Recording Death Metal Drums

[Max]

Hi all,
I have a death metal session coming this weekend and I'm not sure how to approach the drums.
I know one of the band's guitarist and this is why they ended up with me to do the job.
I've told them that I have next to no experience with the kind of drum sound they're aiming at. So far almost every drummer I've worked with wanted the recording to represent the sound of their drums.
This guy asks me about the samples I'm planning to use for the "blasts" of his kick drum. I've no idea what he's talking about. I don't even have a drigger pad at the studio.
The guitarists asked me if they should bring their amps or if was happy with using D.I. guitars tracks and plug ins!
Any suggestions?
Thanks you very much!

[RodC]

I have never done it, but if you dont have triggers everyone seems to like the drum replacer drumagog:

http://www.drumagog.com/

You should be able to acomplish the same thing with it.

[RodC]

Dang it I forgot to mention ApTrigga. I think its free

[farview]

Drumagog is the way to go. It would be much easier if you had triggers like these http://www.zzounds.com/item--DEPDDTTKIT


But, you just need to get as much isolation on each drum as you can. Then you can use Drumagog to trigger the sounds.

You can get a death metal drum sound out of micing a kit, but the drummer and drums have to be really good. (That's not the norm.) After that, it's just a matter of gating, compressing and sucking out the mids out of the toms and kicks and adding a crapload of everything above 5k.

[Cryonicsound]

I'd recommend picking up a few albums by Morbid Angel, Hate Eternal, and Cryptopsy and take a listen to their sounds.

The trait I tend to notice the most is the need for highly articulate kick drum sound that is very attack heavy. One trick that may help is if you can convince the drummer to use wooden beaters on their kick and then gaff tape a quarter to the point of impact on the head. As mentioned before, the drummer will actually have to be decent to get away with simply mic'ing, but I think this trick may put you closer to what you'd be looking for. Also, expect to smash the living daylights out of the snare and kick's dynamic range.

[Brett Siler]

You don't need triggers. It sounds like the are going for a modern death metal sound so you will need to close mic each individual drum. You probably want to get the kick mic inside the kick drum and pretty close the beater. An extra mic on the outside of the kick is optional. The snare bottom is optional to mic, I like too, but not necessary Some people use spot mics on cymbals but I like to use overhead and capture the whole kit. Room mics are optional but not that common. On the overhead/room mics you will probably want to HP filter out some low end so when they play really fast it doesn't get too muddy. You will need lots of compression on the kick and snare to keep the blastbeats and other drum parts at consistant levels. Probably EQ the kick also, maybe scooping out some low mids and a slight boost in the high mids. Might also want to gate the kick and snare.

This is all very general but I would think tight, dry, compressed and close is something they are going for.

[farview]

. One trick that may help is if you can convince the drummer to use wooden beaters on their kick and then gaff tape a quarter to the point of impact on the head.

This ruins the head and gums up the beater. Danmar makes something similar without the problems. But that is a pretty old sound (early to mid 90's), I'm not sure anyone does that anymore. You can get all the attack you need out of a hard beater and a head like a Remo Power stroke, Evens EMAD, etc... tuned down.

[Mane1234]

I've done a couple of these things but fortunately the drummers just wanted to record their kit as it sounds and not use triggers so maybe that's really old school. You definitely want to record the guitars and not use plugins as long as they have good amps of course. If their amps sound like crap then by all means go for the plugin.

I was thinking about something while reading the original post that I've had to deal with at times and that is sometimes I'm just not the man for the job. I'm not the guy to do a rap project, or record a symphony, or even a string quartet at this point in my tiny little recording career. Sometimes you may have to turn down a project until you have some more experience, unless of course everyone is ok with the fact that you have no practice at recording whatever genre it is. The only reason I've done a couple death metal things was the band was ok that in the first case I had never done it and after that, that I had only done it once or twice. I know sometimes we have to jump in and learn but at the same time we should always be honest about our capabilities which it sounds like the original poster is doing.

[googacky]

Check this out from the Andy Sneap site.

[permanent hearing damage]

funny enough, i don't think i've ever recorded a straight up death metal band. but i do have a friend who does a lot of this stuff. he told me he rolls off everything under 120Hz on the bass drum with good results. shocking, i know. but otherwise yeah, hi end, hi end, hi end. and bye bye midrange on drums

[cyantologist]

"Blasts" = Blast beats. Just the name for the certain style of doing fast double kick while hitting the snare + hihat,ride, or crash at the same time.

When recording guitars, first thing is to USE THEIR AMPS!! and you'll also have to tell the guitarists to use WAY LESS GAIN then they think. Trust me, it will come out a LOT heavier in the end. Also, be careful because modern metal players will always want to scoop the shit out of their mids.

You shouldn't need drum replacement...

[@?,*???&?]

Hi all,
I have a death metal session coming this weekend and I'm not sure how to approach the drums.

Make them sound like drums and no one will complain. Tighter compression and brighter EQ when you mix might make them sound more aggressive.

[markmeat]

That's the problem with death metal/metal drums in particular... they almost never sound like drums when you're done... my trick for kick:

Make the EQ curve look like this: \/

ITB, I set up a 3-band eq and just pull the mid down to the floor... it's almost always the kick sound they're looking for during blast beats... it's SOOO wrong, but they love it.

MEAT

[thieves]

i used to be in a metal/hardcore band in the 90's and i was pretty much dead set on getting an honest to god 'good' drum sound, but the guy we were working with insisted that i had to have the standard metal sound described in this thread. i brought in refused's 'the shape of punk to come' as a reference point for the drums and the guys in the studio all got hooked on it during the week we were doing sessions, but insisted i couldn't have a sound like that. ugh. i'm so glad i don't have to play/record that sort of music anymore.

[Cryonicsound]

. One trick that may help is if you can convince the drummer to use wooden beaters on their kick and then gaff tape a quarter to the point of impact on the head.

This ruins the head and gums up the beater. Danmar makes something similar without the problems. But that is a pretty old sound (early to mid 90's), I'm not sure anyone does that anymore. You can get all the attack you need out of a hard beater and a head like a Remo Power stroke, Evens EMAD, etc... tuned down.

As for the head, I personally see no issue with sacrificing one to get a decent sound. Gumming up the beaters, though? Perhaps if you're using duct tape. I have yet to have the said problem when using gaff tape. As the saying goes: "Whatever works...."