How To Record Drums At Home And Sound Like A Pro
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Recording Drums
Many years ago, when I first picked up a guitar and played it in anger there were two types of bands, serious bands and hobby bands, and the most important thing you could do to be seen as a serious band was to get a demo recorded. This involved saving, borrowing, begging and embezzling enough money to hire a studio and place your lovingly crafted music onto a DAT tape for all eternity (plus a CD or cassette copy for each band member). The studio was the holy grail of places, a temple into which awkward teenagers entered through one door and rock legends emerged from another, all under the watchful gaze of the shamen who possessed the forbidden knowledge of the mixing board - the sound engineer. In reality this was more likely to be a couple of rooms in a dingy building on an industrial estate with a studio tech making £7 an hour, but its a great metaphor isn't it?
Fortunately for todays scruffy guitar wielding youths, it isn't the 90's anymore (though I do miss some of the music) and the whole process of recording your music so future generations will know where your legend began isn't the ordeal it used to be. In fact with a few wise equipment purchases the whole process can be done at home or in your practice room, and there are no shortage of resources online (such as this page) which explain the various techniques you need to achieve pro sounding recordings.
This page is all about one of the most challenging aspects of recording which is putting down a good drum sound, critical to giving your songs a good full sound when recorded. I am going to make a few assumptions to begin with, which is you already have a means of recording a multichannel input (in practice this will mean a laptop, multi input soundcard such as the MOTU 828, and an 8 channel mixer). I am also going to assume you have a reasonable space to record in, whether this is your practice room or just your parents lounge. NB whatever you do, don't try to record in a concrete walled garage, it will sound awful and is a waste of your time.
Fortunately for todays scruffy guitar wielding youths, it isn't the 90's anymore (though I do miss some of the music) and the whole process of recording your music so future generations will know where your legend began isn't the ordeal it used to be. In fact with a few wise equipment purchases the whole process can be done at home or in your practice room, and there are no shortage of resources online (such as this page) which explain the various techniques you need to achieve pro sounding recordings.
This page is all about one of the most challenging aspects of recording which is putting down a good drum sound, critical to giving your songs a good full sound when recorded. I am going to make a few assumptions to begin with, which is you already have a means of recording a multichannel input (in practice this will mean a laptop, multi input soundcard such as the MOTU 828, and an 8 channel mixer). I am also going to assume you have a reasonable space to record in, whether this is your practice room or just your parents lounge. NB whatever you do, don't try to record in a concrete walled garage, it will sound awful and is a waste of your time.
Contents at a Glance
Overview
The quality of a drum recording can make or break a rock track and there are several ways you can approach it depending on the equipment you have at your disposal. As a general rule the more drums you can mic up individually the better but as a bare minimum I wouldn't recommend using any less than 4 mics to record a full drumkit. The kick and snare drums really do underpin the driving force behind a rock track and it is important that they are both well recorded, otherwise they will be lost in the mix and the energy of the track will dissolve. When I say a minimum of 4 mics is necessary, two of these are for recording the kick and snare and the other two are for recording stereo overheads, literally two mics set up a few feet above the entire kit and set a few feet apart to give your recording a good sense of width. This are the most important elements to making your recording sound real in your final mix.
The Kick Drum
Firstly looking at the kick drum, what we want is to get our microphone right inside the drum shell which means either cutting an access hole in the back skin or removing the back drumhead entirely. You will also want to experiment with different amounts of damping inside the drum. By stuffing a couple of old towels or an old quilt into the bottom half of the shell you can dampen down some of the nasty resonant frequencies that drums make and can ruin your recording. Next have a look at your mic position, generally if your have your mic right inside the drum close to the front skin you will record a clickier skin sound, if you have if a few inches back from there you will get more of a wooly bass thud than a defined click. The sound you are going for is entirely up to you but remember mic selection and positioning at this stage is going to have much more impact than any processing you use at mixdown so it is important to get it right. Also if you are going for a clicky sound, a good trick is to tape a 2p coin to the front skin at the point the beater hits. On mic selection for kick drums a good choice is always the trusty AKG D112 which is specifically designed for low frequencies and high SPL's (sound pressure levels)
Cheap D112's on ebay
The Snare
Moving on to the snare drum we need to be aware of the fact that some snares rattle, and a nasty sounding snare rattle is really irritating and near impossible to remove in a mix. Instead nip it in the bud before you record, use your finger to damp different spots on the snare skin while the drummer hits it. After a little experimenting you should find a spot that stops the snare rattling when you apply pressure to it, put some gaffer tape on this spot and hit it again. If it stops the rattle go ahead and record your take, if not try again until you get it right.
Personally when selecting a mic to record a snare drum I don't think you can go far wrong with the old Shure SM57, though whichever mic you choose for the job it has to be able to handle the high volume of noise (SPL) that a snare creates. When you look at positioning, experiment with the point of the skin you aim the mic at until you find a tone you like. Also the angle at which the mic points at the skin will have a bearing on the sound. For a thicker sound, point the mic directly at the skin, or for more of a cracking skin sound aim the mic across the top of the skin.
If you have enough channels at your disposal and a spare mic you may want to experiment with over and under snare micing. In this technique as well as a mic recording the skin from the top, you also have a second mic recording the actual snare underneath. When it comes to mixdown you mix these two signals together for a much thicker sounding snare although generally these two recordings will be out of phase with each other. This can be fixed by simply reversing the phase of the under recording.
Personally when selecting a mic to record a snare drum I don't think you can go far wrong with the old Shure SM57, though whichever mic you choose for the job it has to be able to handle the high volume of noise (SPL) that a snare creates. When you look at positioning, experiment with the point of the skin you aim the mic at until you find a tone you like. Also the angle at which the mic points at the skin will have a bearing on the sound. For a thicker sound, point the mic directly at the skin, or for more of a cracking skin sound aim the mic across the top of the skin.
If you have enough channels at your disposal and a spare mic you may want to experiment with over and under snare micing. In this technique as well as a mic recording the skin from the top, you also have a second mic recording the actual snare underneath. When it comes to mixdown you mix these two signals together for a much thicker sounding snare although generally these two recordings will be out of phase with each other. This can be fixed by simply reversing the phase of the under recording.
Bargain SM57's
The Overheads
When recording a drumkit, the overheads are used not only to record the cymbals, but to provide a stereo image of the drumkit. If we recorded a full kit and mixed it so everything was dead centre in the stereo field, it would sound very artificial. By recording from two mics positioned above and either side of the drumkit we can pan these channels hard left and hard right in the mix, the net result being the drums sound a lot more live and real in the end product. Also what we are recording here is not just the sound of the kit but also the sound of the room by which I mean all the natural reverberations that are taking place in the recording space. For this reason a pair of overheads together with the kick and snare make up the bare minimum 4 mics I would use to record a drumkit.
Generally for this task I would use a pair of condenser mics, although a matched pair isn't really necessary for demo recordings I would certainly recommend you use two mics of the same make and model. A good choice here could beRode NT5's or a pair of AKG C1000S's. Experiment with mic placement here as this will have a bearing of how much of the drumkit you record directly against the amount of room sound you pick up.
Generally for this task I would use a pair of condenser mics, although a matched pair isn't really necessary for demo recordings I would certainly recommend you use two mics of the same make and model. A good choice here could beRode NT5's or a pair of AKG C1000S's. Experiment with mic placement here as this will have a bearing of how much of the drumkit you record directly against the amount of room sound you pick up.
C1000's on ebay
Hi Hats
The hi hats are like the ticking clock of a song and are well worth getting a recording of so you have control of how apparent they are in the final mix. For songs with lots of big epic drum fills, paradiddles, and extravagant toms work this might not be so critical as the hats will generally be quite far back in the overall cacophony, but for drummers playing simple drum patterns a good hi hat track will pin the whole beat together.
Mic of choice here for me is the AKG C451 as it is a condenser with a good frequency response at the high end, though there are many small diaphragm condensers that will do an adequate job here. When placing a mic on a cymbal you need to be aware of the difference in sound between the bell and the edge of the cymbal, personally I like to place this mic to pick up the bell sound and orient it on the opposite side of the cymbal to the where the snare is to avoid unnecessary spill.
One final warning on hi hats is never try to aim a mic at the gap between the two hi hats. When the hats open and close they force all the air between them in and out which means your hat recording would end up as a series of whooshing noises.
Mic of choice here for me is the AKG C451 as it is a condenser with a good frequency response at the high end, though there are many small diaphragm condensers that will do an adequate job here. When placing a mic on a cymbal you need to be aware of the difference in sound between the bell and the edge of the cymbal, personally I like to place this mic to pick up the bell sound and orient it on the opposite side of the cymbal to the where the snare is to avoid unnecessary spill.
One final warning on hi hats is never try to aim a mic at the gap between the two hi hats. When the hats open and close they force all the air between them in and out which means your hat recording would end up as a series of whooshing noises.
C451's at Amazon
Toms
As with the snare drum, toms can suffer from rattle which can spoil an otherwise perfect recording so use the gaffer tape trick we talked about for the snare above to solve this. Once again the super versatile SM57 is more than capable of recording toms, though some other options are SennheiserE604's or Shure PG56's . Again placement is important here, like the snare aim across for a skin sound or down for a drum sound. As toms are only played sparingly in some songs it is probably a good idea to apply gates to your tom recording at the mix stage to avoid having too much unnecessary spill in your mix.
If you are going for full kit recordings then it might even be worth investing in a full drum mic kit like Shure's PGDMK6. Sets like this contain all the mics you need for recording drums in a handy package and generally represent a decent cost saving over buying mics individually. They are also handy to have around for live applications.
If you are going for full kit recordings then it might even be worth investing in a full drum mic kit like Shure's PGDMK6. Sets like this contain all the mics you need for recording drums in a handy package and generally represent a decent cost saving over buying mics individually. They are also handy to have around for live applications.
Full Drum Mic Sets
Recommended Reading
Random Bits of Studio Gear
Setting up a home studio can cost an absolute bomb, I've found ebay to be an absolute Godsend for cheaply expanding my rig.
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KarenTBTEN
Dec 27, 2011 @ 11:17 am | delete
- I like o the way you opened the lens -- evocative -- and this looks like a great resource. SquidAngel blessings.
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Timewarp
Nov 22, 2011 @ 1:19 pm | delete
- Lots of good info, blessed!
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Cyrano_Smith
May 28, 2008 @ 4:29 pm | delete
- Thanks for the timely advise. I'm recording the drum tracks soon.
Thanks for the great site. 5 STARS! Thanks for joining the Musical Instruments Group, you really add to the group!
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Hi, I'm just an ordinary guy writing about various interests of mine. Topics include music, recording, art, photography, easy money making, gardening,... more »
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