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Your Drum Sounds Make Your Beat!
 

 How to record drum sounds

 

 

Welcome back to the second article about recording drum samples. Last week, we talked about some basic set-ups for recording drums and we talked specifically about how to record kick drum samples, snare drum samples, and tom samples.

 

For additional info I reccomend this site: http://realdrumsamples.com which has a ton of good info!

 

In this article, we will first talk about recording hi hat drum samples, then about recording cymbal drum samples, and then about room miking, pre-amping, and mixing, before I give you some final tips.

 

Hi hat:

 

Here you need a clear condenser. A small diaphragm condenser with cardioid or hypercardioid element is advisable to be able to aim well and make sure that you don’t record the snare too much. A large diaphragm condenser is not able to focus enough to exclude the snare drum sound from the recording. 

 

Targeting is a hassle, you must hold the mic between the hi hat and the snare, and the mic needs to stand about 15 to 20 cm from the hi hat. Then, make sure it is focused on the piece of hi hat between the bubble and a point at least 3-5cm from the edge of the hi hat. This is to make sure that the mic does not record the air movement that is caused by the. A pop filter can indeed stop something, but not everything.

 

Here you will see that it is very difficult to record the hi hat in total isolation, so without any sounds of for example the snare drum.

 

Cymbals / overheads:

 

Here you can choose to go in two different directions. Either you do it with the help of overhead mics with small diaphragm condensers (just as with the hi-hat), or with ribbon mics (beyerdynamic m160 for example), who are strongly focused on the cymbals. In the latter case you will certainly need an overhead mic that record the entire drum set, because ribbons are highly focused mic's. The cheapest are small diaphragm condensers, but ribbons and room mics often deliver better results (this set-up is more popular in high-end studios).

 

If you use a room mic (omni mode), you need to have a very good and neutral large diaphragm condenser (neumann, akg's expensive, Soundelux, Microtech Gefell, brauner …), which you put at a reasonable distance (2 m) of the drum set and at least 1m from every other obstacle (wall, …).

 

 

 

The overheads are nevertheless quite important when recording drum sounds. First of all because they provide a very nice stereo image (You can pan them extreme Left and the extreme right. This has a very nice effect on your music). The overheads are also a bit of the total picture of your drum because everything is in it. Now, for some applications, close micing is better, but then good sounding cymbals are a must.

 

Room miking:

 

For the kick and the snare, the room micing set up is about the same as at the close micing setup. You can catch the rest by hanging one or two good large diaphragm condensers above the drum set as overheads.Those will record the cymbals, hi-hat and toms in a stereo signal (in the case of two condensers). The advantage is the live sound, the disadvantage is that you can no longer remix it.

 

Preamps:

 

With budget recordings is not so important what kind of preamps you use, as long as they are of good quality. In high-end studios the APIs  and 103's by-ams are very popular for drums, but those are for do-it-yourselfers probably far outside their budget.

 

Mixing:

 

When equalising, it is most important that you can better remove stuff (cut) than add stuff (boost)! This is because chances are high that you will get an unnatural sound and unwanted noise (noise, bouncing or vibrating sheets, the hitting of the sheets by the sticks, etc.) is strengthened when you boost. How does that work? If you have too little ‘middle sound’ compared with the rest, you will get more middle by reducing the rest (the high and the low). Try it!

 

When equalizing a kit you have to think about what the core power of any tom or cymbal is and then equalize away what is not important. If you don’t do this, then the sounds of the individual components will literally be in each others way in your recording and it will sound too full and without any details. If you apply this equalising often and in the right way, then your drum sounds will sound much more focused, calmer and clearer.

 

For your kick you need a lot of low, but much less middle and high.

 

When recording cymbals you will also get a lot of low that you do not need, but you do need the middle and high. Continue to listen very carefully and determine at what point the removal gets at the expense of the good characteristic sound. Furthermore, you should remember that your whole drum sound also creates an ‘overall’ sound. So also listen to how it sounds in its entirety; sometimes you do not have to change anything when you play the entire recording of your drum set, while the individual sounds do not sound exactly like you want them to sound. This is also true in a somewhat wider context: sometimes the drums sounds fine with the whole band, but apart less so. Therefore, my advice is just to keep listening!

 

 

Compression is an option, but it's mostly the kick, snare and toms that sometimes need compression: never compress hi hat and cymbals! If you suffer from leakage (e.g. a snare that gets in the recording of a hi-hat) then putting the mics in the holes of the drums can be a solution, but in that case you will lose some natural reverb and transients.

 

 

 

Tips

 

 

- Know the monitors on which you judge your recordings! Take good commercial recordings to compare your recording with it.

 

- Search for your own drum sound: for example, try putting the drum set somewhere else during the recording: in a hallway or living room, etc..

 

  • Also, everyone will sometimes record drums differently with different microphones. The most important rule is, if it sounds good then it is good.

 

 

 

Thanks!

 

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