Drums: mixing techniques for f'ed up session?

total_hack · Post by **total_hack** » Tue Feb 28, 2012 6:50 am

Why I should never try and record professionally, vol. 34:

My band was recording bass & drums in my basement. We had a modified recorderman thing going on (kick, snare, 2 OH, room mic) and it sounded way better than I would've thought I capable of. On our last day of recording, we weren't paying much attention and I guess we forgot to turn on the phantom power to the OH's. So we've got 2 songs that only have kick, snare, and room mics to work with in mixing. Re-recording may be an option down the road, but I'd prefer to try and work with what I have as the performances are great.

So, what are some things I can try with the room mic to get a decent drum mix?

thanks,

Gregg Juke · Post by **Gregg Juke** » Tue Feb 28, 2012 6:57 am

Is it a mono room mike, or a stereo set-up?

GJ

PS-- Not for nothin', but you probably know now to check for signal every time before you hit record, even if you feel like charging off with reckless abandon under that burst of creativity and vitality...

total_hack · Post by **total_hack** » Tue Feb 28, 2012 6:59 am

Its a mono room mic.

Gregg Juke · Post by **Gregg Juke** » Tue Feb 28, 2012 7:04 am

OK, try copying the room mike track. Crush the sheisbegotten out of one of them (parallel compression), and mix to taste with the uncompressed version and the kick and snare tracks. It won't sound like the others w/OH, but it could still sound good.

Or, you could copy the track and leave relatively uncompressed, and force one left and one right, and play with verb and delay settings (simulate stereo, even though it will really only be dual mono in each ear).

Or, you could go with mono/Beatles drums and mix everything down mono (with or without parallel comp), and either pan to one side, or experiment with center panning.

Depending on your room, you may have more room tone/slapback on the drums than you originally wanted, but if you want to save the performance without re-tracking...

GJ

austin · Post by **austin** » Tue Feb 28, 2012 9:16 am

Nothing wrong with mono drums!

Depending on your room, you may have more room tone/slapback on the drums than you originally wanted

If you're in a DAW, maybe try nudging the room mic earlier in time to line up with the close mics. That won't get rid of room tone, of course, but at least it'll function a little more like an overhead in terms of how it relates to the close mics.

MoreSpaceEcho · Post by **MoreSpaceEcho** » Tue Feb 28, 2012 9:34 am

as far as Bad Things To Happen, this is not so bad. pile some compression on the room mic and see how things are sounding. it might be just fine...for me, the room mics usually make up about 70% of the drum sound. there's certainly been times where i've muted the overheads and thought it sounded better. so you can make this work.

maybe try keeping the kick/snare panned center and pan the room mic hard l or r. could be cool.

you might need to add a bunch of high end to the close kick/snare mics to make up for the lack of definition the overheads would've provided.

i wouldn't mess with any fake stereo shenanigans, but that's me.

Gregg Juke · Post by **Gregg Juke** » Tue Feb 28, 2012 10:03 am

Shenanigans you say!?! Varlet.

GJ

crow · Post by **crow** » Tue Feb 28, 2012 10:39 am

I mixed some 4-track basement recordings for a band recently, and the drums were done with a single room mic. Sure, if I had done it here at the studio, I would have put up a bazillion mics and they would have wanted me to, but I found working with that one drum mic very inspiring. I compressed it a little bit and used EQ, mostly a lowpass filter, to fit it into the mix, and couldn't have been happier with the results.

Maybe try starting with just the room mic, and try to EQ it to sound like the basic drum image you're after. Maybe even solo it and EQ the heck out of it, just to get a feel for the different directions you can take it.

What style of music is it? Unfortunately, that will be the deciding factor.

Jeff White · Post by **Jeff White** » Tue Feb 28, 2012 11:15 am

Threads like this are the reason why I love this board.

I did a record years back where I set up the overhead mics and I was getting the radio through one of them. I ended up taking them down and replaced them with a 414 and used a Microtech-Gefell UM70s as a distant room mic (recorded in an old barn). Ended up panning both of these mics just like overheads and it sounds fine. I wanted to go mono drums but the band wasn't having it. Honestly, I was pretty stunned at how naturally the room mic (15' up and probably 10' in front of the kit) blended with the 414 overhead (approx 7' above the center of the snare). Weird.

It turned out that one of the mic cables going to one of my Oktava MK-012s (original radio-friendly overhead setup) had a detached ground wire. I was out of enough XLRs at the time. Oh well.

Like other folks have mentioned, you can make this work.

Jeff

dubold · Post by **dubold** » Tue Feb 28, 2012 12:05 pm

MoreSpaceEcho wrote:as far as Bad Things To Happen, this is not so bad.

yeah, now "only hihat mic", that's a complication of a different magnitude.

A.David.MacKinnon · Post by **A.David.MacKinnon** » Tue Feb 28, 2012 2:13 pm

As everyone else has said, this isn't that tricky a situation to be in. I'm actually mixing a record right now that has the same thing going on. I also have tom mics to work with but fundamentally it's the same situation. It's not my ideal set-up and not an ideal sounding kit but the band recorded themselves (and for the most part did a decent job) and I'm working with what I've been given.
If context helps at all I should say that it's an indie sounding, Springsteen-ish kind of band, loose and slightly sloppy but with good tunes and tons of energy.

Because I want to get my kit picture and cymbals from the room mic I'm gating the toms. I don't always gate toms but they're one of the real weak links with this recording. There's tons of harsh cymbal and hat bleed on these tracks and I don't want that to swamp the nice sounding cymbals and hats in the room mic.
I'm panning the toms a little but everything else is mono.

So here's how it's going down -

Kick and snare are being compressed (1st generation Valley People Gain Brains for each). Toms and room are not. Once the kit is balanced and sounding good I start bringing in the parallel compression. In this case I'm using an Alesis Micro Limiter set to kill. The snare, toms and room mic all get sent to the Micro Limiter. The kick may or may not get parallel compression depending on the song. On it's own the Micro Limiter sounds crazy and bad but blended under the clean kit it really brings everything to life.
I'm also running an MXR Distortion Plus on one of the aux sends. It's coming back into a mic pre through a DI (be sure to check the phase on the distorted vs clean sounds). Kick almost always goes to that. Snare and toms might go there too depending on the song and if I need more weight/girth on those items.

So there you go. Think of it as 3 ingredients -
75% - Clean, un-effected drums.
20% - Crushed/parallel compressed drums . Think of this as the excitement fader. A little goes a long way
5% - Distorted kick, snare and toms. Think of this as the weight/body fader. Again, a little goes a long way.

The end result is a little trash but it has tons of definition, excitement, and body.

MoreSpaceEcho · Post by **MoreSpaceEcho** » Tue Feb 28, 2012 4:50 pm

A.David.MacKinnon wrote: I'm also running an MXR Distortion Plus on one of the aux sends.

yessssssss.

total_hack · Post by **total_hack** » Sat Mar 03, 2012 12:05 pm

Thanks for the help everyone...I'll post the finished products when I'm done.

-k

drumsound · Post by **drumsound** » Sat Mar 03, 2012 4:03 pm

How's the cymbal bleed in the snare and BD mics? As others have said, this isn't terrible, hell sometimes people do room BD, SD only on purpose.

I think the first New Pornographers record just has one room for the drum sound.

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Drums: mixing techniques for f'ed up session?

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