
There is nothing more tiring to the human ear than the same sound over and over and over and over and over and over.... (ok you get my drift, I'd bet! )
This is most noticeable in the bass (aka kick) drum and snare drum sound as these are the main components of the drums rhythmic impact in the overall mix. You can EQ or process this sound from song to song to get a different sound and thats fine. But I find that if you can get a hold of another decent enough snare or kick (or both!) then do and maybe swap out the sound of one in one song or something. Again if you can get it right at the source mentality....
Again, ask you drummer not to over use a particular cymbal or to have a few available on the day. Nothing is more annoying than a drummer always ending each phrase / fill with the same crash cymbal. It gets very distracting quickly. Get two or three different cymbals and you're sorted.
Ask your drummer not to get smashed the night before a recording session. May seem obvious, but in my experiences you'd be very surprised!!



Well, OP I hope this helped you somewhat as its taken me ages to type it, but share the knowledge / experiences, thats what I always say! Prepare properly, make and stick by decisions, and trust your ears!

Happy recording!

DaDumTish wrote: »

ive noticed alot of drummers dont hit kits hard enough anymore , alot of wimpy players out there these days .

Yeah, a big problem I had when doing drums for a band was a limp wristed snare hitter. The rest was fine, he did lay into the toms but I want to mention this because the drum heads didnt help him.

He had a very thick two ply Remo Emperor X on the snare. These may as well be thick rump steaks.
Great sounding head and I love playing with one but I am a naturally heavy hitter.

So, make sure the heads aren't making your task more difficult.

The same session as the steak headed snare had a Pearl Target drum kit.
Perfectly fine but it needed work to get the best out of it.

The way I did it was deaden the toms down enough just to kill most of the ringing. I also had new coated Remo Emperor heads on the batter side of the toms and the Emperor x on the snare. Ambassadors on all the resonants.
Remember what I said about having them suit the player, maybe a single ply head with a dot on the snare or would have been better for my session.

A new Evans coated EMAD went on the kick too. Very nice for getting slow low end thud out of a less then perfect kick. It had an Evans EQ resonant on the reso side. Basically a ported head.

As has been said the room makes a huge difference but I wont get too much into that but I wanted to talk about my setup when I was in a room with duvets on the walls.