Something I learned is that low end clarity is scarce. It's either deep toms or bass guitar. I prefer bass on the bottom when I record so I usually have trebly-sounding hard panned toms. That way the chords are supported by the bass and the toms have clarity in the fills or beats. That goes also for the bass drum, it has to have a high end attack to poke through. But if it's a drum solo, yes I go for a full deep sounds.
We record everything flat and then eq during mix down. we use a hybrid mixing desk that allows us to reroute all signals back into the console from the DAW and mix out of the box. their way is fine unless you make a mistake or change you mind on how you want something to sound. then your forced to either retrack it or use treatments to change your sound back.
All this time I thought my floor tom sounded bad because I was comparing it to an edited sound, but after hearing it unedited it sounds a lot like yours and I'm really happy :D
The room is your first priority. The exposed rafters may actually help. You want a combination of absorption (foam) and diffusion (reflective surfaces that scatter the sound in many directions). Start with making some bass traps using Corning 703 panels (really cheap compressed fiberglass.See youtube tutorials on that. Its cheap, easy and makes all the difference. Put them in all 4 corners. Put the drums far from the walls as possible. Don't overdo foam or it will sound dead.
Continued from below, if you use a Mac, Logic Pro is only $199 these days (I paid $1,000 in 2002) and it is better than ever with full plug in effects and instrument suite. Everything you could really need is there, but it is Mac only. If you use a PC, go for Cubase or SONAR X series (which is really great) or check out the one by Harrison. Not many talk about it but it is a really good layout by the Harrison console manufacturer. Or try the Presonus DAW.
I can swear I heard the legendary gain knob "cracking noise" :) Have it on old Behringers and Mackie too :) It is something that appears after some years of frequent use :)
People, I think this tutorial was only meant as a point of reference. Obviously we will all do what we want when it comes down to it. EQ (if necessary) will come down to what type of music one is recording or performing. Studio environments and live environments are night and day differences as well...just saying.
I have a Sound Percussion kit. I also prefer unmuffled drums, but my toms just sounded ridiculous. I could tell they were well tuned, but the ringing was overwhelming. I ended up having to put one Moonglel on my rack tom and THREE on my floor tom! It's actually helped them sound like nicer drums. They still resonate just fine, and the nasty overtone is gone. I'm sure all that dampening would completely ruin a kit like the one in this video. It's amazing how different drums need different things.
Also, if you are going to EQ, if you cut your frequencies in the right spots, you wouldn't have to boost the high end to hear the attack of the stick hitting the head. Boosting introduces artificial harmonics that add noise and feedback, cutting doesn't add anything and makes things sound better if done properly.
If I may, there are many programs out there and contrary to popular belief and opinion, they all are very good. I am a Pro Tools HD guy myself, but that is definitely overkill for you at this point. I suggest trying Reaper because it is a good program and a good company. You can download it directly from Reaper and pay for it if you like it. (Students or personal home users pay only $69!). The only thing is that it comes with no plug-ins. So all the effects and instruments are separate 3rd party
I just recorded my drums with 2 Shure m57s, placed 5 feet from the drums, 4 feet off the floor. I played it back on my stereo that's connected to high end speakers. Guess what. The snare sounds like my snare, the toms sound like toms, all 10 cymbals sound like the actual symbals, the bass drum sounds like my base drum.........So, what am I doing wrong? Most people think old vinyl records sound better than today's CDs. The old records didn't have people with electonic toys to twist dials and turn knobs, that's why new recording sound dead and artificial. It is not the fault of digital recording or CD's.....Put the toys away. Record the music. People will like it because it will sound natural, as if the band was there with them.
You can get a tom sound that punches you in the face by using gates and actually boosting the resonant low mid frequency rather than cutting them, add sustain by changing your gate ratio and add some reverb. That's my perfect tom sound, at least in a live setting. I like the toms to resonate through my body when I stand in front of a speaker stack.
you got the pants brad. im with you.You gotta feel it with your jelly and hear it with your bones. that said, studio is a different approach..... for some... He he..
I can see that honestly. I have been taking some live recordings directly off my board feed and while live the toms sound fierce and full and mix in well out of the stacks, the playback has some overwhelming toms in areas, especially with the floor toms. They almost sound like bass dives sometimes. Keep in mind I mostly mix jam bands and funk rock bands. The drums are punchy, loud, and kick you in the face. Not every style calls for that.
@JeminiMedia I believe to remove bleed, you have to add a noise gate, rather than eq it. You can find some videos on YT about, SnareSpectre does a good series about it
@JeminiMedia You can get a limiter or gate and set the threshold and attack high enough to only pick up the sound of the drum. You can do these either with outboard gear or, if you have multi-track recording capabilities, you can add a limiter/gate in your DAW on the tracks you want to rid of bleed. However, the more attack you have and less sustain, the drums start sounding kind of dead and boring.
I've always felt the best way to go is to use as little micing on a kit as possible. Using no more than 5 mic's you can get a great sound, and not have to use much EQ. When you close mic, you're having to EQ to remove the proximity of the drum head, the further away from the head the mic is, the less EQ you have to use because you're capturing a more natural sound, such as the sound the player hears when behind the kit.
idk why but, I laughed so hard in the beginning when jared just hit the 8" tom. dom...dom...dom...dom...dom...dom...dom...dom...dom...dom...dom...dom...dom...dom...dom...dom...dom...dom...dom...dom...dom...dom...dom...dom.. great video thanks :)
Tune drums really well, get a good room and use 4 maybe 5 at most mics to record drums....kick, snare, hi hat and 2 overhead large condenser mics and you will get good drum natural drum sound..
Joining the keyboard warriors!!! Personally I think you'd be better with 904's or beta 98amp microphones. Using 604's which are inherently dull microphones are making you eq more. By eq'ing channels you are changing the phase relationship between each mic/instrument. You're always much better finding the right mic to get the right sound - after the musician can create an amazing tone, of course!
very good video and great sound. i would like to know how you gating properly a drums set when you use mics both top and bottom on the toms. cause i thnk that you will double your bleeding problem from the snare wires when you have bottom mics on the toms. so it would be nice to show us how you gating the bottom mics compare to the top mics. :)
WOW! I don't even play drums. I'm a guitarist. However, I just subscribed yesterday and I'm finding your EQ and mic placement tutorials invaluable for great drum tones. I'm psyched to try them out next time I run sound. You guys are great.
Pro Tools is just one of many programs and they are all quite similar. Pro Tools HD (TDM) on the other hand is different because it runs on DSP cards and in my opinion is quite a bit better on the performance side. I did most of my albums in Logic though. I got Pro Tools HD later on in the game. I like it for many reasons, the stability, the quality of the TDM plug-ins, the ability to patch in external analog hardware in real time, and the high end controllers (I use a C/24)... about the room...
The overtones just kill me!!! Awesome video though. DW drums truly rock! My first step with drums, either live or in the studio is make them sound there best before I even touch the console. That goes for everything too, guitars bass and anything else.
The General Rule is get the sound as good as humanly possible before you start recording. EQing after recording is harder to make it sound really natural.
Yes. I personally don't see the point in mic'ing top and bottom on toms, there's always a chance the reso head is tuned differently and it won't come through nicely. However, on a snare I'd mic top and bottom.
nice vid. Two things - what are your thoughts a) recording EQ vs. recording without EQ. and b) Just wondering if you could do the same with say, bass and guitar or bass and piano - to get an idea of how those would work in a band setting. Drums that sound great solo sometimes don't fit with bass, most especially.
I was taught #1 , Kick , # 2 Snare , # 3 Snare , # 4 Tom 1 , #5 Tom 2 , #6 Floor tom , # 7 Overhead Left , # 8 Overhead right . This is for a Normal 5 piece set . You have it all Backwards . You guys in the UK ?
Great video guys. In fact all of the EQ'ing vid's that I watched were very helpful. As a guitarist, you have helped me get a good starting point on eq'ing VERY usable drum sounds. Subscribed. :)
Hi guys. Thanks for really great videos. I enjoy them and apply your techniques to my drumming and recordings. All the best and greetings from London UK. StuArt \m/
What can you do about bleed (other than mic placement), are their eq settings that help lesson the amount of bleed? Do you take out the bleed in post? I ask becase my main problem is that I like my cymbals low so my snare mics and 10" tom mic pick up quite a bit of bleed. My snare mic picks up bleed from my hats so when I boost the hi's it increases the bleeds highs from the hats. (by the way for toms I use Sennheiser e604, Audix i5 on snare These lessons have been great! Ermin.
@6midlan Great thanks I will check it out. It's really not that bad but I find adding gates kinda ruins the "natural" sound of the recording. Also dynamincs on the floor tom or snare could vary so adding gates isn't a good option usually. I guess I'd just have to find a good harmony between the mics.
Victor, do you EQ the drums from the board, thus feeding ProTools for recording a CD? Or are these videos more like a "live event/recording"? One would think for studio (cd) purposes you would record a flat signal and EQ within your DAW afterwards for more flexibity. I know there are no rules, but what do you do when recoding a cd? Thanks
On my drum set, I've decided to remove the bottom heads, and it has opened up my sound a lot more ( made everything louder). In that situation would I put 2 Mics on the single drum head or would I use only one mic and sacrifice some of the extra sound quality I would get w/ 2 mics?
@phillipmaz Thanks, I've experimented with some success but as mentioned in my other reply it takes away from the natural sound, because when those gates open you are getting more sound from those mics that were gated. And yes I don't want dead sounding drums. I'm sure I could find some sort of balance that I'd be happy with.
@ShittyMcPoopyBalls I have a 10 12 14 set up toms, and my Snare is between the 10 et 12. It buzz's when I Hit the 10 and a little bit when I hit the 12.
Something I learned is that low end clarity is scarce. It's either deep toms or bass guitar. I prefer bass on the bottom when I record so I usually have trebly-sounding hard panned toms. That way the chords are supported by the bass and the toms have clarity in the fills or beats. That goes also for the bass drum, it has to have a high end attack to poke through. But if it's a drum solo, yes I go for a full deep sounds.
I'm not sure I agree with ALL the sounds he pulled out of the toms, but I did learn a lot and now I can apply what I want to my kit. Thanks dude
We record everything flat and then eq during mix down. we use a hybrid mixing desk that allows us to reroute all signals back into the console from the DAW and mix out of the box. their way is fine unless you make a mistake or change you mind on how you want something to sound. then your forced to either retrack it or use treatments to change your sound back.
good shout on panning the drums to the players perspective. never thought about doing that before will be from now on :)
great vid guys
All this time I thought my floor tom sounded bad because I was comparing it to an edited sound, but after hearing it unedited it sounds a lot like yours and I'm really happy :D
It All Sounds Really Good if we got to believe the audio engineer i'm glad mixing is a taste thing!
The room is your first priority. The exposed rafters may actually help. You want a combination of absorption (foam) and diffusion (reflective surfaces that scatter the sound in many directions). Start with making some bass traps using Corning 703 panels (really cheap compressed fiberglass.See youtube tutorials on that. Its cheap, easy and makes all the difference. Put them in all 4 corners. Put the drums far from the walls as possible. Don't overdo foam or it will sound dead.
Continued from below, if you use a Mac, Logic Pro is only $199 these days (I paid $1,000 in 2002) and it is better than ever with full plug in effects and instrument suite. Everything you could really need is there, but it is Mac only. If you use a PC, go for Cubase or SONAR X series (which is really great) or check out the one by Harrison. Not many talk about it but it is a really good layout by the Harrison console manufacturer. Or try the Presonus DAW.
These episodes are great! Really clear and detailed, much appreciated :)
I can swear I heard the legendary gain knob "cracking noise" :) Have it on old Behringers and Mackie too :) It is something that appears after some years of frequent use :)
Great video, and lots of good advice. Gonna check out some more vids. Thanks!
I work with a lot of live drummers and none can tune their drums.
What's your secret sauce to tuning?
There is your new career, charge them an extra 10 bucks to make the drum sound awesome.
Pro tip : you can watch series at flixzone. I've been using it for watching loads of movies these days.
@Louis Ismael Yea, been using Flixzone for since december myself :)
People, I think this tutorial was only meant as a point of reference. Obviously we will all do what we want when it comes down to it. EQ (if necessary) will come down to what type of music one is recording or performing. Studio environments and live environments are night and day differences as well...just saying.
I have a Sound Percussion kit. I also prefer unmuffled drums, but my toms just sounded ridiculous. I could tell they were well tuned, but the ringing was overwhelming. I ended up having to put one Moonglel on my rack tom and THREE on my floor tom! It's actually helped them sound like nicer drums. They still resonate just fine, and the nasty overtone is gone. I'm sure all that dampening would completely ruin a kit like the one in this video. It's amazing how different drums need different things.
Also, if you are going to EQ, if you cut your frequencies in the right spots, you wouldn't have to boost the high end to hear the attack of the stick hitting the head. Boosting introduces artificial harmonics that add noise and feedback, cutting doesn't add anything and makes things sound better if done properly.
thanks i also use a mackie 8 bus 32 channel mixing console at church and it awesome
If I may, there are many programs out there and contrary to popular belief and opinion, they all are very good. I am a Pro Tools HD guy myself, but that is definitely overkill for you at this point. I suggest trying Reaper because it is a good program and a good company. You can download it directly from Reaper and pay for it if you like it. (Students or personal home users pay only $69!). The only thing is that it comes with no plug-ins. So all the effects and instruments are separate 3rd party
Great video! Thanks so much for this content. I wish you would have shown your bottom mic placement and mic choices.
Look like Sennheiser e604 on toms
the best sounding mic is the one on the camcorder. stick that one on the drums, remove all the other mics, and you'll have something.
I just recorded my drums with 2 Shure m57s, placed 5 feet from the drums, 4 feet off the floor. I played it back on my stereo that's connected to high end speakers. Guess what. The snare sounds like my snare, the toms sound like toms, all 10 cymbals sound like the actual symbals, the bass drum sounds like my base drum.........So, what am I doing wrong? Most people think old vinyl records sound better than today's CDs. The old records didn't have people with electonic toys to twist dials and turn knobs, that's why new recording sound dead and artificial. It is not the fault of digital recording or CD's.....Put the toys away. Record the music. People will like it because it will sound natural, as if the band was there with them.
You are such a humble, awesome dude. Thank you so much for cranking out content that is so helpful!
I'd love to hear some flat/EQ comparison at the end.
You can get a tom sound that punches you in the face by using gates and actually boosting the resonant low mid frequency rather than cutting them, add sustain by changing your gate ratio and add some reverb. That's my perfect tom sound, at least in a live setting. I like the toms to resonate through my body when I stand in front of a speaker stack.
you got the pants brad. im with you.You gotta feel it with your jelly and hear it with your bones. that said, studio is a different approach..... for some... He he..
I can see that honestly. I have been taking some live recordings directly off my board feed and while live the toms sound fierce and full and mix in well out of the stacks, the playback has some overwhelming toms in areas, especially with the floor toms. They almost sound like bass dives sometimes. Keep in mind I mostly mix jam bands and funk rock bands. The drums are punchy, loud, and kick you in the face. Not every style calls for that.
@JeminiMedia I believe to remove bleed, you have to add a noise gate, rather than eq it. You can find some videos on YT about, SnareSpectre does a good series about it
@JeminiMedia You can get a limiter or gate and set the threshold and attack high enough to only pick up the sound of the drum. You can do these either with outboard gear or, if you have multi-track recording capabilities, you can add a limiter/gate in your DAW on the tracks you want to rid of bleed. However, the more attack you have and less sustain, the drums start sounding kind of dead and boring.
oh! now i get it......the sound of the stick slapping the tom is an important part of mixing....
Yeah, I think it's a Mackie. I've got a little mackie 1402-VLZ made in '99. Nothin' fancy, but it sounds great.
I've always felt the best way to go is to use as little micing on a kit as possible. Using no more than 5 mic's you can get a great sound, and not have to use much EQ. When you close mic, you're having to EQ to remove the proximity of the drum head, the further away from the head the mic is, the less EQ you have to use because you're capturing a more natural sound, such as the sound the player hears when behind the kit.
Pretty decent. If you can get toms to sound that good with just a Mackie console and it's stock channel strips, that's impressive.
Awesome video! really helpfull! wether is for trying to match my drum kit sound like yours, and even the tunning! thums up!
idk why but, I laughed so hard in the beginning when jared just hit the 8" tom. dom...dom...dom...dom...dom...dom...dom...dom...dom...dom...dom...dom...dom...dom...dom...dom...dom...dom...dom...dom...dom...dom...dom...dom..
great video thanks :)
Tune drums really well, get a good room and use 4 maybe 5 at most mics to record drums....kick, snare, hi hat and 2 overhead large condenser mics and you will get good drum natural drum sound..
MOST ACTION PACKED VIDEO EVER!
Joining the keyboard warriors!!! Personally I think you'd be better with 904's or beta 98amp microphones. Using 604's which are inherently dull microphones are making you eq more. By eq'ing channels you are changing the phase relationship between each mic/instrument. You're always much better finding the right mic to get the right sound - after the musician can create an amazing tone, of course!
very good video and great sound. i would like to know how you gating properly a drums set when you use mics both top and bottom on the toms. cause i thnk that you will double your bleeding problem from the snare wires when you have bottom mics on the toms. so it would be nice to show us how you gating the bottom mics compare to the top mics. :)
WOW! I don't even play drums. I'm a guitarist. However, I just subscribed yesterday and I'm finding your EQ and mic placement tutorials invaluable for great drum tones. I'm psyched to try them out next time I run sound. You guys are great.
I'm hearing the snare wires while tuning.
I would disengage the snare mechanism before tuning. Overall nice job. 💯
Pro Tools is just one of many programs and they are all quite similar. Pro Tools HD (TDM) on the other hand is different because it runs on DSP cards and in my opinion is quite a bit better on the performance side. I did most of my albums in Logic though. I got Pro Tools HD later on in the game. I like it for many reasons, the stability, the quality of the TDM plug-ins, the ability to patch in external analog hardware in real time, and the high end controllers (I use a C/24)... about the room...
Great sounding toms, thanks
If I may step in, I am pretty sure he is using it as the analog front end. Preamps and eq. I did exactly the same thing for a while.
The overtones just kill me!!! Awesome video though. DW drums truly rock! My first step with drums, either live or in the studio is make them sound there best before I even touch the console. That goes for everything too, guitars bass and anything else.
The General Rule is get the sound as good as humanly possible before you start recording. EQing after recording is harder to make it sound really natural.
THX a lot.. im about to start recording a demo for my band.. this will help us!! :)
Yes that's a Mackie 32/8 mixing console, I have one myself
Thanks for the amazing detail video.
and great playing.
Yes. I personally don't see the point in mic'ing top and bottom on toms, there's always a chance the reso head is tuned differently and it won't come through nicely. However, on a snare I'd mic top and bottom.
mackie makes a great board, just as good as anything else
This is great! Why are these people hating? Goodness!
"Meh" pretty much sums this video up.
Blanchard & Fontaine pretty much sums up jared!!
nice vid. Two things - what are your thoughts a) recording EQ vs. recording without EQ. and b) Just wondering if you could do the same with say, bass and guitar or bass and piano - to get an idea of how those would work in a band setting. Drums that sound great solo sometimes don't fit with bass, most especially.
I was taught #1 , Kick , # 2 Snare , # 3 Snare , # 4 Tom 1 , #5 Tom 2 , #6 Floor tom , # 7 Overhead Left , # 8 Overhead right . This is for a Normal 5 piece set . You have it all Backwards . You guys in the UK ?
Thnx for insructions. I only have one question. On which toms do you use the low cut filter (mostly low cut 100 hz).
Great tips as always Jared and co! Thanks for the wealth of information on your channel!
thanks for sharing, good info!! I think im more ready to record drums now! thanks! great vid guys!
What analog board are you using there? Great video!!!
No worries. Be sure to invert the phase on the bottom mic.
I would also like to know what Mixing console you are using. Thanks.
Great video and info.Thanks
Great video guys. In fact all of the EQ'ing vid's that I watched were very helpful. As a guitarist, you have helped me get a good starting point on eq'ing VERY usable drum sounds. Subscribed. :)
@Videditor1067 The EQ is recorded through the Mackie, there's no EQ in the software used.
Hi guys. Thanks for really great videos. I enjoy them and apply your techniques to my drumming and recordings. All the best and greetings from London UK. StuArt \m/
What can you do about bleed (other than mic placement), are their eq settings that help lesson the amount of bleed? Do you take out the bleed in post? I ask becase my main problem is that I like my cymbals low so my snare mics and 10" tom mic pick up quite a bit of bleed. My snare mic picks up bleed from my hats so when I boost the hi's it increases the bleeds highs from the hats.
(by the way for toms I use Sennheiser e604, Audix i5 on snare
These lessons have been great!
Ermin.
awesome Jared thanks.
ridiculous gain staging.
@6midlan Great thanks I will check it out. It's really not that bad but I find adding gates kinda ruins the "natural" sound of the recording. Also dynamincs on the floor tom or snare could vary so adding gates isn't a good option usually. I guess I'd just have to find a good harmony between the mics.
how is it live situation? where exactly is the stage?
Victor, do you EQ the drums from the board, thus feeding ProTools for recording a CD? Or are these videos more like a "live event/recording"? One would think for studio (cd) purposes you would record a flat signal and EQ within your DAW afterwards for more flexibity. I know there are no rules, but what do you do when recoding a cd? Thanks
great video thanks
What type of counsel are you using and what DAW do you guys use?
Would you still use top and bottom mics if the drummer was playing with BRUSHES ??
On my drum set, I've decided to remove the bottom heads, and it has opened up my sound a lot more ( made everything louder). In that situation would I put 2 Mics on the single drum head or would I use only one mic and sacrifice some of the extra sound quality I would get w/ 2 mics?
@phillipmaz Thanks, I've experimented with some success but as mentioned in my other reply it takes away from the natural sound, because when those gates open you are getting more sound from those mics that were gated. And yes I don't want dead sounding drums. I'm sure I could find some sort of balance that I'd be happy with.
Do you try to get unity gain in your mix? I am trying to mix a kit by myself (on an old Yamaha mc1202) and am having some issues with that part.
Cool! What kind of audio interface are you using and how are you connecting it to the mackie? cool vid! THanks
Great video!
Please any lessons on eqing keyboard
These toms do sound good ;)
Awesome Info!
What mixer are you using? Thanks
@joshrexfordmusic I'm almost 100% sure they're using a Mackie 8-bus.
@ShittyMcPoopyBalls I have a 10 12 14 set up toms, and my Snare is between the 10 et 12. It buzz's when I Hit the 10 and a little bit when I hit the 12.
hi friends, what model of mixer is it and the software , tks, saludos from mexico city
Hey. Are you using compressor in each channel for drums??
little bit off topic on this thread...but what mixing board are you guys using?
The Drum Less sons haha. Play on the name. Thanks for the video I’m trying to es them at church
whats the idea behind using the mixing console and logic?
What is a muffler for drums? Sorry if that questions seems a bit stupid. I'm learning the trade, I'm a noob haha
I will send you good vibe's .
thank you so much
the 10" tom was vibrating a lot when the 12 and 14 were played. i would have used some muffling on this one only i believe
Plus Mackies are actually pretty good. Don't be hatin'
What software does your sound engineer use to record and edit your audio???
What mixer are you using? I know it's a mackie but I can't tell the model.
This is really useful, even though I produce electronic music
the third rack tom and the floor tom sounded very weird with my ciem but the rest was okay.. there was two different pitch in each tom.
lovely yamaha drum kit
Not enough sustain on the 8" Tom which I think is a tuning issue. Should loosen the Reso head slightly and I'm sure it would sound much better
I want to know is it necessary to hit hard drum on concert?
hey what mixing console are you using?!
@ChrisBakerDrummer Yeah one person could learn how to turn a knob. That might help them in the future.
whick mixer do u exactly use
the model number
do I loose the drums with the drum key before mic them?