Doing It All w/ A 4 Track 22-4?

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Doing It All w/ A 4 Track 22-4?

Post by jrdamien » Sat Mar 29, 2014 4:26 pm

I want to do the next Crooked Saws record with a Tascam 22-4 I have.

2 piece band, drums and guitar. Any suggestions on tracking?

My thoughts were 2 mics on the drums and 2 on the guitar. Dump to DAW. Overdub any guitar solos and vocals.

I like the 'image' of stereo drum overheads. Could I record one mono overhead and one bass drum line and then double up that overhead to pan that l/r?

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Re: Doing It All w/ A 4 Track 22-4?

Post by A.David.MacKinnon » Sat Mar 29, 2014 5:37 pm

jrdamien wrote: I like the 'image' of stereo drum overheads. Could I record one mono overhead and one bass drum line and then double up that overhead to pan that l/r?
A single source panned left and right is the same as a single source panned center. Its still mono even if it's coming out of both speakers.

If you're planning to stick with 2 tracks for drums the only real option that gives you kick and stereo overheads is to submix the kick and overheads to 2 tracks.

If it was me I'd track kick and snare to channel 1, OH or front of kit and room to channel 2. There's nothing in the world wrong with mono drums.

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Re: Doing It All w/ A 4 Track 22-4?

Post by jrdamien » Sat Mar 29, 2014 6:07 pm

A.David.MacKinnon wrote:
jrdamien wrote: I like the 'image' of stereo drum overheads. Could I record one mono overhead and one bass drum line and then double up that overhead to pan that l/r?
A single source panned left and right is the same as a single source panned center. Its still mono even if it's coming out of both speakers.

If you're planning to stick with 2 tracks for drums the only real option that gives you kick and stereo overheads is to submix the kick and overheads to 2 tracks.

If it was me I'd track kick and snare to channel 1, OH or front of kit and room to channel 2. There's nothing in the world wrong with mono drums.
I don't think so either. May just be my nomenclature that's confused.

I'm trying to replicate a drum sound I got on my first album which was just a single room mic. This time I'd like to add a kick mic, too, but I want neither of them close micing the drums.

So what about kick to one and overheads summed to 2?

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Post by curtiswyant » Sat Mar 29, 2014 8:05 pm

unless you put each overhead on a separate track, it's going to still be in mono. if you got a good drum sound with a single mic last time, i'd start there.

i also have a 22-4. one thing you could try, if your machine is in good shape, is to record to tape and dump to digital on the fly. basically you send a test tone from your daw out to the tape machine then back in, and calculate the time difference in samples. then you slap the voxengo latency delay plug on your DAW inputs (coming from the tape machine outs), set it to the number of samples you just calculated, and just hit record in your DAW AND on your tape machine. i've used this method in the past...pretty sure i saw it here on the TOMB. I wouldn't mix and match instruments (i.e. recording drum room mics straight to digital while recording kit mics to tape), but it's awesome if you need more tracks for live tracking. you could use all 4 tape tracks for drums AND record guitar and a scratch vocal to digital at the same time, assuming your sound card has more than 4 ins.

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Re: Doing It All w/ A 4 Track 22-4?

Post by A.David.MacKinnon » Sun Mar 30, 2014 7:20 am

jrdamien wrote:
I'm trying to replicate a drum sound I got on my first album which was just a single room mic. This time I'd like to add a kick mic, too, but I want neither of them close micing the drums.
I sometimes do a set-up with one mic low, out front of the kit between the kick and snare. That combined with an overhead or room mic can be a really great sound provided the drummer is good at making the kit sound good in the room.
The closer you move the kick/snare mic towards the kit the more focused those two elements become. If you move it back it becomes more of a front of kit/room mic with emphasis on kick and snare.

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Post by jrdamien » Mon Mar 31, 2014 11:50 am

curtiswyant wrote:unless you put each overhead on a separate track, it's going to still be in mono. if you got a good drum sound with a single mic last time, i'd start there.

i also have a 22-4. one thing you could try, if your machine is in good shape, is to record to tape and dump to digital on the fly. basically you send a test tone from your daw out to the tape machine then back in, and calculate the time difference in samples. then you slap the voxengo latency delay plug on your DAW inputs (coming from the tape machine outs), set it to the number of samples you just calculated, and just hit record in your DAW AND on your tape machine. i've used this method in the past...pretty sure i saw it here on the TOMB. I wouldn't mix and match instruments (i.e. recording drum room mics straight to digital while recording kit mics to tape), but it's awesome if you need more tracks for live tracking. you could use all 4 tape tracks for drums AND record guitar and a scratch vocal to digital at the same time, assuming your sound card has more than 4 ins.
It is in great shape. When I am dumping to digital on the fly I'm not actually dumping from tape though, am I? It's dumping 'through't the electronics of the machine but not what was actually put to tape.

is this correct?

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Post by The Scum » Mon Mar 31, 2014 12:26 pm

You need to know which head you're monitoring.

If you're using the synch head, you're not hearing back from tape.

If you're using the playback head, it's probably coming off tape.

Does the audio come back to you with a slight delay? That's the sign it's hitting tape.
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Post by jrdamien » Mon Mar 31, 2014 1:50 pm

The Scum wrote:You need to know which head you're monitoring.

If you're using the synch head, you're not hearing back from tape.

If you're using the playback head, it's probably coming off tape.

Does the audio come back to you with a slight delay? That's the sign it's hitting tape.
Got it.

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Post by curtiswyant » Tue Apr 01, 2014 8:01 am

jrdamien wrote:
curtiswyant wrote:unless you put each overhead on a separate track, it's going to still be in mono. if you got a good drum sound with a single mic last time, i'd start there.

i also have a 22-4. one thing you could try, if your machine is in good shape, is to record to tape and dump to digital on the fly. basically you send a test tone from your daw out to the tape machine then back in, and calculate the time difference in samples. then you slap the voxengo latency delay plug on your DAW inputs (coming from the tape machine outs), set it to the number of samples you just calculated, and just hit record in your DAW AND on your tape machine. i've used this method in the past...pretty sure i saw it here on the TOMB. I wouldn't mix and match instruments (i.e. recording drum room mics straight to digital while recording kit mics to tape), but it's awesome if you need more tracks for live tracking. you could use all 4 tape tracks for drums AND record guitar and a scratch vocal to digital at the same time, assuming your sound card has more than 4 ins.
It is in great shape. When I am dumping to digital on the fly I'm not actually dumping from tape though, am I? It's dumping 'through't the electronics of the machine but not what was actually put to tape.

is this correct?
Yeah, you'd set the outputs to read from the playback head. The drums are recorded to tape then immediately read out from the playback head, and recorded into your DAW. The voxengo plug makes up for the delay that you would normally hear.

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Re: Doing It All w/ A 4 Track 22-4?

Post by tflsPearl » Fri May 23, 2014 8:43 pm

If you are going to dump to digital anyways, through a figure 8 up as the overhead with one of the dead sides pointed straight at the drummer. When you mix down, double the channel, phase invert one, and hard pan left and right. Boom, Fake stereo.

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Re: Doing It All w/ A 4 Track 22-4?

Post by A.David.MacKinnon » Sat May 24, 2014 4:29 am

tflsPearl wrote:If you are going to dump to digital anyways, through a figure 8 up as the overhead with one of the dead sides pointed straight at the drummer. When you mix down, double the channel, phase invert one, and hard pan left and right. Boom, Fake stereo.
That only works if it's combined with a mono middle mic (ie: mid/side stereo) Otherwise you end up with the L & R signal being 100% out of phase with each other. It might sound fine played in stereo but as soon as the mix gets folded to mono those tracks will cancel each other out and the OH will effectively disappear.

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Post by numberthirty » Sat May 24, 2014 12:51 pm

In my memory, the board is four sub outs with L/R being one of those outs? If that is the case, you could try -

- Kick to direct out
- First overhead to direct out
- Second overhead to direct out
- Use one(or more microphones) for guitar on a mixed sub out.

Are you dealing with a set amount of time? It seems like taking note of an approach/try it/see if it get you what you want might be a logical approach.

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Post by eh91311 » Tue May 27, 2014 6:20 pm

You should focus on a stereo drum kit sound for this recording. Maybe try the recorderman overhead stereo mic technique with a dedicated front of kick mic maybe 18-24" from the front kick drum head,up a little so it picks up more of the whole drum set. The original Glyn Johns technique with just the 3 mics (no snare mic) would also work well. Think of using a full-range large dynamic (not a kick drum mic) or LD condenser for the front of kick drum mic. Use the remaining track for the guitar/guitar amp mic. Dump to the computer and do the vocals and guitar solos in the computer & mix.

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Post by jrdamien » Sat Jun 07, 2014 9:51 pm

We started the album on Fri. Set up drums, got a good sound straight to PT using 4 mics. 1: A modded sm57 on the snare. 2: A tube mic out front about 3 feet out and up (which has just become my preferable kick/kit mic placement). 3: A modded MXL large condenser hanging from the ceiling in the far corner of the room. 4: An MXL ribbon as an overhead behind the kit.

I'll have more details on the mics and pics of the setup after we're done.

Got a really good sound - something a little unique and something I felt would fit the feel of the songs. It was so good we almost didn't try tape (this was all through the M30 into a Digi002 using converters I forget the name of, but nice ones). But, I lugged the tape machine over so we set it up, ins from the M30, out's to the Digi, recorded to PT off the repro head.

Objectivity aside there was an undeniable 'something' to the drums on tape. Of course there was. But we had 4 tracks to use to record a 2 piece live and 4 mics set up.

So we took off the rear room mic and placed the front kit mic in a different spot facing the toms to compensate for what that rear overhead was doing.

We plugged the guitar into track 4 and away we went.

Set up from 1 to 7 (just to get the RIGHT drum sounds) and recorded 9 songs from 7 to 10. I'll obviously have a lot more to tell and report (and sounds!) in the coming days and weeks but was so excited about the progress so far that I wanted to share.

Hope everyone's well.

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Post by j.harv » Sun Jun 08, 2014 2:03 pm

Lookin forward to hearin' it!

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