Agressive Drums - The Recording Guide

Contents Acknowledgments .................................................................................................6 Preface .....................................................................................................................7 PART I • Source Drummer ...............................................................................................................10 Drum Kit ................................................................................................................12

Kick Drum and Toms............................................................................................12 Snare Drum ...........................................................................................................13 Hardware ...............................................................................................................15 Cymbals .................................................................................................................16 Drum Tuning & Damping ....................................................................................19 Recording Engineer’s Toolbox ............................................................................20 General Tips ..........................................................................................................21 Snare ......................................................................................................................22 Kick .........................................................................................................................23 Toms .......................................................................................................................23 Drumheads ............................................................................................................24 Drumsticks ............................................................................................................25 Recording Room ...................................................................................................26 Room Size ..............................................................................................................27 Untreated Rooms .................................................................................................28 Room Sweet Spot .................................................................................................30 PART II • Gear Microphone Types ................................................................................................32 Condenser, Dynamic and Ribbon .......................................................................32 Polar Patterns .......................................................................................................34 Preamps, Levels and Pre-Proc Pre-Processing essing .............................................................35 Transformer-Coupled, Transformerless or Tube design? .............................36 Classic Microphone Preamp Types ....................................................................38 AD Converters ......................................................................................................39 Levels and Gain Staging .....................................................................................39 Processing On the Way In ...................................................................................41 Building a Headphone Mix and a Tempo Map .................................................42 Headphones ..........................................................................................................43 Listen Mic and Talkback ......................................................................................44

Contents Acknowledgments .................................................................................................6 Preface .....................................................................................................................7 PART I • Source Drummer ...............................................................................................................10 Drum Kit ................................................................................................................12

Kick Drum and Toms............................................................................................12 Snare Drum ...........................................................................................................13 Hardware ...............................................................................................................15 Cymbals .................................................................................................................16 Drum Tuning & Damping ....................................................................................19 Recording Engineer’s Toolbox ............................................................................20 General Tips ..........................................................................................................21 Snare ......................................................................................................................22 Kick .........................................................................................................................23 Toms .......................................................................................................................23 Drumheads ............................................................................................................24 Drumsticks ............................................................................................................25 Recording Room ...................................................................................................26 Room Size ..............................................................................................................27 Untreated Rooms .................................................................................................28 Room Sweet Spot .................................................................................................30 PART II • Gear Microphone Types ................................................................................................32 Condenser, Dynamic and Ribbon .......................................................................32 Polar Patterns .......................................................................................................34 Preamps, Levels and Pre-Proc Pre-Processing essing .............................................................35 Transformer-Coupled, Transformerless or Tube design? .............................36 Classic Microphone Preamp Types ....................................................................38 AD Converters ......................................................................................................39 Levels and Gain Staging .....................................................................................39 Processing On the Way In ...................................................................................41 Building a Headphone Mix and a Tempo Map .................................................42 Headphones ..........................................................................................................43 Listen Mic and Talkback ......................................................................................44

PART III • Recording Tactics Dynamic Envelope ...............................................................................................46 Phase Coherency .................................................................................................47 Listening In Mono .................................................................................................48 Cymbals .................................................................................................................49 The Stereo Overhead Approach ..........................................................................49 Hi-Hat and Ride Mic Placement .........................................................................51 Microphone Choices .............................................................................................52 3:1 Rule ..................................................................................................................53 The “Mic per Cymbal Cymbal”” Approach ........................................................................54 Underheads ...........................................................................................................54 Recording Recor ding Cymbals Separately ..........................................................................55 Snare Drum ...........................................................................................................57 Kick Drum .............................................................................................................60 Toms .......................................................................................................................63 Ambience...............................................................................................................65 360 Degrees of Room (Blumlein) .......................................................................68 Wide Stereo Room (A-B pair) ..............................................................................69 Other Stereo Techniques .....................................................................................70 Drum Triggers ......................................................................................................73 Cowbell ..................................................................................................................74 Recording “Raw” Drums ....................................................................................75 Overheads ..............................................................................................................75 Ambience ...............................................................................................................77 Snare ......................................................................................................................78 Kick .........................................................................................................................78 Toms .......................................................................................................................78 Conclusions ...........................................................................................................79 Sampling the Drumkit.........................................................................................80

PART IV • Post-Production Combining, Time-Aligning & Editing ................................................................82 Combining .............................................................................................................82 Weeding Out the Weak .........................................................................................82 Phase & Time-Aligning .......................................................................................83 Editing ....................................................................................................................85 Final Preparations Before Mixing ....................................................................87 Mix Those Drums – No Time To Explain! .........................................................88 Kick .........................................................................................................................89 Snare ......................................................................................................................90 Toms .......................................................................................................................90 Overheads ..............................................................................................................91 Drums ....................................................................................................................91 Ambience ...............................................................................................................92 DrumsParaComp ..................................................................................................93 DrumVerb ..............................................................................................................94 Master Fader .........................................................................................................94 Final Words ...........................................................................................................95 Appendix A – Example Setups ...........................................................................96 Comprehensive Setup (20 ch) .............................................................................96 Basic Setup (14 ch) ...............................................................................................97 No-Frills Setup (8 ch)...........................................................................................98 Basic Pre-Production Setup (4 ch) .....................................................................99 Simple Pre-Production Setup (2 ch) ..................................................................99 Super Simple Pre-Production Setup (1 ch) ....................................................100 Appendix B – Example Schedule for First Recording Day..........................101 Appendix C – Microphone Polar Patterns .....................................................102 Sources ................................................................................................................103

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Version 1.0 | 9.1.2013 Copyright © 2013 Santeri Salmi. All rights reserved. These materials may not be reproduced, republished, redistributed, or resold in any form without written permission from the author. Any trademarks, service marks, product names or named features are assumed to be the property of their respective owners, and are used only for reference. Photos and illustrations by Santeri Salmi unless otherwise specifically stated. Proofreading and additional editing by Jon Tidey.

Acknowledgments I wish to thank various people for their contribution to this project; Matias Helle, Tuomo Latvala, Sami Niittykoski, Daniel Rantanen, Jaakko Viitalähde, Jarno Hänninen, Jon Tidey and Ola Sonmark. I would also like to thank all the bands, musicians, producers and audio engineers I have worked with during the 20 years of my musical journey. Finally, I wish to thank my fiancee Elina for her support and encouragement throughout the project.

Preface Recording powerful and punchy drums is something I have been after since I started my audio engineering journey. I have read countless articles and books about drum recording, but most of them have failed to give me the results I am after. I have been recording mostly metal and rock bands. Most of the time, the biggest limiting factor of aggressive drum sound is the tempo. If you want the faster parts not to sound like a complete mess, you need to have total control over the sound. This book is about my way of doing things to get the sounds I hear in my head. I’m a drummer. I used to play drums in a death metal band called Dauntless (1993-2008) and in various other projects before focusing into recording and mixing. I have played drums for 20 years and have 10 years of professional recording experience. I run my little studio called Drop Hammer Studios and I have also worked in many other studios. I have had the honour of recording many different drummers, and many of them have been a lot better than me. Today’s drum sound is not very acoustic. Most records have some sample replacement or augmenting going on to make the sound more powerful and consistent. Sometimes using samples is inevitable, especially if you are going for a specific sound. There’s nothing wrong with that, but I like to challenge myself. I want to create a great drum sound right from the start and try to keep it acoustic in the mix. Sure, there are some styles where the laws of physics make this task very hard (tempo can go up to 280 bpm!) – at least with the current drums and technology available. One thing to keep in mind is that no matter how good the raw sound you get from acoustic drums is, it still won’t sound like on a typical modern record. Just compare some raw drum samples from commercial sample libraries (if you can find any raw samples...). These guys had the knowledge, great studios and a great drummer. They used the best gear and optimal mic positioning without having to worry about bleed. It still sounds raw and not even close to the final sound! That’s why 99% of drum samples you hear are heavily processed. So, what’s the point of this guide? Well... crap in, crap out! The sound is cumulative. Get it right in the beginning and the mixing engineer will get

100% out of your tracks. Even if he is going to use sample replacement. You may not have all the best gear at your disposal, but you can still make kickass recordings with careful tuning and microphone positioning. When you have reached the point where every element in your drum recording works in a mix context, you can start breaking the rules! Numerous times I’ve had to step out of my comfort zone to achieve the sound in my head. The studio you are working in might not have all their gear available at the time of recording. Use whatever you’ve got and try to get great results! I will go through every detail of drum recording from my own point of view. The approach is based on my experience on how to get a sound where the power, separation and definition is taken to it’s maximum level. After you have gone through the first part, you can find one chapter dedicated to “raw” drums. It features examples of what I do differently when the end result calls for more traditional, “organic” drum sound. Ok, back to basics. The three key elements of a great drum recording are: • • •

The drummer must have a good “recording touch” suitable for the style The drums and tuning need to be top-notch The recording gear, room acoustics and microphone placement needs to be appropriate

Each part needs to be completed with the uttermost precision. The drummer and engineer needs to hear the final result in their heads before even starting to tune the drums! If any of these three elements fail, the result will only be “ok” instead of “great”! If you don’t have the best gear available, it’s not an excuse to make bad recordings. Once you learn all the right techniques and start hearing the end result in your head, you can go to ANY studio and start making great recordings. If you are a beginner making your first drum recordings, it might be wise to start with the No-Frills Setup presented in Appendix A. It includes all the core elements to begin your journey. Making great drum recordings is not easy. It’s not cheap. It will drive you to the edge! It will drive the drummer to the edge! I know these techniques work in practice. Still, there might be better ways to do them. Let me know if you find one! Remember! Everything in this guide is subjective. Feel free to disagree.

PART I

Source

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Drummer To get great results you need a great drummer. No gear will save you from a poor drum performance. What makes a drummer great? Or to be more specific, what makes a drummer great to record? Here’s a short list: Consistent and hard-hitting, can keep high intensity level throughout the session. Lighter touch on the hi-hat and cymbals (if this fails, everything else will too). Hits the drums in the “sweet spot” zone. Can adapt to different settings with his or her kit (cymbals higher, toms flat etc.). Doesn’t challenge gravity by sitting too low. Can play to a click. Not only to keep time, but also to make it sound good. Can perform in a stressful situation and adapt to different arrangements and changes in songs when needed.

When you meet a drummer with all these qualities, your job will be easy. Consistency is really the key to a solid drum sound. Processing the drums is much easier when the sound and feel is not changing all the time. Even if the performance is not world-class, consistent playing will give you more sound shaping options. But remember, it’s your job to keep a relaxed atmosphere in the studio. Make sure the room temperature and lighting is pleasant for the drummer and fresh water is available at all times. Keep the champagne cool and serve only the best caviar. Basic stuff, you know!

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You really need to use some psychology when things are not moving in the right direction. Some drummers perform better when pushed. Others don’t. If you encounter any technical problems during the recording process, don’t make it everybody’s problem. It is your problem. Make sure the drummer has something to do while you are taking care of it. Warming up would be one those things.

“Make sure the drummer knows how to play and make sure you know how to record.” – Christopher Sauter 2006

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Drum Kit The world is full of great drums. Why is it that most drummers use the crappy ones? We all know the answer: money. Good drums cost money. Different woods have different sounds. Most quality drums are made of either maple or birch. Maple has a warm and smooth sound, while birch is brighter and has more presence. One thing to keep in mind is that the thickness of the shell affects the sound very much. You want the drummer to hit hard, so choose a shell thickness somewhere between medium to thick (6-10 ply).

Louder drums = less cymbal bleed

Kick Drum and Toms Most drummers use 20 or 22 inch kicks. They’re both fine and sound good recorded, though smaller kick drums make it easier to place the toms. If the tempo is not very high, I would recommend at least 22” kicks. Something that can greatly affect the tone of the kick drums is the material of the beater; it can be felt, wood, plastic or rubber. My favorites are felt and wood, but experiment with different options if you have the chance.

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One or two kicks? We all know that you need two kick drums to get chicks, but in the studio one is enough. It makes the microphone positioning easier and not many studios have two sets of kick drum microphones. It goes without saying that you need a pair of good quality double pedals. How about toms? Let’s put it this way: toms on George Kollias’ (Nile) kit: 8”, 10”, 12”, 13”, 14”, 16”. Toms on Vinnie Paul’s (Hellyeah, ex-Pantera, exDamage Plan), kit: 14”, 15” and 18”. You get the idea. Smaller toms have better articulation. Same goes for the depth. Deeper toms have more volume and power. The problem with deeper toms is that they are harder to set flat.

We all know that you need two kick drums to get chicks, but in the studio one is enough. You will get the best results when the toms have a two inch difference in size between them. The tuning will be much easier. A one inch only difference will not be enough. For some unknown reason, most old drum sets have 12” and 13” toms.

Placement Toms should not be attached to the kick drum! It will affect the kick drum sound in a bad way. Set the toms as flat as you can. Not like Lars Ulrich did in the 80’s. It will improve the sound a lot. The stick will hit the head at a smaller angle and you will get more power. Just make sure the drummer isn’t hitting the rims.

Snare Drum You can find even more options when it comes to snare drums. My favorite material is metal (brass, bronze, steel, aluminium, etc.). It sounds brighter and louder than wood and to me that's a good thing. One of the most popular snare drums in human history is Ludwig Supra-Phonic (aluminium shell) and there is a reason for it. Aluminium has the tone warmth between steel & brass.

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Thick (8-10 ply) wood snares can also have metal like qualities in sound. How deep should the snare drum be? Most of the time 8 inches is too much for faster stuff. Anything below 8 inches will work fine. Even piccolo snares (14"/3") can have a full sound. If the music is very fast, you want the snare drum to react faster. Tip! If you are going to record bands regularly, buy a good snare drum for the studio. Believe it or not but most of the time you will be using your own snare and the drummer will agree with you after hearing a short comparison. Material for kick and toms

Birch (loud & bright) or maple (warm)

Kick drum size

20-22”

Kick drum depth

18-22”

Shell thickness

Medium to thick (6-10 ply)

Tom shell size

Up to taste and style. Usually 10-14” for rack toms. Two inch difference in size between the toms recommended. For floor toms 16” or 18” is the standard size.

Tom shell depth

Deeper is stronger, but harder to set flat. You want to have at least 8” depth on smaller toms.

Snare drum size

14” recommended.

Snare drum depth

Anything below 8” is usually fine.

Snare drum material

Metal or thick wood (birch/maple).

Bearing edges

Single 45 or double 45 degree. These will give the best attack and widest tuning range.

Hardware

Sturdy is the key.

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Hardware Rack or stands? It’s really up to the drummer’s preference. Sturdy is the key. Just make sure you don’t hear any squeaks from the pedals and drum throne. Double bass drum pedals are also one of the personal items in a drum set. Metal drum playing is usually very technical and the feel of a double pedal is highly important to a drummer. Some prefer the feel of Axis AX-X2 and some others Pearl Eliminator . Not to mention all other manufacturers. The pedals can also have dozens of different adjustments. You get the idea, double pedals are not a very simple thing. In fact, they are the most complicated thing in all drum hardware. If you are going to buy a double pedal for your studio drum kit, I would recommend something basic such as Tama Iron Cobra Power Glide.

How many cymbals stands do you need? I would get one for hi-hat, four for accent cymbals and one for ride. Not all of them need stand on the floor. You can replace some of them with cymbal arms and attach them to tom stands. Again, toms should have their own stands and not attached to a kick drum.

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Cymbals Thinner and smaller cymbals tend to sound better recorded. They have a lower pitch which blends better with the rest of the instruments. The reason why “rock” and “metal” labeled cymbals are so heavy is the fact that heavier cymbals have better durability and loudness. They may fit the hard-hitting style of many drummers but tend to sound harsh in the studio. Loud cymbals also make it very hard to get a good separation due to excessive bleed in the close mics. There is one exception to the rule though: ride cymbal. Remember: if the cymbals sound cheap, the whole mix will sound cheap. Pitch

Sustain

Small Size

high

short

Big Size

low

long

Thin

low

short

Heavy

high

long

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Hi-Hat Hi-hat is the primary timekeeper and therefore the core element in a cymbal setup. The most common size is 14” but 13” is also great for recording. The worst-case scenario is a bad drummer with a 15-inch heavy hi-hat! Also, make sure that the hi-hat is not opened too much. Some drummers have hihats on both sides of the kit. Most of the time it’s due to ergonomics in fast playing.

Ride This is the only cymbal where you want to go heavy. Heavy rides have a better stick articulation and "ping" that will come through a dense mix. You don’t want too much sustain here. Most common sizes are 20” or 22”. It’s important that the bell has some nice ping in it.

Crash Most drummers have at least two crashes in their setup. The typical sizes range from 14-19”. In the studio the most usable sizes are 16”, 17” and 18”. When you go bigger than 18”, the crashes start to sound more like ride cymbals and the sustain might become a problem. Smaller than 16” can be good for accenting but too “fast” for laying a beat.

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China Chinas can be very important in aggressive music. They get often a lot of use and not only for accenting. It can also be the most problematic cymbal due to the loud and piercing sound. The typical sizes range from 12” to 22” with 18” being the most common size.

Splashes, Bells and Saw Blades These are almost purely accent cymbals with sizes ranging from 6"-12". They are usually placed exactly where your tom mics should be!

All cymbal manufacturers have great cymbals. Just pick the ones that are low or medium volume. My personal favorites to record are the Zildjian A Custom, Paiste 2002/Signature and Sabian HHX . Tip! Listen to your favorite records and find out what cymbals were used. It is one of the few things that is not usually heavily processed on a dense mix.

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Drum Tuning & Damping All drummers know how to tune their drums, right? They are really passionate about it, because it is so important part of a great drum sound. Wrong. Most drummers would rather be shot in the face than to learn drum tuning. That’s why you must know how to do it!

Most drummers would rather be shot in the face than to learn drum tuning.

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It is so important, to the point that if you feel uncertain, hire a drum tech to do it. A good tech will do it in one hour and it will not be too expensive. You will also learn a lot by watching a pro tune the kit. If you still want to tune the drums yourself, learn the basics and then buy a drum tuner like the Tune-Bot or DrumDial . It will make the tuning job faster. But remember, you still need to fine-tune drums with your ears! If you use the DrumDial or similar tuner, place the drum on the floor or other flat surface.


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Always try to bring the drums to the recording space at least 12 hours before the session. This way you will avoid the tuning problems caused by a different humidity and temperature. After all, drums are made out of wood! Listen to the tuned kit as a whole, but remember that you might need to do some fine tuning and muffling after hearing the drums through your close mics. This is where you will really hear the small details.

Recording Engineer’s Toolbox When I’m recording in other studios than my own, I always carry the following tools around. •

Multi-tool

•

Flashlight + extra batteries

•

Gaffer tape

•

Gun Oil

•

Scissors

•

Tape measure

•

Pen & paper

•

Earmuffs

•

Drum key

•

TuneBot Moongel Damping Pads

•

Drumsticks

•

External HDD

•

The earmuffs are especially essential, I always wear them when the drummer has sticks in his/her hand and I’m near the drums. You don’t want to destroy your hearing just before you’re trying to hear those little nuances!


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General Tips When changing new heads, start by tightening all lugs to just finger-tight and continue tuning in a star pattern with the key. Half a turn at a time is enough. Change and seat the heads ideally at least 12 hours before final tuning. By "seating" I mean tune the heads high and press them with your palm. You will hear a crackling sound. I’ve found Remo heads to require more seating than other brands. Be extra careful when you seat the resonant heads. They are usually much thinner, especially on the snare drum. Seating is just like stretching new guitar or bass strings and is essential to stable tuning.

When tuning down and loosening a lug, always do a small re-tightening before continuing with the next one. It will stop the lug moving unintentionally. In other words: always tune upwards. Always tune one side at a time and mute the head you are not tuning by placing the drum on a stool. When you are comparing the pitch between different spots, press the center of the head with your finger and tap two inches from each lug.

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Tip! It is very likely that you will get a great sound by tuning the batter head lower than the resonant head.

Snare You want the snare to sound tight and fat at the same time. I always tune the resonant head high and start adjusting the batter head to my liking. Most of the time you need to muffle the snare just a little bit to reduce the ringing overtones. It will also make the sweet spot bigger. Remember, the real meat is in the texture, not in the attack. My favorite damping/muffling material is Moongel . Strips of gaffer, masking or painter tape works too, but it is not reusable. Duct tape should be your last option because it leaves a nasty residue. Try to position the muffling so that the drummer won't strike it and the microphone won't point directly at it. Wood snares sound darker and usually require less damping than metal ones.


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If you feel uncertain with your first tuning – record it and try another one. Usually three different tunings is enough and you’ll find the best pitch. After that you can move on to a different snare drum. Listen to the results with the drummer and make your decision. Most of the time you don’t need to do any drastic changes to the resonant head after you find the optimal tuning. Many “extreme” drummers tend to favor relatively high tunings. I personally find the overtones to be a bit problematic in many cases. I would recommend using slightly lower tunings than in practice/live situations. Lower tuning smooths out the ringing and produces more consistent results. Also pay attention to the wires. If you have to make them really tight, there is something wrong with your tuning. Don’t choke the drum. Remember to check the tuning after every song!

Kick I like to tune the kick drum very low, so low that the lugs on the batter side are almost rattling. The resonant side can be tuned a little higher. If the drummer can't play with the low tuning, tighten it a little bit. After all, you want the drummer to perform well. Go for "punch," not "boom" with the tuning. Muffle the kick with cloth, foam, pillow or whatever is available or use a commercial muffling pad. Just don't make it too tight and don't use too much of it. If you need to use more muffling than a regular pillow, there’s something wrong with your kickdrum, skin or tuning. Flip the front hole to the top for easier microphone positioning.

Toms I want the toms to have lots of power and bottom but not a lot of sustain. I usually tune the batter head lower than the resonant head. The difference doesn't have to be huge. Start the tuning from the smallest tom. Or if you want a very low tuning, start from the biggest floor tom. All drums are different, so you really need to experiment with different tunings. The lower you go the less you need damping. Floor toms can have a lower tuning compared to rack toms, but make sure all toms sound like they’re from the same kit.


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Tip! Floor toms love muting rings. Consider buying 16” and 18” for the studio. They will last forever. Or go DIY and cut them from old drumheads.

It is essential to have a tight sound because the tempos can go up to 280 bpm! Usually low tunings sound best but it might not be practical with hyperfast stuff. The drummer could need a little more stick bounce from the skins.

Snare wires rattling? This can happen if the tuning is too close between the snare and the offending tom. It is called sympathetic resonance. First you can try loosening the four lugs around the bottom wire by just a little. If it doesn’t work the cure is to retune either the tom or the snare. It’s very hard to get rid of buzz completely, but small amounts won’t really do any harm. If you’re going to record the band live in the studio, the bass amplifier will most likely cause similar trouble. For “sludgy” type of sound it can even be desirable!

Drumheads There are hundreds of different drumheads on the market. You are going to record some real hard hitting drummers, so the heads need to be durable. That’s why 2-ply or thick 1-ply heads are a good choice. Pronounced attack with medium sustain is good for recording. Thick heads also generate more bottom end. Select coated head for snare and clear heads for kick and toms. Not all snare drum heads are coated but most of the time they are white. The kick drum head often has some type of damping built-in. It will reduce the amount of “stuffing” you’ll need to place inside the kick. It is also a good idea to use some type of "patch" where the beater hits to give more punch and durability. I also like to have some tonal control in my snare head and most coated heads with a “dot” in the center have proven to work. Especially with metal snares. They seem to filter out some unwanted ringing and thus reduce the amount of additional damping.


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Some examples from the REMO catalog Kick: Powerstroke III Clear & Falam Double Kick Slam Snare: CS Batter Coated (batter) & Hazy Ambassador (resonant) Toms: Emperor Clear (batter) & Ambassador (resonant)

Some examples from the AQUARIAN catalog Kick: Aquarian Force I & Aquarian Kick Pad Snare: Aquarian Hi-Energy (batter) & Classic Clear Snare Bottom (resonant) Toms: Aquarian Response 2 Clear (batter) & Classic Clear (resonant)

Some examples from the EVANS catalog Kick: EQ2/EQ3 & EQ Patch Clear Snare: Power Center Reverse Dot (batter) & Hazy 300 (resonant) Toms: G2 Clear (batter) & G1 Clear (resonant)

Drumsticks Drumsticks are always up to the drummers preference, but there’s few things you should know about them. The most common size is 5A made out of hickory. It’s like the medium of drumsticks. Nothing wrong with that but a little heavier would be better. I’d recommend 5B, 2B, “Rock” or “Metal” thickness. You know, heavier sticks produce more volume with less effort. The material and shape of the tip is also going to affect the sound of cymbals. The most important factor is the material. Basically you have two choices: wood and nylon. Nylon tip produces the brightest sound on cymbals. Without hearing the actual cymbals it’s impossible to say which ones to choose. Use your ears! I personally go with wood tips most of the time.

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Recording Room We all know that acoustically treated large rooms sound great. Drums need the space. However, much of the drum sound you hear in many aggressive music styles comes from the close mics. I have recorded drums in very small and low rooms and have still gotten good results. If you are going to book a studio, make sure the drum room is decent sized and not completely dead sounding. It will be very hard to get a "live" drum sound without any reflections from the room. It will also make the drummer to hit the cymbals too hard. Trust me, you don't want that!

The images above are of my first drum recording “room”. Eight square meters of floor space next to a boiler with very low ceiling! I have recorded albums funded by labels in this room!

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Room Size Drums are the most demanding instrument for ambience sounds. For aggressive and fast music you don’t need the biggest drum room in town. Usually the medium sized rooms with adjustable acoustics (movable gobos etc.) will give you the room sound you need. You can also get great results in a very small room if it’s acoustically treated for drum recording by a professional studio designer. If the room is big, it is a good idea to place some non-reflective gobos or “office walls” around the kit. This way you will get a tighter sound but without the problems of a small room. The need to do this goes hand in hand with the tempo of the music. For fast music you want less room in the overheads and close mics. I find rooms sized around 860 ft2 (80 m2) with high ceiling and adjustable acoustics to be perfect for most drum recording. It is also a good idea to have absorptive material above the drums. It allows you to adjust the overhead microphone height more freely without capturing too much room ambience.

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Untreated Rooms If you are recording in a completely untreated room, it’s time for some for some guerilla acoustics! Buy some rockwool/fiberglass/mineral wool boards from your local hardware store and stack it in the corners. Those piles will work as a very effective bass traps. You don’t need to remove the plastic, because you are trying to tame the lower frequencies. These frequencies go right through the plastic. For example if your kick drum’s low-frequency peak is at 60 Hz, the sound wave is roughly 16 feet (5 meters) long! You can imagine how hard it would be to soundproof the room completely. And yes, soundproofing is a completely different thing than acoustic treatment.

Absorption and Diffusion

Absorption means that you convert the sound energy into a very small amount of heat using sound-absorptive materials like rockwool, foam or heavy drapery. How much sound absorption actually happens is very dependant on the material thickness and frequency. You can find many excellent online DIY tutorials for building your own bass traps, gobos and other absorbers.

Diffusion means that you scatter the reflections instead of absorbing. It can help in maintaining “live” sound in a small room when used together with absorbers. If you want predictable results, you can build or buy diffusors based on exact mathematical calculations. Using a bookcase filled with oddsized books can also work, but it will also absorb sound. So, it is not purely a diffusor.

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If you don’t have the possibility to use “pro” materials, add some furniture, blankets and mattresses.The easiest way to tame the first reflections from side walls is to place blankets or rugs on a microphone stand with the boom aligned horizontally. Add these around the kit. If you have access to “office walls”, they can sometimes be very good for this application too. Don’t use egg cartons on your walls! They do absolutely nothing for acoustics and just make you look like an amateur. Hang some heavy drapery from the walls but not too much – it will kill the high end. Leave some space behind the fabric for greater absorption. Low ceilings are also bad for your drum sound and hard to tame with acoustic treatment. Try to avoid them. The rigidity of the walls is usually the reason for “boxy” sound. Concrete and brick walls are very reflective on lower frequencies and the mud will pile up on your tracks very quickly. If you have the possibility, try to find a nicely sized living room with wood floors. It will be much better than your average garage or basement! Damn, you could even rent a nice timber cabin in the middle of nowhere! On the other hand, if the room is too dead sounding to start with, place some angled large wood panels against the walls. Start with one wall and go from there. You might wonder, how can a room be too dead sounding? Isn’t that exactly what you want with bad rooms, to kill the room sound? Let me give an example. There was this one drummer who destroyed his cymbals during a gig at a cruising ship. The venue was carpeted all over and the drummer had to use excessive force to actually hear what he was playing! Bye bye vintage Paiste 602 cymbals... A dead room kills all the sustain of an instrument leaving it dull and lifeless.

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Room Sweet Spot All rooms have a sweet spot where the drums really come alive. The easiest way to find it is to grab a floor tom and walk around the room while playing some hard hits on it. You will notice how the sound changes in different parts of the room. Try to find a spot where you get most “guts” and resonance. What you are trying to achieve here is to find a spot where the standing waves are not canceling out your low end. The reason for using a floor tom is that it has all the sound qualities you need to find this spot. When you find it, build the kit around the floor tom. Done.

Absorption Coefficient Chart

PART II

Gear

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Microphone Types Condenser, Dynamic and Ribbon There are many types of microphones but the following ones are the most common for drum recording. Most of the dynamic microphones mentioned in this guide are very common in a typical live setting as well. On the next page you can see my suggestions how to use each type.

Where there's an SM57, there's hope. – Santeri Salmi 2012

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Condenser (capacitor)

Dynamic (moving coil)

Ribbon

The most sensitive and transparent sounding microphone type. Very fast and detailed transient response. Requires phantom power (+48 V) from the

Can handle high sound pressure levels without distorting and have very robust construction. Not necessary neutral sounding, but frequency response is tailored for close miking

Very smooth and natural sounding microphone type. More detailed than other dynamic microphones but high end is “tamer” than in condenser

preamp.

applications, including a very common 5 kHz boost for better attack.

microphones. The polar pattern is typically bidirectional.

Small-Diaphragm

Small-Diaphragm

Suitable for overheads and cymbal close mics. Can also work very well on snare bottom.

Best for snare and rack toms due to smaller size.

Very good in room ambience stereo pairs. Not usually used in drum close miking due to fragility of the ribbon. Can work

Large-Diaphragm

Large-Diaphragm

Very good in room microphone stereo pairs and on hi-hat. Can work on overheads, but picks up more low-end and ambience than small-diaphragm condensers.

Optimal for kick drums and floor toms due to extended low frequency response. Some models work very well on rack toms too, but bigger size can be problematic.

well on overheads in “sludgier” type of music.

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Polar Patterns Polar pattern defines how the microphone “hears” sound from different directions. The most common polar pattern is cardioid . It is a good allarounder. If you are not familiar with different polar patterns, see Appendix C for images. Pay close attention to the “null points” seen in the patterns. You can use them very efficiently when fighting with cymbal bleed between different parts of the kit.

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Preamps, Levels and Pre-Processing I tend to add quite a lot of saturation to the drums in the mixing stage. Why is that? It's because the sound is usually not aggressive enough to start with. I'm not talking about inserting a Big Muff in the snare chain. I'm talking about subtle console, tube or tape-like saturation. Well, why don't I just make the drums sound aggressive in the first place? There is one big reason for it. It's not possible with most average-quality gear. The saturation just sounds bad. More like clipping. Many higher end preamps and compressors have great saturation characteristics when you drive them hard. The problem is that they are very expensive. Not many people have access to 16-24 channels of high-end preamps. Analog tape recorders are also expensive and require a lot of knowledge to use and maintain. Besides, not many bands these days could survive a recording session without modern editing techniques. Luckily, there is one cheaper way to get good preamps. Some older mixing consoles sound great


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and you can find them pretty cheap these days. They just take a lot of space – sometimes more than would be considered practical in a small studio. They can also be expensive to maintain if you run into problems. So, what makes a preamp good? To me, it's not a neutral and transparent sound. To be honest, I hate that. The sound I want for aggressive music is not transparent. It’s not neutral either. Most of the time you need to do some very radical post-processing to get the sounds you want. After all, your goal is to make the drums sound larger than life! I love preamps that saturate nicely and have a full and colorful sound. To saturate the preamp, you need to have separate input and output controls. There are no rules as to what types of preamps you should use for each part of the kit. Just make sure you are using the best preamps for overheads, snare and kick. The safest bet is to use the neutral ones for overheads and colored ones for snare and kick. Cymbals are the most sensitive part of the drums due to very wide frequency spectrum. Experiment! The old school approach would be to use the same preamp for all tracks as engineers used to do when they had only console preamps available. There's nothing wrong with that either, as long as the preamps are good. If you are new to recording, you might not notice huge differences between preamps at first. That’s ok. The difference in raw sound on one channel might not be “night and day”, but when you start processing the tracks and have them all playing at the same time... KABOOM! Tip! When comparing different mics, preamps or even snare drums, match the levels between the samples. Otherwise the loudest sample will get unfair advantage over the quieter ones.

Transformer-Coupled, Transformerless or Tube design? Before I start this section I need to make a disclaimer. None of these descriptions are presented as facts. They are based on common opinions and my personal experience! Basically you have three types of preamps. Transformer-Coupled (Solid State) designs are the ones that give you color. Transformerless designs are the transparent and neutral ones. Tube designs will give warmth and smoothness.


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Lets use an analogy from camera world: TransformerCoupled Design (Solid State)

That really nice photo taken with a film camera which makes the photo look better than real life!

Transformerless Design

State of the art digital photo with all the details you can imagine but leaves you kinda cold.

Tube Design

Really cool old photo, but sometimes a bit too “rounded” in details. That being said, can also be anything between the first two examples.

Of course this is not the whole truth, but you get the idea. You can also find hybrid preamps which try to combine all these qualities in one box. Be aware of those cheap “tube” preamps (basically anything below $500 per channel). They will give you the wrong idea of a tube sound because the tube is not really an integral element but just a “spice”. Tube preamps are actually the hardest ones to describe, because they come in many different forms depending on the design.


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Classic Microphone Preamp Types Type

Design

Description

Neve style

Transformercoupled (Solid State)

Punchy, lots of low end. Silky top end. Great for all drum close mics and ambience. Good for overheads when a more traditional approach is taken. Great saturation characteristics.

API style

Transformercoupled (Solid State)

Clear sound and fast transients. Forward midrange. Suits for close mics, ambience and cymbals. Especially good for snare drum.

Other Old Mixing Console Preamps

Transformerless or TransformerCoupled (Solid State)

Can be anything between transparent and colored. Most mid to high level consoles made in the 70’s, 80’s or 90’s are very good for drum recording due to the ability to drive the preamps very hard without clipping.

Tube

Tube

Depends on the preamp. Can be very smooth and warm or even transparent. Smoothness might not be the optimal choice for aggressive in-your-face sound but for ambience it will work very well. Tube preamps tend to smooth out the high-frequency content which means the attack can suffer, but it can not be generalized.

Transparent/ Neutral

Transformerless

Clear sound and fast transients. Not much saturation. Closest true-to-life reproduction of sound. Great for cymbals. Many Millenia, SSL and Grace Designs preamps fall into this category.

Modern Basic Preamp

Transformerless

You can find this type of preamps from many audio interfaces or small format mixers. Most of them offer neutral or even sterile sound. Not very exciting at all. Be extra careful with gain levels or you’ll end up with nasty clipping.

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AD Converters The last device in the chain is the AD converter. You can quite easily tell the difference between a bad and a good AD converter. It gets harder when you need to choose between two good AD converters. Usually you don’t have lots of options available when you record almost 20 tracks of drums. If you do, use the highest quality for overheads. They are the most demanding part of the kit in terms of frequency response. However, one thing to keep in mind is that many great sounding records were recorded to Alesis ADAT machines , which had poor AD converters compared to today's standards.

Levels and Gain Staging The recording medium used in this guide is digital. Analog recording has become fairly rare these days. It is a sad fact in a world of hefty editing, small budgets and tight schedules. Digital modeling technology has produced some pretty authentic results, but at the time of writing (2013) it is not as widely used in the recording stage as it is in post-processing. When setting the recording levels on your inputs, aim between -8 and 12 dB on highest peaks. Make sure your level meter is set to "peak" not "RMS". Remember, the drummer will always hit harder when the actual recording starts! Leave some headroom. The reason why you should not record hotter than this is that the analog line amplifiers in many AD converters begin to distort way before exceeding 0 dB. This is especially true with cheap converters.

Yellow is the new red in digital recording! – Unknown Start the check from overheads/cymbals, then snare, kick, toms and finally room microphones. If you use stereo overheads, make sure the snare is peaking equally on both channels. You want a balanced stereo image.

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Always record at 24 bits. You can use any sample rate you like, but 44.1 kHz is still the most common one. If you have the possibility, why not record at 96 kHz (or 88.2 kHz)! Higher sample rates are definitely going to become more common in the near future (whatever that means) as many digital formats already support them. The only drawback is that you need lots of CPU power and hard drive space. Check that your plugins support higher sample rates – such would be sample-based drum replacers or convolution reverbs. Also make sure everything else after the drums will be recorded with the same sample rate as well. Before going crazy and recording everything at 192 kHz, remember that most of your favorite albums were recorded either at 44.1/48 kHz or to analog tape. Unfortunately the final result still needs to be converted to 44.1 kHz for CD or MP3. Once again, if you are not mixing the project, consult the mixing engineer before making final decisions.

Gain Staging Make sure all your gear uses the same line level. It is usually +4 dBu with professional equipment. Also pay attention to gain staging when using outboard gear such as compressors or equalizers. It basically means that the signal-to-noise ratio must stay optimal throughout the chain. For example, if you compress the ambience channels 6 dB, you also have to boost the output of the compressor 6 dB. Same applies to equalizers as well. Remember to use your eyes AND your ears. You can always break the rules, if it sounds better. When working with analog recording consoles, start by setting the fader to unity gain (0 dB) and adjust the input trim knob until you have optimal level for each channel. If you want to push the preamp harder as mentioned earlier, lower the fader accordingly. Make sure the channel EQ is set to “out” when setting levels. In the absence of such switch, make sure all EQ gain knobs are set to zero. It can also happen that the the channel fader or EQ has no effect on the signal. It usually means that the direct outs are configured to pre-fader setting. It is the optimal setting from signal-to-noise ratio point of view, but only if you don’t want to use the EQ section. The other problem is that it also complicates the preamp saturation experiments due to missing output control. See if there is a pre-fader switch next to direct out connection in the back.

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If you get a signal too hot from the microphone and run out of headroom in the mic preamp, check if there is a pad switch in the mic itself. If not, see if there is a pad switch in the mic preamp. Do it in this order for optimal results. This usually only occurs with sensitive condenser microphones.

Processing On the Way In If you are are absolutely sure what you are doing, you can process the drums on their way in. You need a soundproofed control room to do this properly. What I mean is that you need to adjust the EQs and compressors while the drummer is hitting the drums. Being in the same space with the drums makes it very hard. The gear you are using also has to be top quality to make it really worthwhile. Many of todays studios don’t have large recording consoles and patchbays anymore, so it has almost become an exception to process the drums during recording. The use of digital medium has also moved the processing decisions further to mixing stage. Back in the analog recording days you had to make sure everything was bright enough to start with, so that you didn’t have to “boost” any more tape hiss than absolutely necessary after recording. Let’s say you have a nice recording console in front of you, or maybe you have a nice array of rack EQs. Either way, what you want to do is fix the problem areas and add some sparkle. You will get a lot of respect from other mixing engineers if you can provide tracks that have a healthy sound without any “mud” or “boom” that need to be fixed before the mixing can really start. The processing is not usually as radical as in the mixing. Many modern drum microphones have a pre-selected EQ curves to start with. Most common EQ principles include cutting low-mid mud (usually between 250-500 Hz) from close mic channels and maybe boosting the attack a bit (4-8 kHz). Be sure not to cut too much “meat” when cutting “mud”. Use as narrow (higher Q value) cuts as possible. You need to find optimal EQ for each drum by ear.

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Be extra careful when boosting high frequencies. You don’t want to add any more cymbal bleed than absolutely necessary. Use lower Q values when boosting. If you need to go surgical with your EQ, there’s something wrong with your microphone choice, positioning or in the sound source.

“Cut narrow, boost wide” The most typical compressing example would be the room microphones if high quality hardware is available. Compressing close mics and overheads during recording is a difficult task if you don’t have a clear vision how the final mix will come together. Recording though noise gates is not a big no-no. They are very unpredictable and you might miss important transients.

Building a Headphone Mix and a Tempo Map To make the drummer perform well, you need to create a headphone mix that will inspire the drummer. Usually sending the kick, overheads and click track plus all the other instruments the drummer wants to hear is enough. I make the kick very clicky sounding by boosting the highs and cutting the lows. This way the headphone amplifier will have more headroom. Make sure the drummer is hearing the stereo image of the overheads correctly: he might be wearing the headphones backwards! If the drummer is hitting the hi-hat like a maniac, a good trick is to send it to the drummer's headphones very loudly. The easiest way to build a headphone mix is using an aux channel in your DAW. Start by creating a new aux channel and bus, then change the name to “Drummer”. Route the aux output to your headphone amplifier. Now go to your kick, overhead and instrument tracks and send them to the “Drummer” aux. Make them pre-fader so that the control room level/mute/solo adjustments don’t affect the drummer’s headphone mix. Make sure your interface is configured to lowest possible workable latency settings when doing it this way.


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If you can’t live with the latency, use the zero latency routing mixer of your interface when available. Or just do it the old school way and use an analog mixer combined with patchbays. When you build a click track, use the tempo map functions in your DAW! This is very important. You will see a grid that will make editing, "punching," overdubbing and mixing much easier. Most DAW's support importing MIDI, so it will be your best bet when importing from other platforms. The click tracks should be done in pre-production. If not, the band needs to know exactly how many bars each part lasts, time signature and the tempo they want. It can be a very time consuming task!

It can be a huge time saver if the drummer has had the possibility to practice with the same backing tracks and clicks which will be used in the studio.

Headphones Any closed headphones with good isolation will do. However, the best ones for in my opinion are the ones that have the same construction as ear muffs. Extreme Isolation makes good ones. Make sure the cable does not get in the way of the drummer. I usually run it behind my back – under the shirt if needed.


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Listen Mic and Talkback It goes without saying that you need a talkback mic to communicate with the drummer. At least when you are tracking in a studio with a separate control room. Also, if possible, set up a separate “listen mic” near the drummer. It’s actually very difficult to hear what the drummer is saying through the overheads when the levels are set for loud drums! Make sure you mute the “listen mic” channel whenever the drummer starts playing. It is a good idea place a limiter on the channel in case you forget muting it (yes, you will...). You can also find “listen mic” or “talkback” plugins specially designed for this purpose.

PART III

Recording Tactics

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Dynamic Envelope Before setting the microphones, you must understand one thing. The real meat is in the texture, not in the attack. It includes the resonance, phase and blending of all microphones together. Attack is just a burst of energy and what really counts is what comes after it in the dynamic envelope. If you want huge sounding drums you must focus on the texture. This is also the reason why all your drum tracks need to have a good phase coherency.

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Phase Coherency This is a very brief introduction to typical phase problems in a drum recording situation.

What you see here is a phase problem in the left overhead. The reason for this is that the distance from the snare is not equal in both overheads. It should be fixed in the recording stage, not in the mix. What happens here is that you will not get the full spectrum of frequencies as some of them are cancelled out when you listen in mono. Well, how can you fix this? Make the distance equal or at least make sure it sounds good. You will find more information in the following section.

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Tip! Also make sure the left/right tracks have the same polarity (both go up and down in conjunction)! Sometimes it can be incorrect if the microphone cable is wired “backwards” (pin 2 & 3 not soldered correctly at other end).

I’m sure you notice that the snare drum was not in phase with the overheads either. Don’t worry about this yet- it’s something that will be fixed later in the Time-Aligning section if needed. It would require some very special equipment to do it at this point. Another place where to look for phase problems is the snare drum. The bottom microphone will have different polarity by nature, because the sound waves move opposite directions. See Snare Drum Bottom Mic for more information.

Listening In Mono The easiest way to check your recordings in mono is to use the monitor controller’s mono button. If you don’t have one, you can pan your left/right channels to center (overheads, ambience etc.) or use a dedicated plugin. You might be wondering why you should listen in mono, because that’s not how your mix will be listened? It’s just the easiest way to discover phase coherency problems using your ears without the need for any phase analyzers. Believe it or not, but many in-shop and PA speaker systems still use mono playback.

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Cymbals The Stereo Overhead Approach

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The traditional approach to overhead miking is to have a great “full kit image”. There’s nothing wrong with it, but I want more separation when going for modern in-your-face sound. The snare drum in the overheads can be your worst enemy in the mix. It will always be there, but just try to minimize it. I want to be able to adjust the cymbal balance in the mix without affecting snare or kick too much. If the room ambience is very present in your overheads, you need to tame it with some gobos or “office walls” placed around the kit. Ambience tracks should be your primary source for room ambience, not the overheads. You want a tight sound. It will also affect all other close-mics. Thick rug under the drums is also a good idea, otherwise you will get a lot of unwanted snare reflections from the floor. It will also break potential standing waves between the floor and ceiling. A spaced pair of small-diaphragm condensers with a cardioid pattern works well in this application. Aim them at the cymbals at a small angle (up to 45 degrees), away from the snare. Hmm, ok... but wait! Why not keeping them vertically aligned like any normal people would do? Two reasons. When the microphone is facing away from the snare, you get less of it. The second reason is that it will also pick up less cymbals from the other side of the kit. Better separation = wider overheads. Don’t worry, everything in the middle will be picked up as well if the angle is reasonable. Think of the cymbals as two groups: left and right. Set both microphones at equal distances from the snare center. When you pan the overheads wide, the snare will be in the center. It will also minimize the phase coherency problems. You can use a microphone cable as a “tape measure.” It would be great to have the kick in the center too, but most of the time this will be very hard to do. When the drummer is using two kick drums, it is impossible. Don’t stress about it, the kick will be very low in the overhead tracks anyway.

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Listen to the cymbals and try to have them in a good balance. Don’t set the microphones too high or you will end up getting too much room sound. Something like 1.5 to 2.5 feet (45-75 cm) from the cymbals is usually fine. Listen the overheads in mono to check the phase coherency. If you lose any frequencies, adjust the mic positions and try again. Ask the drummer to play all kinds of parts of the songs to make sure you are hearing everything. Don’t worry if the microphone placement looks weird as long as it sounds good! If you want something very quick and easy, try XY or ORTF configurations. See Other Stereo Techniques for more information. The problem with these two is that you’ll end up picking much more snare and a narrower stereo image. Therefore I don’t recommend using them in this context. However, if you still want to use them, make sure the snare stays in center. Wild idea! Use darker sounding ribbon mics during the verses and open the condenser channels in the choruses! Instant hugeness!

Hi-Hat and Ride Mic Placement Use a separate microphone for the hi-hat and ride. Place the hi-hat microphone on top of the hats at a small angle and again try to avoid getting too much snare by setting the angle so that the microphone does not “see” the snare. A dynamic Shure SM7B sounds great here as well as most condenser microphones. Tip! If you have a mic screen or other acoustic treatment laying around the studio, place it near the hi-hat at an angle so that it is blocking the direct hihat bleed towards ambience and overhead microphones. Placing these type of “walls” between other cymbals and close microphones can also be very beneficial in terms of bleed control. Even cardboard can work very well if better materials are not available. Mic the ride from underneath at a small angle, aiming at the bell. You will get great separation this way. Small or large-diaphragm condensers work fine in this application. Move the mic until you hear the sharpest attack. You don’t want the ride track sounding all “washy”. You can also place the microphone on top if it suits better in your setup. Aim close to the bell and try to avoid snare drum.

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Microphone Choices For overheads you don’t want the microphones to have a lot of high-end boost. It will make the mixing very hard. I prefer small-diaphragm condensers because they don’t pick up the low end and room ambience as much as largediaphragm condensers. Remember, you are recording the cymbals here, you don’t want the kick and snare to dominate the sound. Cymbals are actually the only thing in the drumkit that you want to sound as natural as possible! Tip! If the room is really good, large-diaphragm condensers can add some real beef to the bottom. Once again it’s up to the flavour you are looking for. For more “raw” type of sound it can be a valid option.

There are lots of good overhead microphones out there. The most common overhead microphones are the Shure SM81, Neumann KM184 and AKG C451B. One of my favorite cheaper options is the Oktava MK-012 with the Michael Joly mod . Basically any high-quality condenser with a cardioid pattern will do. Use a matched pair if possible. When you get the sounds you want, hi-pass the overheads at around 400600 Hz in your DAW for monitoring. It will make the following steps easier due to a cleaner sound.

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3:1 Rule To minimize phase problems, try to follow the 3:1 rule in all microphone placement. In practice it means that if you place microphone X one inch away from the source, microphone Z should be at least three inches away from microphone X. It creates a level difference of roughly 10 dB between the microphones. When following this rule with cymbals, consider cymbal groups as source: left, right, center and so on. But if you get a good sound without following the rule, go for it! It’s just a guideline.

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The “Mic per Cymbal” Approach If you want better separation between cymbals, you need to record the accent cymbals, hi-hats and ride each with a dedicated microphone. In many cases this is overkill – recording the cymbals in pairs is usually enough and will give plenty of separation. But why not do it, if the drummer has only few cymbals and/or you have access to a large amount of quality microphones. Tip! If you really want to go wild, you can also add a stereo overhead pair just in case the mixing engineer prefers it over the individual cymbal tracks.

Place the mic aimed at the area between the outer edge and bell, so that a cymbal itself will block some sound coming from snare. Outer edge means furthest edge from the snare. Also watch out for hi-hat bleed. Use a separate mic for the china, because it will usually be louder than the other cymbals. The optimal distance is between 1.5 to 2.5 feet (45-75 cm). With this approach the mic distance from snare doesn’t have to be matched between the tracks because it would not be possible without repositioning the cymbals. You will anyway hear less snare due to bigger distance, louder source and the cymbal itself blocking some sound from it. You can also timealign the tracks later if needed. The microphones don’t have to be identical, but try to use the most natural sounding ones. You can even mix large-diaphragm and small-diaphragm condensers, but it might be a good idea to use them in left/right pairs for a better balance. When you are done balancing the tracks, hi-pass them at around 400-600 Hz for monitoring. See appendix A for track naming examples. Tip! Remember to draw a picture of the microphone setup! It will be very hard to figure it out later without any visual information.

Underheads To get even more separation, try using underhead mics on all cymbals. This is a trick used mainly in live situations using mic adapters attached directly to cymbal stands to save space. “Big Mick” Hughes (FOH engineer for Metallica)

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is one of the most well-known engineers to use this technique live. He uses Audio-Technica ATM350, but of course you can use whatever condensers and regular mic stands you have. It’s not hugely popular in the studio, mainly because the sound is pretty different from what we are used to. Start with aiming at the area between the outer edge and bell. If it sounds too “gongy”, aim more into the edge’s direction. Don’t go too close to the cymbal or you will get a very annoying “wobbly” cymbal sound.

Recording Cymbals Separately Ok, this method is only for the real tweakers! What you want to achieve here is to have a clean cymbal tracks without any bleed from the shells and clean shell and room tracks without any bleed from the cymbals. Sounding good so far? What you need to do is to record two different takes on the drums. First the shells and then the cymbals. The real problem is that not many drummers can do it without sacrificing their performance. You must record to a click with this method or otherwise there’s really no point in doing it. If you know that everything will be edited to a grid, then this method is very useful. Be prepared that it will take a lot more time than doing it the normal way. The good thing is that it doesn’t require any expensive gear and it can be executed in any studio. As long as you have loads of time and a willing drummer. I am not personally a huge fan of this method. Some drummers can really pull it off, but it’s not the natural way for most drummers. That’s why the final result might require a lot of editing and punch-ins during recording. Some engineers go even further and record the kicks first, then the shells and finally the cymbals. Whatever floats your boat! This method used to be popular in the 1980’s when many hard rock producers prefered drum machines and electric drums over acoustic drums (Def Leppard anyone?). The problem was that the cymbal sound was just too fake sounding. Cymbals have always been the weak spot of drum samples, so it can still be a valid practice in the 2010’s when using electronic drums.

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If you want to go really cheap and still get professional results, buy a pair of good condenser mics, mic the cymbals and program the rest of the kit. It can be a very time consuming task to get right, but I’m sure your results will sound more “realistic” than the records made 30 years ago... Recording the Shells

Recording the Cymbals

You need to replace the hi-hat and ride with a practice pad or something similar for the drummer to keep time. Just make sure you don’t hear the “clacks” of the practice pads in the recording.

Place a rubber mat or a towel on top of the batter heads. If time and money is not an issue, mesh heads are the most professional option. Remove the kickdrum beaters or make the kick dead with heavy damping. Whatever you use, make sure it’s barely audible in the cymbal tracks. Also check out Evans SoundOff Drum Silencer Pads.

Examples • • •

Lamb of God – Ashes Of The Wake (only kick drum recorded separately) Queens Of The Stone Age – Songs For The Deaf Eighteen Visions – S/T

I’m sure there are lots of other examples out there, but it very hard to find reliable information!

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Snare Drum Before I start, there’s one thing to keep in mind when recording snare drum. You will very rarely get a “radio-ready” sound from a live snare drum. It will almost always need some (usually a lot) processing to sound great in a mix. You don’t have to worry about it at this point. Just make sure you get the best sound you possibly can with minimal bleed. The first thing to make sure of is that the drummer is hitting the snare in the right spot. The best spot is usually around the center of the drum. After you find the spot, you can mark it with an X (or a pentagram!) to guide the drummer. You can find all types of recording techniques for snare drum. Many of them sound good, but there are three critical things which will make a snare drum sound great: the drummer, tuning and separation. From mic positioning point of view, preventing the hi-hat bleed should be one of your top priorities.

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Top Mic I like to set my top mic at a pretty flat angle (20-35 degrees) aimed at where the drummer hits. If you aim closer towards the edge, you will get more resonance and high overtones than attack. It’s usually not the optimal area. Just a little bit over the edge of the rim is a good starting point for placement. Many dynamic microphones work well with the snare, the Shure SM57 being the most obvious choice. It will always do the job well. Some other good microphones: Audix i5 , EV Co4 and Sennheiser MD421/MD441/E905.

Bottom Mic The bottom mic is very important, because it it helps in controlling the crack and brightness of the snare. Sometimes it can be very low in the mix but I always ask others to record it if I’m not attending the session. Small-diaphragm condensers or bright sounding dynamics are good here and the trusted old SM57 always delivers too. Place the mic in the same spot as the top mic, but don’t use a very flat angle, because you don’t want to capture too much kick drum bleed. Solo your snare tracks and flip the polarity on your preamp (or DAW) to hear if it sounds better inverted (180 degrees). The sound that has more body is the way to go. Some smaller snares like piccolos don’t necessarily require polarity flipping. Use your ears!

The snare drum is usually the loudest element in a mix, so better to make it perfect!

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Separation The snare drum is the most difficult to get right because you get a lot of bleed from the hi-hat. When you place the mic, make sure the backside of the mic is facing the hi-hat. Make the drummer raise the hi-hat as high as possible and as far as possible from the snare (horizontally and vertically), and use a baffle between the mic and the hi-hat. Buy one or build one yourself (look for Auralex Aural Xpander ). Listen to the bleed very carefully when placing the microphone, not only from the hi-hat but also from the ride. Bleed will be your worst enemy in the mixing stage! You don’t want those lo-fi cymbals in your mix!

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Kick Drum I usually try capture the kick drum with two microphones, one focusing on the low end and the other on the attack. There are lots of different sounding kick drum microphones. Most of them are dynamics. For aggressive sound, the most common ones are the Shure Beta 52 /91A, AKG D112, Audix D6 and Sennheiser E602 /E902. Audix D6 has the most ready “pre EQ curve”. For very fast playing, my favorite is Beyerdynamic M88. It has a really tight sounding bottom and well-pronounced mids and highs. When the tempo reaches 280 bpm, you want those mids to be there – there won’t be much attack when hits get softer.

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The Shure Beta 91A is a special half-cardioid condenser boundary microphone. You will get a lot of attack and definition, but not a lot of bottom. It’s usually combined with another microphone to reinforce the frequency range. The placement is also different – you place it on a pillow inside the kick drum. Start by placing your microphone inside the kick on-axis, about four inches (10 cm) away from the beater. The closer you go, the more attack you will get. If it sounds too thin, you can try to change the angle a bit or move it further away from the beater. This applies especially for slower stuff. For a really nice “thud” you can place the mic 2 inches (5 cm) inside from the hole. Most of the time you will need another mic (closer to the beater) to capture the attack. One of my favorite combinations is Beta 91A (centered inside on a pillow) + Beta 52 (2 inches inside). This way both microphones have their own special function and you can get a very “ready” sound by just playing with the faders. That’s how we like it, huh? I have not found much use for an outside mic, unless we are talking about a subkick type of thing. Some engineers like to build tunnels in front of the kick and place a large-diaphragm condenser microphone to catch the low end resonance. You can easily build one using chairs and heavy blankets.

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To me, a “subkick”-type microphone works better. It’s basically a woofer that is wired backwards. It will capture the frequencies below 100 Hz. You can buy the Yamaha Subkick or build your own. All you need is a 6-8” woofer and a stand. Search the web for “DIY subkick”. The separation you get from these types of microphones is very good – without the need to build a tunnel. You might want to flip the polarity on this channel – if you get more more low-end by flipping, keep it.

Separation Most kick drum microphones have a tight polar pattern. It means that you won’t get much bleed from snare or other the drums. If you do, you are probably using a cheap microphone or the drummer is not kicking hard enough. You can also reduce the snare bleed by aiming the microphone towards the bottom of the floor tom at a small angle.

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Toms Toms are really easy to record if you know how to tune them and if you have some good mics. Oh, and a good drummer! The microphones you choose are important, but not as important as the tuning. Just use decent dynamic microphones that have a tight polar pattern. I like to use kick drum microphones on floor toms, because of the low-end extension and EQ curve they have.

You can use the same type of mic positioning as with the snare, but be careful with the angle so that you are not pointing directly at snare drum. Hell, I have mixed projects with tom tracks having more snare drum in them than the actual tom hits! Be extra careful with floor tom mic placement. The ring

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can become uncontrollable if the mic is pointed too much towards the edge of the drum. In my opinion bottom mics on toms are just a waste of time. Tip! Replacing the toms with samples in the mix is a nightmare. It is very time consuming task to get right and it will still sound lame for the most part. Many engineers hate it, so please try to record some decent tom tracks.

One thing I really recommend is to not use those clips you can attach to the tom rim. The resonance you get from the shell will make the sound worse. Ok, some clips don’t affect the sound that much, but I use stands anyway. It’s also easier to find a good spot for the mic this way, especially with smaller toms. Some microphones that are common on toms: Sennheiser E604/E902/ MD421, Shure Beta 56 /SM57 and Audix D Series. If you use microphones with a hyper/supercardioid pattern (such as Shure Beta 56 or Audix D Series), try to place them so that the backside of the mic is not pointing directly at cymbals. When you are done with the toms, place a gate on each tom track. It will make the sound a lot cleaner to monitor. Just don’t record the gated sound! Also pan the toms at this point. It’s up to you to decide whether to do it from audience or drummer perspective. Just pan everything else accordingly.

Separation Cymbal bleed is your worst enemy here. Make the drummer raise his cymbals. It is the best and most secure way to prevent bleed. You can also use some baffles if you like. Snare drum bleed is another thing to listen for.

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Ambience Besides the obvious room sound, good ambience tracks can add "glue" to the drum sound. If you are recording in a very good room, they can make the drum sound very three-dimensional. They can help to bring back the "whole kit image" you lose with the overheads.

You want the ambience mics to capture the room and the kit. Try to find a spot in the room with your ears where both of these qualities match. The snare is the most important element of the kit. Listen to it carefully. Again, cymbals are your enemy. What you really want to hear are the drums, not the cymbals. You can hang some blankets around the drums using microphone stands to help this.

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What you really want to hear in your ambience tracks is the texture (a.k.a. meat). Attack is irrelevant here. Think the ambience as an extension to the close mic tracks. Just listen to Sad But True by Metallica. Now there’s some snare ambience for you! One of the biggest reasons why you don’t hear that much room ambience on records these days is the excessive use of accent cymbals and loud hi-hats. Remember what I said in the Drummer part? Cymbals are just pure noise when it comes to compressing the ambience tracks. It’s also the reason why many engineers prefer convolution-based “room modeling” instead of mediocre room ambience. It works like a normal algorithmic reverb but sounds more realistic. Still, it can’t replace a good drum room. The room will always leave its imprint an all drum tracks including the close mics.

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Tip! Place thick rugs around the kit so that they are hanging roughly 3 ft (1 m) above the floor. You will get less direct cymbals in the room, but the kick and snare shoot right through! You can achieve this by using microphone boom stands aligned vertically.

Ribbon microphones work great in capturing the room ambience. Most of them have a bi-directional polar pattern. If you don’t have access to Royers or other high-end ribbons, the cheap chinese built t.Bone/ Apex /Nady alternatives are just fine. Ribbon microphones tend to have a darker sound, which can help with controlling the high end. They take EQ very well and will rarely sound harsh. If you have to place the microphones close to the kit, try to follow the "center line" of the kick and snare drum. You will get less phase problems and a better stereo image. This is also a foolproof method in a large room to keep the kick/snare centered. Also experiment with different condensers and dynamics in stereo or mono configurations.

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360 Degrees of Room (Blumlein) By using two bi-directional mics in a Blumlein configuration, you will get 360 degrees of room sound! Most ribbon microphones have this pattern. Just place two bi-directional mics crossed at 90 degrees and you have it. Place them somewhere between knee and waist height to capture less direct cymbal sound.

Pros and cons

+ No phase issues + Very solid centered image + Easy to get a balanced stereo image - Not as wide as many other configurations

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Wide Stereo Room (A-B pair) Place a wide A-B pair on opposite ends of o f the room. The distance from the kit should be 10-45 feet (3-14 meters) depending on the tempo. As you might have already guessed, slower songs can have a bigger distance. You can also adjust the distance between the microphones to your liking. Check mono compatibility to point out any phase problems. Make sure the snare or kick doesn’t pull too much to either side. Small amount is not harmful and can actually make the ambience tracks trac ks stand out better in the mix. Be careful with the low end though. Again, low positioning means less cymbals. You can try to match the distance from the snare drum, but it might not have a much relevance due to to the complex room reflections. If the drummer is doing lots of ghost notes, this might not be the best stereo room setup. When the tracks are compressed heavily, it can sound very distracting due to the wideness. You can use any microphone polar patterns in this setup.

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Pros and cons

+ Can be very wide, almost like reverb - Can have some serious phasing issues if not done correctly

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Other Stereo Techniques X-Y This is exactly same as Blumlein but with mics having cardioid pattern instead. It doesn’t have the same depth and space as Blumlein or A-B, but can be useful if space is limited and you don’t have access to bi-directional mics. The other reason to use X-Y would be if you don’t don’ t want to pick up sound behind the mics (guitar amp for example). You can try a bigger angle than 90 degrees for a wider stereo sound. Twin microphone mic rophone bar is recommended for convenience.


ORTF This one combines the A-B and X-Y. What you do is place two cardioid microphones 6.5” (17 cm) apart (rough human ear distance). Set the angle to 110 degrees between the mics. ORTF sounds a little wider than X-Y but not as wide as A-B. Once again, check in mono for phase issues.


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Mid-Side (MS) Mid-side is a little bit tricky to set up but offers more flexibility. What you need is a microphone with a cardioid (or omni ) pattern. This will be the Mid microphone. microphone. You also need a mic with a symmetrical bidirectional pattern. This will be the Side microphone. It is recommended that these microphones have a fairly similar sound. Place these microphones very close to each other (capsules aligned) and so that the mid microphone is pointing towards the drums and the side microphone towards the side walls. Now you need to matrix and decode the channels. On the console or in the DAW, split the Side microphone to two channels. Pan one side channel left and other right. Flip the polarity on right channel. You are done! Now you can adjust the amount of stereo wideness by using the side channel faders! You will get a wide and mono compatible image with this technique.

Mono Room Front Mic Sometimes it is not possible to have a stereo ste reo pair in the room due to equipment or space limitations. One of the most common mono room techniques is to take any microphone and aim it at the t he top front edge of the kickdrum. A good goo d starting point distance would be 5 ft (1.5 m) and height 2 ft (60 cm). This is what I use to record quick ideas in band rehearsals. A carefully positioned SM57 can can save the mixers ass while trying to bring life back to drums!

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Mono Shotgun If you have access to a shotgun or other microphones with a very narrow polar pattern, this is a really cool trick. Place the microphone high and try to “shoot” the snare drum without hitting anything else. You will get a great snare room ambience!

Wild Ideas Grab any microphone and aim it at the drums, wall, floor or ceiling. Place it behind the door or in the corridor, mic the wall with a kick drum mic, you could even try one inside the trash can! Do whatever it takes to make it smashing! Go crazy!

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Drum Triggers The primary reason to record trigger “splats” is to capture the hits for sample replacement use. The separation you get is very good and only attack is captured. My opinion is that you don’t need to do this anymore unless the mixing engineer requires it. It used to be pretty common in the 00’s but the triggering algorithms have developed a lot since then. With high tempos and very fast double kicks it can still be a valid practice. If you choose to record them, treat them just as any other microphones. No magic here. It’s just a piezo microphone. No MIDI going through it. Recording triggers does not mean the same as recording an output of a drum module, we’re talking about the raw audio signal directly from the trigger itself. You can use drum trigger tracks for other things as well. The raw sound you get is just high end splat. It can be blended with the kick or snare sound. It can also be compressed and limited hard, because the bleed is not a problem. You can also use them to drive gates using sidechaining functions. The result will be very accurate. Just remember to mute these tracks when monitoring the takes! One swedish producer has even used two triggers trigg ers (top & bottom) on a snare drum as his main source of sound, and believe it or not, the album sounded great.

DDrum and Roland manufacture the most commonly used drum triggers. seems to be more reliable. The sound DDrum is the classic choice, but Roland seems and behavior is also a little different. Roland has has more sustain, less high-end and narrower dynamic range (a good thing). I don’t recommend the cheap DDrum Red Shot triggers . While they may produce the same results, the design is very poor and unreliable!

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Cowbell You can’t have a drum recording book without cowbell recording tips! Sometimes the cowbell doesn’t require it’s own close microphone if it’s not overdubbed – the overhead microphones might pick it just fine. If not, a works very well in this application. Aim it at the “nose” of the bell Shure SM57 works in a slight angle using a distance from 12 to 20 inches (30-50 cm). If you want the cowbell to blend better with the drums, you can use bigger distance or just use the same overhead ove rhead mic setup you used earlier. My favorite cowbell is the LP Rock Ridge Rider .

I’ve got a fever and the only prescription is more cowbell! – Bruce Dickinson (SNL skit)

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Recording “Raw” Drums Sometimes a project calls for a more traditional approach. In this context it basically means that the end result will be much closer to the raw sound than it usually is in so-called "modern" productions. In other words, the drum sound doesn't need all the separation and the drum kit itself can be a lot smaller in many aspects. Not usually in shell or cymbal size though. Today’s modern drum sounds are based on extensive use of close-mics. It usually means the end result is very detailed and in many cases case s it works very well. When you want to have a more “organic” vibe, the air becomes your mixer. It means that you base the whole drum sound on overhead and room mics with the close mics only supporting the sound. The drummer must have ha ve a great playing balance to get most out of this approach. If the tempo is slower, it gives more options in terms of experimentation with microphone positions. Musical sounding bleed can also be used as a sound tool to a greater extent. The sound can rely heavily on room ambience. To get great results, the room needs to be really good and suitable suita ble for the style. Songs can have lots of variation in dynamics and tempo, so it is not unusual to modify the room “size” for each song. I will not go through every microphone choice choic e and technique. Instead I want to describe the different approaches I take on each part of the kit when a rawer sound is desired.

Overheads If I would have to name just one part of drum recording that is different between my separation-oriented and “raw” recording approach, it would be the overheads. In my opinion, rawer drum sound calls for a more traditional approach. Overheads are a good place to build the whole drum sound on. It will act as the “big picture”. Sure, kick drum will not have all the power you need or snare drum the attack, but everything should sound pretty damn good to start with. You also want to make sure the toms will be where you want them to be in the stereo field when w hen you add close microphones. Instead Inste ad of tilting the microphones as described previously, this time point straight down. You actually want to hear the snare drum. For that same reason you can use colored and saturated preamps such as tube preamps to give some more character to the overall sound.


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The most obvious microphone choice would be a pair of small-diaphragm condensers. If the room is really good, large-diaphragm condensers can add some real beef to the bottom. Using equal distance from snare drum is a good starting point, but the most important thing is to listen to the phase coherency. Check your overheads in mono and make sure it still sounds balanced. If you are having trouble getting a good balance and stereo image with the traditional AB setup, try XY. It will give you faster results and kick and snare will be in phase between left and right for sure. It will not be as wide, but that might not be a problem. Add a separate hi-hat and ride microphone if you feel like you need them. Tip! Consider not using a rug under the drums. You will get much brighter snare sound this way and might not need a bottom mic for the snare at all. Experiment! You never know how it will sound in your recording room. But we aware that It could also cause new acoustic problems you didn’t have before.

Ambience When recording in a great room, it is very likely that these tracks will be very high in the mix. Make sure you are happy with the balance between the room ambience, drums and cymbals. If you are relying on on the overheads as your main source, try to avoid capturing lots of cymbals by placing the microphones fairly low or even adding some gobos or blankets in the way of direct cymbal sound. All the stereo techniques described previously in this book will work here. You just need to find which one fits the room best. The only one I would try to avoid is the wide AB pair if these tracks will be very high in the mix. It will only break the stereo image when you want the whole drum kit to be one solid instrument. That also leads to a conclusion that mono rooms can be used more efficiently in this approach.


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Snare There’s not really much difference when recording the snare drum for any type of sound. Most of the time you want to avoid hi-hat bleed as much as possible so it pretty much sets your placement. You can angle the mic a bit off center (from where the stick hits) to get more resonance and less actual stick attack. Just as it is crucial with any approach, the tuning and the drum itself need to be suitable for the music. In many mainstream music styles it is very common to change tunings and snare drums for each song. It’s actually something that could be used a lot more instead just sticking to one chosen “album” drum sound.

Kick The kick can have a little more sustain and resonance (less damping), because tempo will very likely be slower, and you don’t have to worry about separation between each hit so much. One basic mistake that many do is adding too much high-end to the kick drum when it really isn’t necessary. I usually go more for “thud” rather than “click” when recording slower “raw” stuff. Using two microphones, one for low and the other for high end is a good idea but it is also possible to get get great results with only one carefully placed microphone. Usually it would be placed a few inches inside the hole aimed at the beaters direction.

Toms When having fewer toms and less other stuff around the kit, there’s more possibilities for experimentation. The microphone doesn’t need to be identical for rack and floor toms. Try different combinations and even condenser microphones if possible. If the heavy-handed drummer keeps hitting the tom mics constantly, you might want to think twice before using the studio’s vintage U47 ’s here! Whichever mics you decide to use, remember that excessive cymbal bleed is not a desirable thing in here either. It will always be there, but try to minimize it. You know, sometimes you don’t even need the tom tracks at all when you are building the sound on overheads and room ambience.


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Conclusions The difference is definitely not huge between my these two approaches. Many times it can be so small that it would not make a big difference in the end result. But it can be. Just trust your instinct and try to capture a drum sound as close to the final sound as you can. I could have included all this info under their respective sections, but I wanted to show the two extreme ends of my drum recording methods. Drum recording methods can be very different depending on the engineer’s preferences. That’s cool, it’s not an exact science. If you wonder why I didn’t add this or that technique in this book, it’s because I don’t use it regularly. Maybe I will use it in the future, who knows.

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Sampling the Drumkit After you have found the sound you are after and the drums are still in perfect tuning, sample the kit. Record at least 20 hits for each drum. Hard hits are the most important ones, so focus on them. Don't forget the kick drum. And yes, record all tracks for each drum. The ambience/bleed can be very important when creating your own drum samples. You may need these hits in the editing and mixing stage. It takes only ten minutes of your time. You can also use them as reference when you check the tuning between songs. You can also sample the cymbals if you like. Post the samples to an online forum for others' enjoyment!

PART IV

Combining, Editing & Time-Aligning

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Combining, Time-Aligning & Editing Combining The ideal situation would be to record the songs in one take. Reality is usually a little different. Using a tempo map is important when combining different takes, as it allows you to see the grid. Always start by grouping the drum tracks. If the drums have pauses during the song, it is quite easy to record the song in a few different passes. Another method would be to record the song many times from the start to the end until you have enough takes to choose from. Just decide the best overall take and find the errors. Copy/paste the needed parts from the other takes. Some DAW's have great features for "take management." Pro Tools has Playlists and Cubase has Lanes. If you “punch in” the drums in the middle of a song, make sure the drummer starts playing at least 4-8 bars before the part and continues playing same amount. This way you will have more choices where to merge the takes. Hi-hats and other cymbals are very hard to match sound wise. Be extremely meticulous with this. The decay is also longer than in any other part of the kit. Sometimes longer crossfades help. The best spot to merge the tracks is usually just before a snare hit. It has the largest transient burst that will help to “reset” the cymbal timbre differences.

Weeding Out the Weak When you are looking for perfect sound, there is no room for weak hits. This is where you need those samples recorded earlier. Basically you listen the drum tracks thoroughly and replace any weak hits with the samples recorded in the session. Usually replacing the close mic hits is enough. It is very common that the drummer hits the crash cymbal at the end of fill. That leaves you fighting with the cymbal bleed. What you can to do is to replace the last “infected” transient with a clean sample. Just select the right dynamic strength and that’s it. You don’t need to do this with every tom fill, just the ones that will potentially cause trouble.

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Once again, this is very subjective. “Perfect” or polished sound might not be what you are looking for. Just listen to Mastodon or older Slipknot albums (pre 2008) for example. It is not a shame to leave some human feel in the performance. I personally don’t use this method very often.

Phase & Time-Aligning Time-Aligning is optional. Some engineers use it as a standard procedure and some think it represents everything that is wrong with digital audio processing. That’s why you must consult the mixing engineer before doing it. It’s not something you should do by default. The old school way of phase-aligning was to solo your overheads and bring up one close mic. Then you would flip the polarity on the close mic channel and listen which position gives you more body. The general rule is that more bottom means better phase. However this technique is quite limited. The phase difference is very rarely exactly 180 degrees. However, some engineers still prefer this method, because it doesn’t alter the time relations between the microphones and thus sounds more natural. The modern way is to time-align the tracks using your DAW’s editing functions. Before you start, make sure all the drum tracks you are going to move have the same polarity (ups and downs going same direction). Flip the polarity if needed. Nudge the close mic tracks backward (to the right) or the overheads forward (to the left). A solution which will work both in editing and mixing stages, is to use the snare drum close mic as focal point. What I mean is that overheads receive transients later than close mics. When you move the overheads, your most important transient – the snare – will stay in place and will not affect the timing of other instruments (guitars etc.). I know it’s only about 2 ms but why not do it properly. But remember, doing it this way will affect all close mics. The snare is once again the most critical part of the kit to get right. Ambience tracks however are a different animal. They are very rarely out of phase because the distance from the source is much bigger and there are some very complex room reflections going on. You might actually want them to have a little “pre-delay” for better sense of space, especially if you have a nice recording room.

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Don’t go crazy about this. Sometimes time-aligning makes a big difference and sometimes it doesn’t. It can also suck all the life out. It’s just something you should be aware of. Give it a shot before you start editing, it doesn’t take too long. For me personally aligning the snare is usually enough (moving only the snare tracks).

Before time-aligning

After time-aligning

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Editing There are many styles of drum editing. Some engineers just fix the few “off hits“ and go with the natural feel otherwise. On the other hand, some engineers will quantize the drums to a grid, no questions asked. Who makes the decision? The drummer, producer, label representative, guitarist or janitor? Whose opinion counts most?

Drum editing is likely the main cause of psychedelic drug-abuse in the studio. – Mike Gilliland 2011 It’s really down to the feel you are looking for. Do you want the material to have a more relaxed old school vibe or highly technical modern tightness? It’s really the drummer’s performance that defines the need for editing. If the songs have programmed percussive elements, you need to decide which ones will be the ruling element for possible editing. The expectation for tight and accurate drums is extremely high these days, but don’t let it affect your opinion too much. Do what feels right. Superhuman tightness may suit some styles, but to me personally aggressive music needs to have some “sharp edges”. The well-played timing fluctuations can even be the highlight of a song for me. I love hearing some personality in the drum playing. Just listen to some classic records from 80’s or early 90’s. They didn’t have the editing tools we have today. Sure, editing has always been present, but it really started to go crazy when digital audio workstations and Pro Tools revolutionised the record making in the mid 90’s. However, if you are going to perform some serious quantization, you should do it before recording other instruments. Sometimes it’s not possible due to time limitations. If that’s the case, record the other instruments to a click very tightly and edit the drums later. This is by no means an optimal solution, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. The result will sound mechanical, but that may not be a problem if it’s the sound you are looking for. Just listen to Fear Factory for example.

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There’s one thing you should always remember when editing the timing of acoustic drums. Group the tracks. When you move a snare hit, everything else needs to be moved accordingly. It is critical to maintain the phase relationships between the tracks! Very fast kicks are the only exception. It is not always necessary to move the other tracks along the kick. The bleed you hear in the overheads or ambience tracks is usually just a muddy rumble without any clear attack. Another very common drum edit is to remove anything but the actual hits from tom tracks. Some prefer to use noise gates in the mixing stage and others don’t use them at all. So, once again don’t do this without consulting the mixing engineer. If you decide to do it, create a very short fade just before the first hit and a another fade after the last hit in the fill. Usually good spot to end the fade is right before next snare hit. If you already replaced the last hit with a sample, you don’t need to do any end fades.

General Tips for Quantizing These tips should work with most multitrack drum editing tools utilizing the “slice & quantize” type of process. •

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• •

Use only your kick, snare and tom tracks to create the trigger points. These are the first transients in time. Always group the tracks before quantizing. The only exception being fast kick parts, which can be edited separately. Proceed in 4-8 bar sections, never try to quantize a whole song at once. Make sure the tempo or time signature doesn’t change in between the selected section. If the drummer is rushing/dragging badly, nudge the whole section (or song!) roughly to a grid before quantizing. Use crossfade times of 2-5 ms. Keep the original tracks on a different playlist (Pro Tools). If anything goes wrong, you can quickly reference or copy-paste the original performance and redo that part.

g n i x i M s e r m o f u e r B D e s v n i o s i s t a e r r g a g p A e r P l a n i F

IV

Multitrack drum editing tools capable of quantizing • • • • • •

Pro Tools – Beat Detective Cubase – Quantize (from version 6) Nuendo – Quantize (from version 5.5) Samplitude – Audio Quantize (from version 10) Sonar – AudioSnap Logic Pro – Audio Quantize (from version 9)

There are also alternatives to slicing audio, such as elastic time or slip editing, but the most popular is still the “slice & quantize” method.

Final Preparations Before Mixing Ok, the drums and all other tracks are now as ready as they can be? Everything sounds perfect? Before you (or someone else) can start mixing, make sure you go through this list. •

• • • •

•

Track names are in understandable and consistent format. For example “John 6” is not a good name for a left rhythm guitar track! All tracks start from the same position (extremely important!). MIDI file with all tempo information is included. All songs have their own folders. All tracks are in audio format unless otherwise agreed (for example keyboards in MIDI format). All unused tracks and takes have been removed.

IV

s s m m u u r r D D e e v s i s o s h e r T x g i g M A

Mix Those Drums – No Time To Explain! Ok, so you are done with editing and need to create some mixes for guitar overdubbing. Or maybe the drummer is calling you three times a night demanding to hear the drums (and the copy-paste editing you did without asking). The drums still sound raw and not exciting at all? No matter who is going to mix your project, you still need good sounding drum mixes to continue recording other instruments. I will show an example how to create a good sounding drum mix using only plugins included in basic version of Pro Tools 9. These are not the plugins I would normally use, but I want to keep things simple. You can use any plugins or host you like. The settings are very dependent on source and tools used, so they might not be suitable for your tracks. I won’t go much into detail because mixing drums would require another book! This is just an example how to get a quick mix for overdubbing purposes. But who knows, if you have done your recording properly and find the right tools and settings – it might not require much more tweaking for the final sound!

IV


Start by importing all songs to one big session and create the following buses (Aux): • • • • • • • • •

Kick (mono) Snare (mono) Toms (stereo) Overheads (stereo) Drums (stereo) Ambience (stereo) DrumsParaComp (stereo) DrumVerb (stereo) Master Fader (stereo)

Kick

Compressor • • • •

Fast/medium fast attack Medium release Ratio 4:1 Gain reduction 3-6 dB

EQ • • •

Narrow 2-4 dB boost at 70 Hz 2-6 dB cut at around 360 Hz 3-10 dB boost at around 7 kHz

Route all kick tracks to Kick bus. Adjust the levels to a good balance by ear. Add a compressor and EQ to the Kick bus. This is a key element when tracking other instruments. Make it loud!

IV


Snare


Fast/medium fast attack Medium release Ratio 4:1 Gain reduction 3-6 dB

Route all snare tracks to Snare bus. Adjust the bottom mic 6-10 db lower than the top mic. Add a compressor to the Snare bus. This is another key element when tracking other instruments!

Toms

Gate • • •

Fastest attack Hold 100 ms Release 100 ms

EQ • • •

2-6 dB cut at around 360 Hz 3-8 dB boost at around 5 kHz Low-pass filter at around 8 kHz

Pan tom tracks from audience perspective. Route all tom tracks to Toms bus. Insert gate on each tom track. Match threshold to source. Insert EQ on Toms bus.

IV


Overheads

EQ •

High-pass filter at 400 Hz

Pan all cymbal tracks from audience perspective (including Hi-Hat and ride). Make them sound balanced level wise. Route them to Overheads bus. Insert EQ on Overheads bus.

Drums Now route all the previous buses to Drums bus.

IV


Ambience


Fast attack Fast release Ratio 6:1 Gain reduction 6-12 dB

EQ • •

High-pass filter at 150 Hz Low-pass filter at 3 kHz

Route all ambience tracks to Ambience bus. Add a compressor and EQ to the Ambience bus. You can push the compressor pretty hard. Set the level 6-10 db lower than rest of the buses.

IV


DrumsParaComp


Fast attack Fast release Ratio 6:1 Gain reduction 6-12 dB

Ok, now the fun starts! Go to Drums bus and an add aux send to DrumsParaComp bus. Make it pre-fader and bring the fader all the way up to zero. Add a compressor to DrumsParaComp bus. Really push it this time. Bring the fader down and slowly raise it until you hear a healthy dose fat drums! Be careful with the cymbal spill.

IV


DrumVerb

Reverb • •

Plate or room reverb Decay 1 sec

Add a reverb to the DrumVerb bus. Play with the sends from Snare and Kick buses until you are are happy. What you want here is just a little bit of air and space.

Master Fader

Limiter • •

Very fast release Ceiling -0.3 dB

Insert a limiter to your Master Fader bus . Don’t push it too hard, leave some healthy dynamics. Check all levels once again by ear, most likely you will have to lower the Overheads bus, because cymbals are now bleeding from other tracks. Export the mixes when you are done. Make sure the starting point matches with the tempo tracks and count-in! Always snap to grid when bouncing/exporting a mixdown.

s d r o W l a n i F

Final Words If you do everything as I wrote, you will end up with 10-20 tracks for drums. You don't need to use all of them, but it's great to have options. You might think that gear means everything. To get world-class results, it is important. Just don't forget that the most important thing is to capture a great performance. After that everything else will be easy. The raw drum sound will rarely be the final sound (unless you have heavily processed it on the way in). You will need to do a lot of saturating, compressing and equalizing to make it really powerful and aggressive. If the worst-case scenario happens and you need to replace everything with samples, the sound you have gotten with this guide will be suitable for that use too. After a few successful drum recording sessions, you will start to hear when the sound is right and no further tweaking is needed. You will know when the tuning is perfect. The microphones will find the right positions without you having to run between the monitors and drums all day long. Have fun recording and make some history!

s p u t e s S m e l u p r D m a e x v i E s – s e r A x g i g d A n e p p A

Appendix A – Example Setups Comprehensive Setup (20 ch) Here’s a comprehensive setup with tremendous amounts of separation. Cymbals are recorded individually (or in pairs), kick drum has three microphones and one additional ambience microphone is added. To go even further, you could record trigger “splats” for each drum. CHANNEL NAME

BD In

DESCRIPTION

Kick, inside microphone

BD 91

Kick, Shure Bea 91

BD Sub

Subkick, ouside

SN Top

Snare op

SN Bo

Snare botom

RT 1

Rack om 1

RT 2

Rack om 2

FT L

Floor om, lef

FT R

Floor om, righ

OH L1

Cymbals, back lef (audience perspecive)

OH L2

Cymbals, fron lef

OH R1

Cymbals, fron righ

OH R2

Cymbals, back righ

Ride L

Ride cymbal

HH R China L Splash C

Hi-Has China Splashes, cener

Amb L

Sereo room microphone, lef (audience perspecive)

Amb R

Sereo room microphone, righ

Hallway

Mono Hallway ambience microphone


Basic Setup (14 ch) This is the typical setup for me. It features everything I want for a typical aggressive mix. An additional china mic may be needed if it has a bigger role than just accenting. CHANNEL NAME

BD In

DESCRIPTION


BD Sub

Subkick, ouside

SN Top

Snare op

SN Bo

Snare botom

RT 1

Rack om 1

RT 2

Rack om 2

FT 1

Floor om 1

FT 2

Floor om 2

OH L

Sereo overhead, lef (audience perspecive)

OH R

Sereo overhead, righ

Ride L HH R

Ride cymbal Hi-Has

Amb L

Sereo room microphone, lef (audience perspecive)

Amb R

Sereo room microphone, righ


No-Frills Setup (8 ch) This setup features all the basic elements in 8 channels. If the drummer has only two toms, I would replace that channel with either mono room or ride mic. A dedicated hi-hat mic is not really that important due it’s overpowering nature. Most of the time you actually want less of it in the overheads! In case of more than three toms, drop one off. I’m serious. Snare bottom mic is more important. Without the snare bottom mic you will most likely end up having too dark snare drum sound. However, if dropping one tom off is not possible, place a bi-directional microphone between the first two toms. It’s not an optimal solution, but works. CHANNEL NAME

BD In

DESCRIPTION


SN Top

Snare op

SN Bo

Snare botom

RT 1

Rack om 1

RT 2

Rack om 2

FT

Floor om

OH L

Overhead, lef (audience perspecive)

OH R

Overhead, righ


Basic Pre-Production Setup (4 ch) Ok, the channels and mics are limited, but you want a good drum sound? Try this. Place the overheads in X-Y pattern. It is very easy to set up and works every time. Add a kick mic and snare top mic. In the context of getting great separation this is a pre-production setup, but it could be everything you want from your drum sound. CHANNEL NAME

BD In SN Top

DESCRIPTION

Kick, inside microphone Snare op

OH L

Overhead, lef (audience perspecive)

OH R

Overhead, righ

Simple Pre-Production Setup (2 ch) For two channel recordings, I have found that placing one overhead on-axis over the snare can give amazing results. Place it as low as you can without it being in the way. Two drumsticks length from the snare is a pretty damn good starting point. Add a kick microphone. Thats it! Some call this the “Bonham method”. What’s great about this technique is that the snare drum is always dead center and you get plenty of attack from snare and toms. I actually prefer this sound over the 4 ch setup but the mono overhead is pretty limiting from mixing point of view. CHANNEL NAME

BD In OH

DESCRIPTION

Kick, inside microphone Overhead


Super Simple Pre-Production Setup (1 ch) For recording quick ideas and band rehearsals, grab any microphone and aim it at the top front edge of the kickdrum. A good distance is 5 ft (1.5 m) and height 2 ft (60 cm). In a good room with a good drummer, this setup delivers instant punchy sound! CHANNEL NAME

Drums

DESCRIPTION

Drums, fron microphone

e l u d e h s c S m e u l r p D m e a v x i s E s – e r B g g x A i d n e p p A

Appendix B Example Schedule for First Recording Day 9:00 AM

Drum load in and seup.

10:00 AM

Discussion abou he objecives and general sound goals. Wha would be he appropriae cymbal recording sraegy? Any wishes from he mixing engineer?

10:15 AM

Drum uning.

11:15 AM

Basic microphone seup.

12:00 AM

Lunch break.

12:30 PM

Soundcheck begins. Afer levels are checked, experimenaion wih alernaive mics, preamps and snare drums. Differen unings and room microphone seups. Possible pre-processing setings (EQ & compression).

14:00 PM

Meronome/empo map seup and headphone mix.

14:30 PM

Drum uning check. Drummer warm-up.

14:45 PM

Drum recording sars! Level check afer firs ake.

17:00 PM

Firs 1-3 songs are now recorded and compiled from few differen akes!

s n r e t t a P s r a l m o u P r e D n o e h v i p s o s r c i e r M g – g A C x i d n e p p A

Appendix C Microphone Polar Patterns Cardioid

Bi-directional/Figure of 8

Supercardioid

Omnidirectional

Polar pattern images by Wikipedia.com: Galak76

Sources • • • • • • • • • • • •

•

• •

• •

Barry Rudolph: Drum Miking Techniques pt. 2-5 . ProRec.com, 2000. Brian Knave: Capturing The Kit . Electronic Musician, July 2004. Christopher Sauter: Techniques for Drumset Recording. Ebay Guides, 2006. Daniel Allocca: Recording Drums the Affordable Way! Rudimentstudies.com, 2006. Daniel Keller: Mid-Side (MS) Mic Recording Basics . Uaudio.com/blog, May 2011. Don Zulaica: Joey Castillo: Walking The Walk . DRUM! Magazine, April 2005. Ermin Hamidovic: Systematic Mixing Guide. 2012. Glenn Fricker: Acoustic Drums for Metal: A Guide. 2005-2012. J. Scott Johnson: Prof.Sound's Drum Tuning Bible v3. 1999. Jared Falk: Drum Tuning Guide. Totaldrumsets.com, 2008. Jukka Laaksonen: Äänityön kivijalka. Idemco Oy, 2006. Mark Mynett: The SOS Guide To Recording & Producing Modern Metal . Sound On Sound, November 2009. Martin Ranscombe: 14 simple steps to tuning your snare drum; 17 seriously useful drum tuning tips. Rhythm Magazine, March 2009. Matt McGlynn: Five Techniques for Stereo Miking Drums. shure.eu/blog, 2012. Mike Gilliland: How to Record Drums: Space Plus Placement . Ezinearticles.com, March 2012. Nagrath: Drum Sizing & Head Selection. ExtremeDrumming.net Preamp: Buying Guide. sweetwater.com, 2012.

•

Preamps Buying Guide. musiciansfriend.com, 2010. Robert Dennis: The Three to One Rule & Phase Cancellation Fully Explained .

•

Recordingeq.com, 1997. SAE Institute: Absorption Coefficient Chart . 2012.

•

•

SAE Institute: Drums and Percussion. SAE.edu Sarah Jones : “Big Mick” Hughes at the Board . Mix Magazine, November 2007. Silja Suntola: Luova Studiotyo. Idemco Oy, 2000. Steve Kindig: Room Acoustics. Crutchfield Learning Center. December 2012. Tip #6: The 3 to 1 Rule . Crown Audio, Inc., 2002-2012. Tomás Howie: Tuning. Drummingweb.com, 1996-2012. West Coast Drum Center: Cymbal Info .

•

Wikipedia: various

•

Wood and Thickness Options. Pearldrum.com

• • • • • •

Agressive Drums - The Recording Guide

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