Help me get weird and/or clean THWACKING drums sounds

[vvv]

A cuppla idears might be:

1. Gate the tracks ITB on mixdown for more control, consider small reverbs on individual drums, ex., a plate (gated as per Mr. Juke!) on the snare, another on the floor tom, etc.;

2. As stated by Mr. MacKinnon, sometimes distortion can be just the thing, even if you just mult the snare, or mebbe the room track, and do it ITB - when I do it, I always like this pretty low in the mix, me;

3. Try recording with the SM57 (or some mic you know well) on the kick. Then try it with the MXL, mebbe even another mic. What doya like about a given mic? Hate? Pick a mic. Try it inside, outside, close, far, etc. Is it a sound ya want to feature, or does it work at all? (FWIW, when I got a E602, I've not used another kick mic since, altho' I keep trying other mic's on other things. Same for AT4040's as spaced-pair OH's. I like 'em!)

4. One other thing I would suggest, is strip yer mic's down to mebbe just Recorderman or Johns or even just overheads until you get real happy that way, and then bring the close-mic's back (or not). This could be on all recordings in general to "tape", or onna given mix as yer doing it.

5. Ignore everything I said that no one else said, and it will probably sound better!
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vlayman; THD; blog; TFP

[dfuruta]

Lately, I've been enjoying this:
put an omni in front of the kit, wrap it in a few layers of thick fabric (wool socks) to cut the cymbals & run it into your distortion box of choice (my mic preamps cranked all the way up and attenuated back down). Probably only useful in certain situations, but it has a wonderful, about-to-explode quality to it.

[plurgid]

[Snarl 12/8]

Dear OP,

Your post was very long and I'm a hack reader. Hopefully, you didn't cover this already. I noticed that you use a lot of [perhaps not so great] mics to do drum recordings. My advice (hack to hack, as it were) is to use as few of your best mics as possible to get your sounds. And then, when you're sure it's as good as it could ever get, with, say, 3 mics, then start adding more, one at a time to fill in the sounds you're missing. I used to try to get a sound with as many mics as possible, but things really started to gel for me when I went to (my interpretation of) the Glyn Johns method. Two "OH's". One directly over the snare, one off beyond the floor tom. Equidistant (measure with a string, or drumstick lengths) from the center of the snare. And a kick mic. I use MXL 2001's for the "OH"s. One was $15 and the other $40, so you don't need anything insane. And the e602 on kick ($139?) is killer. I often will throw another mic on the floor somewhere random in the room far away from the kit for the option of adding some ambiance if needed. I almost always use this mic. Sometimes I'll add a little delay to it. Like pre-delay the whole track, no an echo type thing. Spacing this mic out in time from the other mics really prevents it from muddying anything up. I added some tom mics a while ago and it sounded killer, but, in the mix I didn't feel like they were needed.

YMMV. Just something to think about. If you're gonna be a hack (not a bad thing, in my book) it's often good to start with the smallest hack that you can get to work and then expand on that. Good luck.

PS Room treatment.
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Carl Keil

[The Scum]

Some things that help bring in the thunder:

Learn where different mics give you strong proximity effect, to capture more low end. This helps give you some boom, especially on toms. It's also one of the applications where MD421s, E609's and MK012s can stand out.

The distinction between overheads & room mics can be somewhat blurry. Sometimes mics that are farther away than "overheads" but closer than a true "room mic" can capture a more coherent version of the kit. Catch as much of the snare and toms as you do the cymbals.

Following that concept, try placing the mics lower than you expect...a mike in front of the kit, and not too high up, helps capture the gust off the front of the kick drum, and the sound of the shells of the toms.

Parallel compression can help build up the body of the drums, to help fill out the sound after the attack. Plenty of threads here explaining it.

Working in stereo also helps create an illusion of size. Even if it's not huge, it can seem more realistic, and opens up space in the mix for other instruments.
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[vvv]

[BrontoSoreAss]

Thank you everyone who has replied to this thread (and to me through PM actually), I appreciate all the ideas/advice! Tons of stuff to think about here, I'm going to mess around with all the suggestions I have the means to carry out (I unfortunetly do not have a mic with a figure-eight pattern to do mid-side with - although I could probably pick a cheapish ribbon - would probably be pretty fun to mess around with)! Really looking forward to trying stuff over the next few weeks with all these ideas it should be really fun
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NCC-1701-D

[BrontoSoreAss]

ah, I really am excited. Tons of partially written songs and lots of new ideas for capturing it. Will be awesome...
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NCC-1701-D

[BrontoSoreAss]

I love tape-op...
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NCC-1701-D

[Snarl 12/8]

I could be totally wrong, but you could try putting together an x/y pair of something on a bar and walking that around like the M/S suggestion. x/y has the same sortof "phase-problem-free" mystique as M/S, while being less arcane and more within the reach of normal TO's. You could try it above, out front, up and down, etc., etc. It'll sound cool in the cans while you do it, too.
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Carl Keil

[Gregg Juke]

You are getting lots of awesome suggestions in these responses!

One thing I forgot-- "bass drum tunnel." Add a second bass drum in front of your actual/playing bd, and put the mike inside this giant drum. Experoment with mikes, placement, EQ, and compression. Can be super-awesome.

GJ

[vvv]

FWIW, I reco a cheap LDC for the M/S, rather than a ribbon, just because you might get a bit more flexibility.

I've used and liked a surprisingly nice Samson C03, what is quite cheap (less than US$50-75, used), but I'd reco a CAD M179 (used mebbe US$100-125).
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vlayman; THD; blog; TFP

[mwerden]

Hire a low end pro to come in for an hour or two. He/she can give you specific advice on your gear in your room. Tell you where the weak links are, what to listen for, etc.
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[lefthanddoes]

Really good suggestions here. It does sound like you're doing a lot of good experimenting already. I think one of the main problems with us giving you advice is where everything is subjective. The concept of big, thwacky drums isn't always as universal as we'd like, I think.

I think you should post some samples of recordings you've done where you thought they were good in the room, but they didn't come out right in the recording. Then people here might be able to say things like "the problem is that you need to capture more low-end in your close mics" or "the compression needs a longer attack" or whatever.

Also, an important thing to remember is, when you listen to the drummer in the room, it's really loud, and so your brain is naturally compressing the sound (as well as doing countless other crazy things such as isolating the sound of whichever drum you're focused on at the moment, etc). When you play it back on a set of speakers, you don't get that brain-compression. So you basically have to put interesting compression on the drums to get the same impression of loudness out of a set of speakers. I don't know if you've already thought of that, but I remember a point in my recording "career" where I reluctantly accepted that drums don't sound the same on record that they do in real life, ever. (some people here might disagree, that's OK.)

I recommend using your large diaphragm condensers for your close mics on the toms. That's always gotten me the biggest, roundest sound.
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[BrontoSoreAss]

Even more things now to stew over, thanks again to everyone who has contributed to this thread - lefthanddoes I think is right to say I should probably actually post a link to some recordings - am already unhappy with the mixes, but thats the way its goes and is probably a good thing actually - hopefully indicates I'm growing/don't have my head in a hole. The most recent one's where very much the decribed situation of really like the drum sounds in the room and having them not translate the way I hoped they would.

http://theconnoisseursofporn.bandcamp.com

its pay what you want with no minimum so you can download .wav or .flac, or whatever your preference is if you want to avoid the bandcamp streaming
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NCC-1701-D