Brighter Drum Tracks

[Al_Huero]

I've recorded my band in my home studio over the past 4 months or so. Most of the tracks are done and have been working on the mix lately. It's an in-the-box set up with the drums tracked at 16-bit, 44.1 kHz with six decent mics: SM57 snare, MXL 601 x-y OHs, Sure Beta 52 Kick, Sennheiser 603 rack tom; A-T ATM25 floor tom. My room is a modified 20x20 box with some dividing walls and acoustical treatment--a lot of bass trapping essentially. The ceiling is lined with 1-inch OC 703 fiberglass insulation panels raised about an 1-1/2 off the ceiling--intended to control flutter echo (It's about a 9-ft ceiling with a slight pitch). I'm mixing in Protools.

Recently I've been A-B'ing my mixes agains stuff I like and/or other local band demos, and one thing has jumped out at me--my drum tracks are dead. My current thought is to try and dump the lows/mids off the overhead tracks and boost the high end to see if it can help. I'm also considering doing a sound replacment on the snare, as I've already boosted the EQ on the original track more than I'd like.

I guess I'd chalk it up to inexperience, but I'd like to know how others recording in a small room get clarity in their drum mixes. Do you EQ the tracks on the way in to boost the highs/cut the mids? Part of the problem is just not knowing how the tracks should sound going in. When we were doing the tracking it sounded fine on my monitors--but at that point I wasn't comparing it against anything else, so it was tough to get any perspective.

[drumsound]

Are there any room mics? I find a nice sheen and brightness comes from the room. You could even send the tracks to a speaker in the room, maybe with the 703 taken down even.

Good luck!

[Al_Huero]

Yeah, no room mic on this session unfortunately. I've just finished tracking drums for a friend's band with a room mic and I've noticed that--instant brightness control. Oh well. Reamping is a decent idea. I may also try routing the tracks back out through my Soundcraft board to try and adjust the EQ with that.

[@?,*???&?]

APIs. Simple answer. 312 preamps and 550A eq's. Get it done right. Nothing makes a drum kit sound better.

[cgarges]

While I like Jeff's answer...

Instead of boosting highs in your drum tracks, try cutting some lows and low mids. Done in the right places, this will clear things up and make more room for all the instruments (bass guitar, guitar, kick drum, toms) and will give you a cleaner overall picture. Be careful, though--too much will make things sound thin. I'm talking just a couple dB here or there at the frequencies that have the most buildup.

For whatever it's worth, I would guess that there's too much high-frequency absorption going on in your room and not enough mid to low-frequency absorption.

Hope this helps.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

[wayne kerr]

APIs. Simple answer. 312 preamps and 550A eq's. Get it done right. Nothing makes a drum kit sound better.

Right, just go out and spend $16,000 and you'll have a Grammy in no time. For fuck's sake.

Sisssssss

[Al_Huero]

Thanks Chris. I'll give it a shot.

[moogplayer]

Hey there again Al,

Sometimes less mics on the kit can produce clearer - at times brighter - results. There's been some tried and true 3 and 4 mic drum miking techniques discussed here.

Now for your immediate fix: maybe try compressing the OH mics while lowering some of the close mics. You'll get more room tone and space. Are your cymbals not bright enough or the drums themselves? Were the heads in good shape? Could you possibly be dealing with phasing issues?

For future recordings, you may think about retreating your room a little, and investing in some good pres (which believe me go a looooong way).


Andy

[JASIII]

Good old Jeff Robinson, always there with encouragement and practical advice for the small studio........

[Al_Huero]

Hey Andy, thanks for the input.

I tracked everything through a Soundcraft Spirit mixer--and I think the pre's are pretty decent. The weak link in the signal chain was definitely the hard disk recorder I was using at that point (a Korg D1600); decent converters but nothing great, and only 16-bit.

The drums themselves sound ok. Snare used was a Piccolo style (and yes, I read with horror the thread on this subject); so it doesn't sound too great. But the kick and toms are actually ok. Phasing wise, I don't hear any problems with the overheads. They're mainly just dull sounding, without much room ambience. I plan to mess with EQ, compression, and maybe a little reverb tonight to see what I can come up with.

[moogplayer]

Spirit pres aren't too bad, so you should be OK. Yeah those piccolo snares can sound pretty bad. A lot of drummers think those translate well in the studio. I never liked 'em. Good luck

[wayne kerr]

Spirit pres aren't too bad, so you should be OK.

Dude are you kidding me???? Didn't you even read Jeff Robinson's post? You have to use APIs! DUH!

You now owe Jeff $35. I suggest you pay it!

Sisssssssssy

[Snarky]

I found when I recorded drums in a small room there was always that one resonant frequency in all my tracks. It was like 240 or something close. As Chris said, there was too much HF absorbtion in the room (smelly mattresses), and not enough lo mid absorbtion. Sometimes on my drum verb I would brighten it, or bandwidth compress certian tracks that had that "room ring".


I like BIG ROOMS

[T-rex]

This may not help in the frequency department but you could always run the drum mix through a pa or monitors and record that signal to simulate room mics. You could experiment with the eq a bit and the mix, perhaps more OH and less close mics in the reamped mix and then mix those tracks back in, judiciously, with the normal tracks.

You have to look out for phase issues but I A/B'd a few tracks with and without some reamped tracks (didn't have enough mics to get a good room mic going too) and it really opened up the drum sound. It takes some time and experimentation, but at least you are working wiht what you have and you don't have to retrack anything.

Good Luck!

[auralman]

I didn't realize Jeff had officially crossed the Asanine river. Congratulations.

In my experience, dead drums are most affected by phase relationships and drum tuning. Check out your physics before purchasing your unblemished API sidecar, which is FANTASTIC ADVICE. Unreal.