Recording Drums (Brave New World!)

[Ryan Silva]

if it takes you 4 hours to mic up a kit, there are some bigger issues at hand than how many mics you are using...

i think i would have lost both my mind and many clients if i couldn't get a drum set mic'd up with 6-10 mics and great sounds in less than hour. it probably takes us (aaron and/or myself) about half an hour to get great drum sounds if we are recording a good drummer with a good sounding kit, regardless of style.

john

Good for you.

Kinnda missed the point there.

[JohnDavisNYC]

what was the point, then? i thought that it was that you shouldn't set up mics for 4 hours if it results in a bored drummer giving a bad performance... i totally agree. i just expressed incredulity at taking that long to set up mics and get drum sounds. not trying to insinuate anything, just saying that if it takes that long, there are bigger issues than a bored drummer...

recording with more than 4 mics doesn't mean that it has to take forever and make everyone wait around and kill the vibe. it is one thing if the band wants to take a ton of time getting sounds and is really really picky... or there is a specific aesthetic that absolutely 100% has to be nailed in the tracking stage.... but if the band is ready to rock, it shouldn't take very long to get a bunch of mics in places on the drumset that sound good.

my reply was maybe slightly sarcastic, but i still maybe didn't get the gist of your post then.

john

[Ryan Silva]

My apologies, my dramatic flare may have been responsible for said back and forth. I may have been the one speaking off topic, but my intent was to draw the attention to those painful sessions that are being fueled by the engineer/producers creativity, and not the energy of the artist. I myself try to be downright empathic when it comes to getting the band/artist in a good headspace (doesn't always work). I have known one too many engineers that will not bend a bit when it comes to drums, no matter how long it takes. I myself have not been doing this everyday for 20 years so I may not work as fast as others, but to be honest average time of set up for me is more like 60min set-up 30-60min tweaking and setting levels.

And if that?s not good enough for you, meet me by the swing set at recess.


peace

[centurymantra]

I was about to comment that your "four hour" comment was probably more figurative than anything else and that you may not REALLY take four hours every time you set up drums. I don't - even though there are occassions where I wish I could. I'm probably about the same as you...an hour or so with a little extra tweaking. On the occassions where it starts going a little longer, I do start feeling the pressure...

[JohnDavisNYC]

no hard feelings at all.... don't take my lunch money, please...

j

[DGoody]

Flip side of the coin....... "in the *old days*", engineers many times took hours to set up for a session....... in fact, Van Gelder was notorious for this. However, can one argue with the results? We keep opining on our professed LOVE for these "old school" recordings..... the best ones took time, and good amounts of it.

By that standard, I think it's fine if it takes me 4 hours to set up drums..... I could easily set up in under an hour, and roll with it...... but, if I take 4 hours to set up, I save 6 hours of tweaking later on.....

Pardon my cynicism, I'm just over this "old school" blah blah blah horsehit. Skill is no longer nurtured in this industry, from either side of the glass, and that's why records generally suck now.....

[fossiltooth]

i think i would have lost both my mind and many clients if i couldn't get a drum set mic'd up with 6-10 mics and great sounds in less than hour...

...recording with more than 4 mics doesn't mean that it has to take forever and make everyone wait around and kill the vibe.

Like John said, a setup of 10 mics or so shouldn't take over an hour.

But, even if setting up 4 mics on drums and making them sound decent only takes 15-20 minutes, you still might end up tweaking them during initial run-throughs until it turns into an hour, all-told. In the meantime, at least the band gets to rock out and rehearse.

Back in the day, folks used to pay for an hour of setup time, and the band would come in and just get to it. Tweaking and rehearsing would follow, and it was on to making a record. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to happen that way with self-financed bands (easily the majority of session at almost any studio). So, a little setup and troubleshooting has to happen now and then.

Sometimes it can take an hour-and-a-half to setup for a complicated session, (especially if you have a board with a couple crappy channels and some shotty xlr's as many studios do). It's unfortunate that the band is almost always there for this part of the process, but, hey... that's our modern world.

Preliminary setup time is still a reality on session that uses union musicians (don't worry, most tape-oper's will never have to worry about this!). After 3 hours, they could be getting time-and-a-half, meaning you better have accounted for setup time!

Anyway, around an hour of setup for an average "basics" session is the norm. Anyone care to disagree?

i it probably takes us... about half an hour to get great drum sounds if we are recording a good drummer with a good sounding kit, regardless of style.

On the other hand, you could take 2-3 times as long... but if you don't have either of those elements to work with, you'll never end up with what I'd call "great" sounds. I've had to deal with that kind of situation numerous times... (even at your studio!) With a cool room and tons of great gear, sometimes, there's not much you can do.... Then again, (like many others) even the crappiest drum sounds I've ever gotten sound way better than the drums on 'either/or', so I guess a little taste can go a long way.

[@?,*???&?]

So many of us are moving away from close micing kits, it's getting snobby!! So many folks are of the mind that if you cant get great drums with 3 or 4 mics (or less!) you are a pitiful excuse for an engineer. I love the sound that minimal micing gets, as this treats the whole kit like one instrument,which it is. That said, turn on VH1 or Fuse or 90% of today's radio stations, and try to find a song that sounds like a live group in a room.

So then, your ambience will indicate where the guitar cabinet sits in a room and the snare will definitely rattle with the amp at all times then? What about the omni-present, non-directional characteristics of bass frequencies? So all mics should pick that up as well? Also, the singers mic, once compressed will bring up so much drum leakage your recording will sounding a mono-compressed mash of drums. Also, realize back in the day, people used to go for live vocals in the studio. I'd love to see some unsigned band recording with some kid in his basement do that and get something competent.

Dude, you haven't thought this through. Buy some more equipment and I guarantee you'll use it. The kids are using only a few mics because they can only afford a few mics.

[thethingwiththestuff]

you didnt read a word he wrote, 4$$|-|073.

[msmith]

And(pardon if its been said) this is why, when its up to me, we do a load in and get sounds the night before a big project begins. That way I can spend the time needed to get the sounds 90 percent there, and everyone can come back ready to rock....or roll....or whatever...

[majortom]

Good post, interesting to hear how you all feel on this. When we recorded recently I got there in the morning (I'm the drummer) and the enginneer had already set up what I guess would seem at first like mic overkill. He had mics for close micing and a group of mics that he would go to for a more "live" room sound.

When I commented on how many mics he had up he said he now prepares this way for most sessions, that way he does'nt have to spend a bunch of time talking over each concept he can simply A/B the sound of what each set up sounds like and then get on with what the band/drummer likes.

It worked great. Since he had become used to this way of setting up, it was fast and efficient in a number of ways. Most important I think is that I would bet many times when being able to actually hear the kit miced up different ways the band may actually prefer what they at first may have said they did'nt want.

thanks, tom

[Brett Siler]

Todays session:

11 mics on a 4 piece kit. After setting up the drum kit, a little bit of tunage, mic place ment, and hooking up cables, it was about an hour and 15 mins. Band seemed to like that I actually took time to listen to the kit and place mics accordingly. They said they would come back for future business at the end of the session, so I guess I didn't take too long....

[markmeat]

Damn, Brett... I thought using 7 mics on Ryan Mann's 3-piece was overkill!

[GooberNumber9]

Is it me or does this thread have two seemingly contradictory concepts:

"Whatever works for the situation is right" [Re: lots of mics or few mics]

"No matter what the situation this is how it should happen" [Re: setup time for drum sounds]

I admit that even a bottom-feeder amateur like myself probably wouldn't spend four hours micing drums, but I can see situations where it would make sense.

You know, if the drummer is going to bring in a bad kit that rattles and isn't tuned, they're going to pay for it one way or another. Either it will sound bad, or the engineer will be spending a lot of time before recording or a lot of time during the mix trying to fix problem. Really all three are likely to result.

Didn't Mixerman spend a whole day trying to get drum sounds for Bitchslap, and THEN they worked on it the next day and still had to fly in FastFingaz to edit the crap out of them? By the same token, for one Beatles song Geoff Emerick told the assistant to just grab all the mics on the left (or right, not sure) side of the locker and mic up the kit, and it turned out to be a great-sounding recording.

I guess I'm saying that I see the wisdom in "whatever works for the situation is right" more than I can agree with "it should never take x amount of time to do such-and-such".

Todd Wilcox

[fossiltooth]

I guess I'm saying that I see the wisdom in "whatever works for the situation is right" more than I can agree with "it should never take x amount of time to do such-and-such".

Sure, there are times, given a certain budget, where working on sounds all day can be a wonderful creative luxury or a taxing necessity.

However, I don't think that's the norm for most people on this forum.