recording drum machine w/band...help

seedless · Post by **seedless** » Thu Jan 22, 2009 12:51 am

i'm about to start recording a friends band and i could use some help from tapeop

the band is pretty minimal in sound. with just 2 members and a casiotone keyboard which functions as the drummer. I'm looking for some ideas on different ways to record the drum machine. i'm going to try direct but i've also thought about renting PA speakers and micing them, or even going to the venue they play most of their shows and seeing if i can record the drum sounds out of the giant venue speakers because I think the drums sound great when they do live shows there.

I know to some people recording a drum machine is pretty simple, but im just looking for some ideas of things to try out. thanks

E-money · Post by **E-money** » Thu Jan 22, 2009 3:37 am

Are you able to record the midi output from the drum machine into your DAW?
This would give you the most options to mess around with. You'd be able to reamp, or try different drum samples after the fact.

vvv · Post by **vvv** » Thu Jan 22, 2009 4:35 am

Try a guitar and/or bass amp.

seedless · Post by **seedless** » Thu Jan 22, 2009 11:17 am

E-money wrote:Are you able to record the midi output from the drum machine into your DAW?
This would give you the most options to mess around with. You'd be able to reamp, or try different drum samples after the fact.

i don't belive the keyboard has midi out http://weltenschule.de/TableHooters/Casiotone_401.html

i also don't really want to change the sound too much. i really like the bands sound, and unlike most bands they are used to playing along to a constant tempo so i don't think they will have any timing problems.

i will try the guitar and bass amps

joninc · Post by **joninc** » Thu Jan 22, 2009 12:40 pm

if you take a DI then you can mess with re-amping with PA, sansamp, pedals, amps later

frequently · Post by **frequently** » Thu Jan 22, 2009 2:03 pm

if you can take a line out from the drum machine and amp it with a guitar amp you'd have a lot of room to play with the feel and the sound, thats if you have enough tracks

Dan Phelps · Post by **Dan Phelps** » Thu Jan 22, 2009 3:09 pm

joninc wrote:if you take a DI then you can mess with re-amping with PA, sansamp, pedals, amps later

+1

This seems to be the most flexible, as you would not be stuck with the amp'd/PA'd sound if you find out down the road that it doesn't work.

I would think that a combination of amps, pedals, and synth/filter type processing could be pretty cool. If you record DI then you could also do stuff like send 1 out of every 4 bars into an amp in a reverberant bathroom, or something like that.

Something like the Line 6 filter/synth pedal, or a Sherman Filterbank, could do some really fun things. Also look at the Tech21 CompTortion. It can turn things inside out.

seedless · Post by **seedless** » Fri Jan 23, 2009 2:31 am

thanks for the help

when people put it that way it makes the most sense for me to get a clean direct drum track down first. later i can spend the time playing with that sound on my own and now slow down the bands recording process. they do a killer 30 min show and have yet to be captured on a (decent) recording. I just want to capture them and make them do their best but stay out of the way and not bring things to a halt trying to find a 'sound'

the one downside is i will have to go from a/d, d/a, and back a/d to re-amp, but i guess the flexibility should make it worthwhile

Babaluma · Post by **Babaluma** » Fri Jan 23, 2009 3:52 am

all good ideas.

i wouldn't worry about the extra d/a/d/ stage, if your converter is anywhere near half way decent, i don' think you're going to notice an extra pass, maybe even 10 extra passes

if i had the time to spare, i'd d.i. and play with all the toys later

C_R_J · Post by **C_R_J** » Sat Jan 24, 2009 8:40 am

i just did sound for a band that had that keyboard. they were called the girls of the gravitron. very wierd. but awesome.

that keyboard has some sweet low end at times. ive done some keyboard recording. i could go direct, but also maybe record it out of a bass amp that has a tweeter with a decent mic. not a monster amp though. i have a carvin with one 15 and a tweeter in it that i love playin my moog little phatty through, and recording it with. thats plenty to work with there imho. direct and one mic.

Justin Foley · Post by **Justin Foley** » Sat Jan 24, 2009 10:56 am

Hey there,

You may get some mileage out of what we do.

My band uses a drum machine with guitar/vox and bass. We'll record a stereo line out to two channels. We'll also split the signal (although this can happen also by reamping what you tape) and run it to our PA, also with in stereo. The PA is in a room that's acoustically suitable and we mic the playback with an ambient stereo mic arrangement. We used to use a spaced omni pair for the ambient mics, but now we stick with an MS arrangement.

The result is a sound that gives us some flexibility - changing the ratio of the ambient to direct signals while also being able to adjust the width of the ambient image through the MS configuration. We like this because the addition of room ambience gives a more physical sound to the drum machine. The recorded sound is also what we sound like when we play in front of people.

I don't have a good example of the sound handy, but I could dig something up for you if you were really curious.

= Justin

kingmetal · Post by **kingmetal** » Tue Feb 03, 2009 4:04 pm

For sure grab the direct track, but you should also try running it through a mic'd amp in the room as was previously suggested. Depends on the tone you want, but I just got my SR16 to sound good for the first time the other day by running it through my Sansamp into my little Acoustic practice amp. Just had some room mics (crappy ones - Karma audio K-Micros, $26 a pair!). Sounds like balls if I don't mix in some direct - but once I do suddenly it sounds great! Even opened my window and got some bird noises involved. Your mileage may vary!

bloodspoint · Post by **bloodspoint** » Fri Feb 06, 2009 4:32 pm

Some of my favorite "drum" sounds have been drum machines, for hard rock and industrial type music. I always like to get a nice clean direct recording of it first, then I'm free to screw around with it. My magic recipe usually involves a little compression, a touch of overdrive via a modeller, and sometimes a bit of reverb. Tasty.

xonlocust · Post by **xonlocust** » Sat Feb 14, 2009 8:59 pm

great suggestions all over so far, my band's done this as well - only thing to add is maybe try modifying the output of the keyboard/drum machine to separate the kick/snare by panning them L/R (unless there's weird fill stuff) so you have a little more control in mixdown. then you can reamp/blend w/ direct, or overdrive/etc. we also ended up having a blend of DI - reamped - and effected sources for the final mix for our stuff. having pseduo control of tracks was helpful when we wanted to send a reverb to the snare or something after the fact.
good luck!

theposterkid · Post by **theposterkid** » Fri Feb 20, 2009 3:51 pm

xonlocust wrote:great suggestions all over so far, my band's done this as well - only thing to add is maybe try modifying the output of the keyboard/drum machine to separate the kick/snare by panning them L/R (unless there's weird fill stuff) so you have a little more control in mixdown. then you can reamp/blend w/ direct, or overdrive/etc. we also ended up having a blend of DI - reamped - and effected sources for the final mix for our stuff. having pseduo control of tracks was helpful when we wanted to send a reverb to the snare or something after the fact.
good luck!

If you're not into soldering, and/or potentially ruining a keyboard that doesn't belong to you, you could try editing the DI track in your DAW. It would be time consuming, but you could separate the kicks/snares and put them on their own respective tracks if they don't overlap.

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recording drum machine w/band...help

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