This should be fun-

[Magnetic Services]

Recording a heavy riffy trio in my basement in the coming weeks.
Let me know if you have any thoughts or ideas about how to achieve sounds like:

witch
pissed jeans
sleep
sabbath
high on fire
...etc.

(specifically drum ideas!)


Equipment:

A few 57/58s and clones and such
CAD drum mic pack minus condensers
Cheap Omni condenser
Matched pair of small diaphragm condensers
One Large diaphragm condensor
One super-cardioid dynamic (609 I think)
One on/off-switch havin' no-name dynamic that came bundled with a 4-track (says omni on it but doesn't sound like it)

Tascam 38 half-inch 8 track tape deck
Ramsa 8118 18x4 mixer (8 tracks to monitor tape, 10 for tracking, 4 groups)
Smaller Behringer mixer (might use this if I get carried away)
Two channels of compression

Sunn guitar head, big cab (specifics if you need them)
Tech-21 combo amp with spring verb and built in sansamp style direct out
Ludwig kit (full front head but he is down to remove it or cut a hole if need be)
Gallien-Kruger Bass head/4x10 cab
4 or 5 distortion/fuzz pedals
Custom 6-knob tremolo dealy
Basic choruses, delays, etc


Environment:

Main room of basement (walls covered in mattresses but we are considering taking some or most down). Tape and mixer in smaller room farther away.

Vocals most likely overdubbed but might be done live if we feel it's the right choice. (any good tips for useable-if-good-take scratch tracks?)

This will be recorded and mixed all analog, 2-track mix sent to Nuendo, then off to a mastering engineer. Hopefully put out on cassette as well as digital



Fire away and thank you!

[Snarl 12/8]

Smaller Behringer mixer (probably will use this for sub-mixing drums)

Why? 18 channels is enough for any trio. And the Berry pres probably suck compared to the Ramsa. Not to mention the headroom of the mix section that you'll be putting them through. But I'm a fan of big sounding drums. If you like small sounding drums, disregard this.

[Mane1234]

I have no idea how to achieve any of those sounds you're looking for but I play some pretty heavy music through a Sunn amp and tried a 609 on it for a while and decided it was lacking. Changed to an Audix i5 and it was much better. Senn 421 and it was great. I think I'd be leaving those mattresses on the wall too if they're going to get really loud. We record in a crappy little practice room and went to using a dynamic on the OH. The condenser was just too bright.

[dfuruta]

18 channels is more than enough.

Err on the side of keeping it simple?assuming the band can play, you shouldn't need to do anything drastic to get that sort of sound. One mic on the guitar amp, one mic on the bass amp, overheads + kick + snare (mic the toms if they really need it, but you might not need to), and a room mic or two. Don't compress anything too much, and don't make it too bright. Reverb on the vocals is a must, probably.

You can approach stoner/traditional doom metal in a similar way to rock, since that's its heritage; you're not doing technical death metal, you don't need a million mics on everything.

The cliche everyone spews about "don't use too much gain!" doesn't necessarily apply here. Monstrously fuzzy sounds work great, if the recording is adequate.

[Matt C.]

specifically regarding the pissed jeans sound (at least on their older records. the newest one sounds different), here are some thoughts...

drums are super roomy sounding and not very bright. i'd say with what you've got i'd use the SDCs as a spaced pair for drum room mics and make that the main drum sound, maybe roll off some high end. you could try putting a mic in the other room or upstairs. maybe add some artificial reverb to the snare if your room isn't cutting it

vocals are also pretty roomy, try an omni from a foot or two away, or try putting the singer in a tiled bathroom or something.

to me the bass sounds like the bass amp is compressing the signal heavily but without going into serious fuzzed out distortion. i'm not that familiar with your amps but i imagine the GK amp could do it. turn down the super low sub-bass frequencies and focus more on the low-mids.

[Gregg Juke]

Hmm. "Pissed Jeans," you say? Learn something new everyday.
I always thought that was undesirable...

GJ

[elbows]

Awesome.


First and foremost: don't be afraid of pushing anything too far (blown out pre-amps, radical EQ, etc.)

Avoid the Behringer to submix unless it's a last resort kind of situation. The Ramsa should be just fine (unless like 12 channels are broken..)

Quick bullet list of some things that might stir up some inspiration:

• - Put a fuzz pedal on the SEND of your Ramsa - return it to a channel with EQ.
  - Put one of your compressors on the Mon/Eff send - return it to a channel with EQ. Send close drum mics, bass, vocals, and whatever else you'd like to the compressor. Adjust at the fader you've returned it to.
  - Try using a mono LDC as an overhead - keep it as low and close to the kit as you can and USE EQ.
  - Use your SDC's, spaced to either side of the kit. Maybe on the floor? Taped to the walls on either side? Use boundaries to your advantage.
  - 57 for vocals, perhaps coupled with the cheap omni. Slam the vocals to tape, don't worry about pinning! (don't forget your FUZZ and COMPRESSION sends.) If overdubbed, try the same combination - a condenser might feel out of place unless it's a couple feet away from the vocalist.
  - You might not like the 609 on guitar - a 57/58 should do the trick - but the 609 might be perfect under the snare or outside the kick.
  - Take bass direct if you can - compress - and mic the center of ONE speaker in the cab very closely.
  - Don't be afraid to distort your pres.
  - Don't be conservative when going to tape.

Have fun, man. Love these kinds of sessions.

[Magnetic Services]

I should clarify- 8 channels will be used for playback from tape, so 10 are available for tracking (plus groups). since it's just a trio and vocals will mostly be done after basics, I doubt I'll break out the Behringer (I avoid setting it up if at all possible)

I guess I'm specifically looking for drum ideas. I know a huge roomy sound isn't possible in tight quarters like these, nor is it what the album needs, so I'm just looking for fun stuff to try. I've never done the 3 overheads deal, maybe I'll give that one a whirl. Thanks!

[Magnetic Services]

I edited the original post with specifics, hope that helps.

One song from their demo from before I met them:

http://soundcloud.com/lord-brain

(they are slightly less doomy now and have mostly equal amount of fast and slow sections)

[Magnetic Services]

Awesome.


First and foremost: don't be afraid of pushing anything too far (blown out pre-amps, radical EQ, etc.)

Avoid the Behringer to submix unless it's a last resort kind of situation. The Ramsa should be just fine (unless like 12 channels are broken..)

Quick bullet list of some things that might stir up some inspiration:

• - Put a fuzz pedal on the SEND of your Ramsa - return it to a channel with EQ.
  - Put one of your compressors on the Mon/Eff send - return it to a channel with EQ. Send close drum mics, bass, vocals, and whatever else you'd like to the compressor. Adjust at the fader you've returned it to.
  - Try using a mono LDC as an overhead - keep it as low and close to the kit as you can and USE EQ.
  - Use your SDC's, spaced to either side of the kit. Maybe on the floor? Taped to the walls on either side? Use boundaries to your advantage.
  - 57 for vocals, perhaps coupled with the cheap omni. Slam the vocals to tape, don't worry about pinning! (don't forget your FUZZ and COMPRESSION sends.) If overdubbed, try the same combination - a condenser might feel out of place unless it's a couple feet away from the vocalist.
  - You might not like the 609 on guitar - a 57/58 should do the trick - but the 609 might be perfect under the snare or outside the kick.
  - Take bass direct if you can - compress - and mic the center of ONE speaker in the cab very closely.
  - Don't be afraid to distort your pres.
  - Don't be conservative when going to tape.

Have fun, man. Love these kinds of sessions.

Awesome, thanks. Any tips on how to group my drums onto ideally 3 but possibly 4 channels? I was thinking 1-kick 2-snare 3-left overhead/toms 4-right overhead/toms.

[MoreSpaceEcho]

that'll work. you could also just go mono and bus the overheads/toms to one track.

one thing regarding slamming to tape....i would suggest being conservative with the kick. if you squash that to tape you're likely gonna have a tough time getting any punch out of it later. you can always mush it more after the fact if you want, but you can't get back transients that aren't there. snare/toms/overheads, sure, go nuts (monitor in repro so you can hear what the tape's doing), but be careful with the kick.

[Magnetic Services]

Update- set up drums today and did some test recordings. Normally I do x-y overheads and close tom mics but today this setup worked very well:

Kick mic -- fully intact head, sounds very subby but blends well with the middle mic. Probably going to try taking the head off tomorrow.

Bottom of snare mic -- only needed a little bit of this one, but it's useful to have

Middle mic -- large diaphragm condenser a few inches above kick (lower than crash cymbal) pointing between kick and snare. sounds great and it's tempting to use a lot of this one but I still want spread from my overheads.

Overhead mics -- small diaphragm condensers pretty high up on either side pointing straight down. I wont bother describing their position too accurately as I would like some advice on different placement for these. I found that I really like the sound but the image isn't quite wide enough.

Any ideas? I'm thinking lower down and farther out might do the trick for the overheads. what do y'all do?

[MoreSpaceEcho]

personally i don't like wide overheads, but if you do, then further apart is the way to go.

the kick sound is gonna change dramatically with the front head off. if you decide you liked it better with the head on, but it's too subby, try any combo of the following:

tune the head a bit higher
move the mic back
muffle the head a bit

and/or if you have a variable hipass somewhere in the chain, try it somewhere between 30-40.

[Magnetic Services]

personally i don't like wide overheads, but if you do, then further apart is the way to go.

the kick sound is gonna change dramatically with the front head off. if you decide you liked it better with the head on, but it's too subby, try any combo of the following:

tune the head a bit higher
move the mic back
muffle the head a bit

and/or if you have a variable hipass somewhere in the chain, try it somewhere between 30-40.

I want it wider so I can later narrow it to however the band wants it. There's one guitarist and there won't be many overdubs, so for much of the album the drums will be the only stereo content. I likely won't go totally hard-panned with these, I just want the option to have it wider if they like that. Drummer plays pretty evenly across the kit (as far as I know from today's testing and a couple shows), so constant left-speaker hi-hat shouldn't be a problem.

As far as the kick, I think I'll try all those things before taking the head off. My low shelves can only be set to 60 or 180, and my parametric mid band only goes down to 400 so I can't really rely on eq for my kick sound. Here's my board (not my picture, it's from some other forum):

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/attachme ... -after.jpg

These are all good ideas, thanks! somebody suggested left and right mics on the floor pointing up, does anybody have an audio example or story of how this turned out for them?

[MoreSpaceEcho]

well, not quite that, but (as i've posted 80 billion times) my stock drum shtick is kick, snare, mono oh+2 omnis on the floor with stupid amounts of compression on them. sounds like this

or track 3 or 8 on this

or most anything on this