Drums Sound So Different When Recorded!
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 13 พ.ย. 2022
- A follow up video to this one is at • Drums Sound So Differe... for those interested.
Microphones hear drums very differently than do human ears, and given that we often used multiple microphones to capture a drum kit their placement and ability to be 'everywhere at once' on the kit make the captured drum sound VERY different than what one hears live in the room with them. I wanted to make a video that might demonstrate how different the live vs. recorded (and then processed and mixed) sounds are.
The mics that I mentioned for use with the Jecklin Disk are the Avenson STO-2: avensonaudio.com/sto2/
For me, the biggest „change of mindset” when I started recording my drums was tuning the toms. These are ones where the sound in the room and in the mic is the most different in my opinion. Especially if we talk about big open rock toms. Realising that „this tail is Ok, I can make it shorter with compressor and the drum will stay natural” or „its not too low, I just cant hear it here but the microphone will catch it” was a game changer for me. Another thing I like to think when preparing drums for the session is „It’s easier to cut something from the sound then add something that doesn’t exist in the first place.” If we want dead disco drums, sure let’s put a cloth or paper or ton of tape on a drum but „over-muffling” the drums is not always necessary. Cheers! Very Nice video! 😊
Well said! I much prefer to tune drums rather open, though sometimes you must muffle to achieve certain tones ( in fact, I'm about to post a video with a kit tuning that has the snare pretty dead and in-your-face while the kick is almost wide open (VERY little muffling) with a very roomy vibe. It was an experiment, and I liked it, so I'm posting a video about it. Thanks for your comment!!
Haha this is so true. So many times I've played on less than great sounding kits and the magic of mics change everything.
Yes, the difference can be a curse or a blessing.
FINALLY! A real true to life answer to my ears , thanks I'm new to playing and have been wondering why my drums never sound like the channel I've heard . So thank you
My personal compliments to DDP. I just stumbled upon this 7 month old video. It is poignant to me because I am a 71 yo, retired guy, who resurrected playing drums after 50 Years [1969]. In my return which was appreciatively aided by my wife of 44 years (in 2018) gifting me a new cheapo Gammon Kit for Xmas in 2018. I was approaching retirement and had expressed to her earlier that year that I had a Yearning tom pl;ay Drums again. I mentioned but did not go to a local music studio to bang on their kit for awhile ...to get it out of me!. I have since upgraded that Gammon kit to a PDP Concept Maple (purchased USED in 2021). Very soon after I started to play again, I began to view many YT videos abouit Drums: Playing, Drum equipment, Drum heads and Drum Tuning. I knew nothing about that stuff back in the day (1967 to 1969, playing with HS Buddies in a Garage Band). I've learned a great deal form watching and trying to apply what i've learned. But this video truly exemplified the affects of Recording and Miking Drums. When I listened to various videos about Tuning, I did not realize the effects of Miking Drums affecting the sounds. The learning Curve for Tuning is a vast one. I struggled (and continue to struggle) with drum tuning - particulalry my Snares. After putting a new HD Dry head on my DW Design series nickel over brass 14 X 6.5 snare a few months ago, I coul not get to what i felt was the "sweet spot" to my ear. I tuned and retuned, tried different batter heads, re-installed the reso head, and snare wires... In my frustration one day (I only play for recreation at Home as a retirement Hobby - about 1 hour a day), I placed the DW snare atop of my Maple Floor Tom 16 X 14 [deep}. When I hit the snare during a fill, sitting on top of the Floor Tom....Bingo that was it. Ludwig Supraphonic like, John Bonham sound. Take it off the Tom, not as good !. I posted this on many drum forums and received various explanations including the post that Joked that I may have Invented a New Snare Stand. The to placement improved the sound of my PDP Maple Snare 14 X 5.5 too. The old Gammon Floor tom 16 X 16 is now used as my snare stand. An added benefit to this "hack" is it eliminates all Snare Buzz form the adjacent rak Toms. I guess, I became somewhat of a sound engineer by accident. I am most appreciative bc this video clearly explains the effects to the miking of drums.
I've never had money for mics or recording gear until recently. Hearing the in room version makes me really excited for the day that I can mic up my kit in the future.
Interesting that the processed sound was bringing it back to close to the in the room sound, but much more controlled.
That's an interesting observation. Haven't thought about it that way. Cheers!
Video idea: a video that shows a live gig minimal drum mic setup? Not a large gig but the usual club gig that may offer a drummer's perspective on how to get the best sound mix when sitting behind the kit. With in ears and wedges or without monitors and the PA turned inwards towards the performers. As you said the drums sound very different from behind the kit than in front. Just a thought for more content.
So true, always use overhead mics ( I prefer mine in front of the drums) …to blend in the headphones while recording. This prevents you getting depressed with your miced drum sound. Later you can skip those overhead mics or not….
I find that I really need the overheads to create what is, to me, a solid drum sound. I used to mix the overheads higher than I tend to do now (most folks I work with tend to want drier drums that jump out of you rather than sit in a sonic space), but to me drums just don't sound quite right without that bit of distant perspective, even though the overheads are just a few feet above the kit. Without overheads the drums themselves tend to sound more like bad samples (of good drums!), and not like real drums at all.
The in the room was a nice attempt, I like how you even note that its recorded and not like it is in the room but close, another point is all the dampening you've got with mics and gaffers tape on the drums, peel it all off an record that sound, it would be even different! Like others have said, this drove me nuts back when I first started, though a piece of crap pearl beginners kit didn't help either a new dw kit and 25 years make a huge difference, though now I wear hearing protection so the sound is even more off lol.
That in the room sound was really well done. Lovely sound.
So many variables, the drums, the drummer, the heads, the tuning, the room, the microphones, the mixer, the engineer/producer, the levels, the pres, the eq, the editing, the post eq, mixdown, monitoring/playback, the mastering and there's more...
Yep, and pretty much no rules to boot!! At least in the drum tuning department.
Most instruments have some key approaches to tunings, including common alternate tunings. But drums??? Not so much. In fact, drums are the only instrument I know of where the player can be really great and yet not really know how to tune them!
I'm posting a follow up video to this one later tonight, BTW, so please check back shortly. I'm hoping it will be more useful to people than this one. Cheers!!
Really cool. A lot of this stuff ive already known studied but hearing it said again another way and then demonstrated was awesome to hear.
A great sound engineer once pointed out to me if we think of the microphone as an ear, we wouldn't place our ear right on the drum. That's not where we've heard the drum when we were writing, rehearsing or performing that song. That comment led to us talking about where to put a good 'head mic' basically right at level with the players ears and capturing as closely as possibly what they're hearing. But on the other side of the coin to that, I think writing, practicing and rehearsing with close mics and headphones in use can be really cool to tailor songs to actually fit studio recording a bit better.
The great Nashville engineer Dave Sinko - who is well-known for recording entire bluegrass ensembles with a single mic - put it this way in an interview in the oughts: if you're putting a microphone where nobody would ever put his ear then you're manufacturing sound.
Very true! Modern recording techniques pretty much produce tones we'd never hear in the real world. But that is much of the art of recording, is it not?
Great stuff. When I was learning as a kid in the early 80's I was privileged enough to have a kit and a room to practice in, but knew nothing of tuning or different types of heads. Man, I spent so many hours trying to recreate the tunings/dampings that I was hearing on records, all on old coated ambassadors in a small reverberant room, so obviously limited success. Even so, I learned a lot. Cheers.
Great demonstration of the importance of preparing the room and the drums to record. I think your three scenarios were well done. Excellent video!
Thank you for the encouragement! I always wonder how well my intentions will be executed... it's just so hard to give people the sound of being in the room with drums when you're not in the room with the drums!
this is the channel I've been looking for, and couldn't quite find. Debunking drum related myths and audiphile-grade bullsh.t that has overflawn the field, scratching off marketing luster to see what's really down there.. these are the things so many people actually need, often times without even knowing they do )) thanks for your effort! subscribed!
Thank you for your comments! I'm not trying to poke anyone in the eye or necessarily take them to task, but I do find a great deal of unintentional misunderstanding of drum sound, tuning, tracking, the kinds of drums that are ideal for certain sounds, etc. I just want to clear up some things for people if possible (check out my latest video to see what I mean).
@@drumdotpizza oh, I'm sure your intensions are constructive and you're just trying to make some people see something obvious to you! it's just sometimes some people need to pass a certain transition point on the way, and that is not nessesarily a pleasant experience per se, but that's ok because in the end it pays off
I binged watched all of your videos, great sound quality, great video quality and awesome content. Great job man, great job.
Much appreciated! Got lots of random topics coming shortly, so hopefully you'll dig those as well!
Nice demo! Thank you!
Just clicked back to this from your follow up video, and man both of these sounds sound killer processed. Would love to see a video where you go through and do your processing/mixing on either/both of these sounds!!!
First thing I noticed was the rosewood Mastercraft and the Terminator with coffin lugs on the rack behind you.
Good eye!!! LOVE both of those drums (and Tama's Mastercraft snares in general).
I must confess, however, the 'terminator' isn't original. It is an exceptional clone made for me (using all original Tama hardware) by Savage Custom Drums. Google them, and you'll see lots of cast bronze drums.
It is the most expensive snare drum I have ever purchased, BTW. Cade's work isn't cheap!
Cade uses the same bronze formulation that Tama did (though they called it 'bell brass'), and he has spent much time with various Tama originals from various points of their production (early Mastercraft, later cam-lever/freedom lug models, etc.) and copied their edges and snare beds. It is, without a doubt, one the absolute finest snare drums I have ever played.
AND... a friend of mine just scored an original bell brass (I believe, haven't seen which one) off of Craigslist, believe it or not ($300 asking price!!!!!!!!). I'm gonna check it out when he gets back (had to drive 3 hours to pick it up), and if it's a Mastercraft I'm going to do a comparison video between his and mine. THAT would be interesting!
Thanks for chiming in!!!
Def added perspective to what we're doing. We added a decent pair of rode room mics a while back,but only really use them as an additional track along with the individual mics. We end up EQing the NUTSACK off of all the original sounds from the mics. This explains why! Sharing to my drummist. He'll see pizza and be sold.
You verbalised the concept really well. Thanks. Great examples too. Fab.
I'm posting a follow up video to this one later tonight using a kit with single ply heads tuned without muffling. A very different, and much more natural sound. Two different types of 'processed' sound as well as raw and 'in the room' too, so people can compare.
Please check back in a little bit to see that one, and I would love to know your thoughts on it if you're willing to share. I hope it will be helpful to people.
Thanks for commenting!!
Very cool video!!! I think you did a great job of representing the sound of the drums in the room as well as what the processed sound would sound like. I have to wonder about people wanting to get that "studio" sound from hydraulic drum heads. I too went through my hydraulic drum head phase back in the early 80s but it didn't last for very long - maybe a year, if that. I think I originally gave them a try because I saw that Steve Gadd was using them at the time. Like you, I like an open drum sound and not so much the dead thuddy sound that so many people (drummers & engineers) tend to like. It never ceases to amaze me what some people consider a "good drum sound." It just goes to show you how subjective drum sound is to different people. I've been playing drums for nearly 50 years now and my taste in drum sounds and drums themselves have changed over the years. I recently found you channel by accident and have watched several videos. You have some great content here and looking forward to future videos. Thanks for sharing!!!
Using only one mic - the Townsend Mic facing the drums above my head attached big boom while molding the 416's with both the Proximity and Prox EQ all the up is working. To beef up the low end my kick has a sub mic connected to a subwoofer in the room. The way Townsend software can virtually position the mic close to drums using Proximity dial but be not physically near the drums is the key. For me, it's a whole new world because I hate closed mic'ed drums.
Just saw this video and starting to see some more videos on your channel. I see a growing drum channel! I support you, it's very good content and unique with your own style.
Thank you so much for your encouragement! Very much appreciated!!
I'm enjoying this channel. Thanks for sharing your knowledge.
Drumming regards Derrick Badenhorst from Port Elizabeth, South Africa 🇿🇦
Incredibly helpful video! Great thoughts! Very 'obvious' in retrospect, but similarly something to really consider that I otherwise may not have. Also, so interesting hearing in the room vs processed and how really the main thing that I 'want' from the processed sound is: in the room + good kick sound!
Thanks so much for your kind words! I am actually posting a part 2 to this video later tonight, so please check back. I think (hope) it will be even more helpful for people!
The best drum sounds I ever got recording were two Earth works overheads, an AKG D112 on the bass drum and an SM57 on the snare. There was nothing else needed.
Simplicity is wonderful when the drums and the space around them sound nice!
First time I heard my kit mic'd up two thoughts...damn, sounds like a pro playing, second was why worry about tuning so much? Especially for recordings, as the producer could basically get any sound they wanted out of the raw tracks. Wish they sounded like that IRL without being mic'd up. Love your channel I stumbled on, thank you for all the great expertise and explanations.
So glad you're here. Thanks for reaching out!
INTERESTING & PHILOSOPHICAL IN A WAY...
I recently had the thought that half of recording/mixing is compensating for Fletcher Munson. Live music is played LOUD, recorded music is usually played about 12-30 dB lower than live. That's probably a lot of the room vs recorded difference as well. Of course the perspective of a mic is much different as well.
For sure- It have learned a ton about interesting tonal differences by recording with my regular mic setup in the studio (typical combo of close and OVH and room mics) at a very low volume VS my typical medium to loud stroke. The drums, room etc, sound really different and good at a lower level. Not talking about super dynamic music here. An example: A rock song with "loud" dynamics all the way through, try recording the whole thing playing quietly and take a listen. Side note- speed metal drummer that don't trigger do this all the time. They have to..😄
Compliments to DDP, this is great video, especially helpful to me. I resurrected playing Drums after over 50 Years [1969]. When i recommenced, after getting a Cheapo Drum Set (in my day we called them Drum Sets not Kits!!), for Xmas form my Wife of all people in 2018, I dove right in after setting them up about 2 months later. They didn't sound too good with stock Gammon heads and cheap cymbals, but it got me back into it !! (Had to shake lots of Rust off). But by watching variuos Drum UT Videos, I learned much about the type of drum heads & the attribute and skill of Drum Tuning !. After purchasing different batter heads for all the drums, learning all about Tuning, and getting better cymbals, I began to enhance the sound of the kit. I gave that kit to my 5 year old Grandson which i hope he plays one day, and purchased Used a PDP Concept Maple 6 drum kit.
I hit the enter key in error.... To continue my comments.. All this while, I was trying to achieve that elusive sound that I hear recorded on songs, and /or YT videos. But not until this video which emphasizes the differences in Recorded Drum sounds from the sound of the UnMic'd drums in the room. The seeking of the elusive sounds (from the Toms mostly) of Dooooo, Dooooo forced me to try different batter heads, and discovery certain products to control overtones, etc. The video demonstrates the affects of the producer for recording drums. I only play as a 71 yo for recreation, playing to MY Music for about 1 hour a day as a Retirement Hobby.
Welcome back!!!! Your wife sounds wonderful -- she gave her husband a drum set!!! She deserves an extra few hugs for that!
Cool video. I swear by my simplified version of the Glyn Johns mic'ing technique. Use a tape measure to make sure the center of the snare and the center of the kick batter are as equidistant from the overhead condenser as you can get them, to avoid phase issues, then stick a dynamic mic under the snare (flip the phase on that one) and another dynamic mic about a foot in front of the kick, pointed slightly downward to avoid phase problems. Compress to taste, EQ if you need it. I put the condenser height pretty high so I can give it a fair amount of gain to drive the tube. If the kick isn't right, I cheat with a sample. Works for me. And you're right about heads. My vistalites sound insane in the room, with pinstripes, but record like shit. Wooden toms with white coated heads translate way better. If it works for you, it's right. Cheers!
Just so you know, Johns didn't measure ;)
@@nathanielnicholson559 All in good fun, just home recording. Here's a tune of mine. Cheers!
th-cam.com/video/F-eGD7_y2ro/w-d-xo.html
@@mattmorris5001 Just thought you might enjoy the trivia, good sir, no malice or gatekeeping intended :) Writing at the moment so I'll check your tune once I've locked mine down, I know you know we know how it is :) :) Cheers to you, my dude.
Mine is ribbon off the snare (a foot or two back and up, pointing down at the snare), an SM-7 placed between the toms just above the kick pointing at the snare, and maybe some overheads (one or two, either is fine with me). I've used it both in my basement and in a studio setting with a nice room. I am a funk drummer so this is very much NOT the set-up most folks would go with for music that isn't that.
Very interesting - so much difference in each method.
Great video! Love it.
This is great!
Made this realization when I got my first drum set and tried to make the snare sound like Joy Division
I appreciate this video so much. You nailed the in the room sound! I play for fun, and don’t record my drums. You know what would be cool? A video on how to get the mic’d drum sound in person, to your ears. That’s my permanent goal as a drummer. I want that processed sound in the room as much as I can when I play. Maybe for that the answer IS hydraulics? Tuning? Gels? Something else?
Try custom ear plugs with 20 decibel sound attenuation. Not only will you save your hearing, you will be surprised how many harsh overtones are completely gone. All you hear is the true tone and attack of your kit. This combined with good tunings will elevate your drum playing enjoyment!
I love my Evans Hydraulics 'in the room'. But when I went to record them, wow, what a difference. Suddenly I didn't like them as much. I keep them on though since I play for myself and not usually for others/recording.
Hydraulics are a great way to create, in the room, the sound we most often expect to get from recorded drums. Recorded, however, it is, as you point out, a very different experience!
Dope video👏
I like a "crotch mic", like an SM58 aimed at the drummer's crotch, placed above the kick drum and below the rack toms, mic basket just sticking out on the player side. Captures a good mix of the whole kit and very similar to what the drummer hears, but with less cymbals. Works great with Glyn Johns overhead but with any mic setup really, especially if you compress the crap out of it and mix it in with the other mics. Or just automate it in during fills so it sounds to a listener like they're actually playing it.
I can honestly say I have never miked my crotch before... but there's always a first time!!!! 🙃
@@drumdotpizza Just don't send the recordings to unsuspecting women. ;-)
live/in the room is always best. I've always thought so and this only confirms it further. it's hard to capture sometimes, so nice work
Yeah, if live in the room is the sound you want less is definitely more.
that's why we use things called room mic's and mix them in with the close mic'd drums
@@uj5436 yeah. I'm aware.
Your drums sound great either way!
Nice drum sound!
I've definitely noticed this too. My drums sound good in the room but amazing when recorded and processed. Funny I use hydraulics too but I need a darker heavier sound. I actually like the uv snare head better than the hydraulic.
Very practical discussion. This is, of course, studio. FOH is similar, but in a different way, and it really depends on your genre, venue, scope, need to match recorded sounds that the audience might be familiar with, etc. The issue is the same with regard to the unnatural location of the microphones. The microphones themselves contribute as they have a kind of natural compression with regard to the SPL ranges. Combine that with the effects of the acoustical characteristics of the venue, the natural expansion of sound reinforcement at the speakers, and working out processing in order to give the right sound in the venue is a bit of artistry. How natural do you need it to be? How processed do you need it to be? How to mix that with the natural sound of the drums in the venue coming from the stage?
very well done
I remember the first time I heard mic’ed drums on a PA System and thought to myself, “drums were made to be mic’ed!!”
nice video, sounds great, always good to mix that room mic back in for some extra grit : )
I'm normally a real room guy when it comes to drum sounds (I tend to consider drums a single instrument rather than a collection of individual pieces), so this was something of a departure for me. But it was the sound Jon and I had gone for during the session I referenced, so I just stuck with it for the sake of this video. Yes, room mics!!! (actually the Jecklin disc sounded great mixed in with the close mics, but I didn't use it for processed sound in this video).
It def sounded great, well made video, subbed
yep. ❤
In fact, I was frustrated as a teenager because my drums did not sound like the drums on the records I liked. Until I saw a PA soundcheck on a stage and realized that the natural sound of these drums was as „boring“ as my drum sound.
Guitarist/engineer here. Interesting video!
The drums have a uniquely complicated vibrational (harmonic) overtone series after you first strike (fundamental) the head.
Micing up the kit is truly an art which goes hand in hand with the drummers’ ability to use dynamics to make each drum “speak” as intended.
As a guitarist, I find that the sound of a cabinet or acoustic can be worlds apart in the room and on tape.
When driven, a speaker has unique non-linear characteristics that are very difficult to capture with one or two mic’s that are “seeing” only a few square inches of the speaker/cabinet.
That’s not to say you can’t get a great miced cab sound, however, it’s not as easy as throwing a mic on it and hitting “record”.
So true! I have been a recording engineer for more than 30 years now, and capturing an accurate tone from a guitar cabinet can be a real chore! Oftentimes players are cool so long as it sounds good, but it rarely (IMO) sounds like you're standing in front of their cabinet. Some players have been real sticklers about capturing the essence of being in front of the cabinet, and I have never found a single mic (or two, really) that captures that. Some trial and error in mic choice and placement is always in order (haven't found a combination that consistently delivers, unfortunately).
Recording really is an art!
Speaking of which, please check out the follow up video to this one where I use lots of mics in an effort to create a natural soundscape (the vibe of being in the room with the drums, but optimized, so everything has its place). th-cam.com/video/s3DpxY6vSCk/w-d-xo.html
Thanks for reaching out!
The most important mics on a drum kit are the room mics. When I mix my own drums, approx 70% of the sound is from the room and 30% from the close mics. Requires a good room and some good sounding drums, since I hate samples with a passion.
The sound we were going for in this setup was clearly not a roomy sound, but more smack in your face! I am a room mic lover and generally have at least one pair up if not more. Jon (my friend who made the comment about how drums don't sound the same in the room as recorded) really prefers deader drum sounds exaggerated with processing (like this video shows), so he is always a bit of an education for me to work with, and always a bit of fun!
I am making a video right now that is the more 'normal' version of this, just to show a more open, natural presentation of the kit to demonstrate the difference between recorded and live. Should have it uploaded in the next couple of days. Hit the bell button, so you'll be notified when it is uploaded!
And thanks for being here!
Nice topic! Excellent video!!
Much appreciated! I'm actually posting a follow up to this video later tonight, so please check back on that one. I hope it will be even more enlightening to folks.
Thanks so much for commenting!!
Oh yes very useful stuff. Subbed.
Good stuff!
Nice back beat!
We can hear the ringing of the metal snares on the rack in the back in the floor Tom mic when mixed… Kinda fucks it I feel, putting a cloth over it or getting that beautiful collection somewhere further idk I’d do it… same reason I never leave useless cymbals for tracking, just brings a very subtle weird ring to the sound
Great room sound 👍
Thanks so much! I am posting a follow up/part two video to this one later tonight and incorporating the room sound into the processed sounds (which I didn't do in this video). Thought a follow up would be good to address comments and questions I've been getting on this one. Please check it out and let me know your thoughts! Thanks so much!
I’m a beginner drummer and this video answered the biggest question I have, why do my drums sound like shit irl? I have some Shure drum mics and my kit always sounds good mic’d but I never liked the actual sound of it.
Good call on the head choice. Drum sound is literally almost always the room you are in that gets you a certain sound. Then head choice and player of course is a lot of it. I think the actual drum is least important at this point. But I almost always use clear or coated g1 or ambassador heads because they can be open and resonant or you can always add muffling. You will never get a premuffled head like a hydraulic it's already muffled and getting it open up just won't happen. A single ply head can go both ways which gives you more options. Can't tell you how many times I've played a studio kit and thought wow these sound terrible and then on playback they sounded great. A mic always sounds different on a source up close. All experience my friend. Awesome insight though.
Yep! A great general rule to keep in mind is that the playback of a drum close mic'd (particularly with a dynamic/moving coil microphone) is going to be mellower than one would expect upon auditioning the drum in the room.
I myself love Aquarian's Texture Coated heads (10mil, coated, like the Ambassadors or G1). The film Aquarian uses is a bit stiffer, it seems, than the other two, and keeps the life and harmonics of the single ply head yet seems to have a bit more authority somehow. The physics is just an educated guess on my part, but they are stiffer, and they have always felt more authoritative to me.
Great video do you think you could give us a rundown of your studio set up mic, preamp, microphones, etc.
I will do that on my recording channel (RecordingDotPizza) shortly. Thanks for the suggestion!
What I have often done is record drums with a single room mic 10 ft in front of the kit, pointed at the snare. Then play the crashes softly.
Ahh! Mixing 'manually.' Old school. I sooo want to do that (and feel good about it), but my control freak nature tends to have me putting an extra mic or two up (or three or four) 'just in case.' I pretty much always wind up using the extras too. I should just bite the bullet and refuse to do that, but as much as I like drums naturally, even (especially) in a great space, I struggle to go too bare.
Props to folks who are truly comfortable with it!
As a drummer this is always the most frustrating thing because when the drums are all perfectly tuned and your space is perfect and you sit down and play, it is like yeeessss I'm going to get that "when the levee breaks" sound then you go and listen back and you realize that it's absolute crap because there is no way to actually capture the room sound the way you hear it from behind the kit because your ears are already taking up that psychical space and no microphone on earth can recreate what you are actually hearing
Your comment reminded me of the ol' hanging a PZM around the drummer's neck appraoch.
So despite what one is being marketed, you probably don't need to buy a top end drum kit to get a great sound. That Ludwig floor tom, which I love and have a kit of the same era, would not be anything close to the build quality and precision of today's drums. Evdn mid gradd kits. But they are still GREAT. Record great.
Really cool video!
There's actually a LOT one can do to improve the performance of a mid-level, modern drum kit. I've seen some videos that talk about improving the performance of cheaper kits, but there are a few things I still haven't seen people promoting which I plan to do.
It's on the list of videos to come!!! Thanks for being here!
Challenge:
So we all know the studio sound of drums. Equalization, compression, gating, reverberisation etc. If we could find drums (or other accoustic percussiion, toys, buckets etc.) that could end up sounding like studio drums, without any tweeking, or sound engineering, then what would it consist of?
The idea is: Apart from elecronic drums, how do we create a studio drum sound, acoustically, so that it is possible to record it natively, without any processing?
A worthy challenge indeed! One that I would personally approach with much fear and trembling... I'm not sure there is a way to produce a 'studio' or 'recorded' drum sound in a purely acoustic environment.
Even fairly typical drum sounds (certainly in pop music) is extremely processed with curves that muffling and head selection/tuning simply cannot recreate. The closest thing I can think of would be to muffle the drums to control overtones (which rarely offend me in the studio, but often seem overwhelming to someone sitting in the room with the drums -- which is why people so often make the mistake of too much muffling... they don't realize how much of that unpleasantness is minimized simply from the microphones and signal path) and then play the drum at medium dynamic at most taking care to adjust by playing style the balance of cymbals to drums (and use lighter cymbals in the process). Maybe a larger bass drum with slightly more tension (producing a stronger 'note') which would better mimic the perception of a microphone placed on a normally tuned, smaller kick drum (otherwise often sounds quite flat in the room).
Not sure what you're asking is possible, but certainly things can be adjusted to better mimic that in situations where no sound reinforcement is possible or wanted.
Thanks so much for chiming in!!
It’s all about the room you hear that, a Cole’s ribbon mic and vari mu get it there
My Coles were stolen a few years ago :( Never bought more, but do have a pair of Extinct Audio ribbons and a pair of Samar Audio's as well. If I want Coles I'll borrow a pair from a buddy of mine.
Great mics!
Try putting the Jecklyn disk right behind the drummers head. It gets a pretty accurate drum tone to me.
I do this instead of OH mics.
Thanks Grumpy :)
;)
One of my favorite ways to record the drum set is with 3 mics one left one right and one on the kick. The two side mics I like to point at the drum set from beside the drummer. The kick mic stays on the port hole. Doing this produces a really nice sound in my opinion. But I also don't like to record drums with every thing mic'd. I feel like it's unnecessary and it just causes alot of extra bleeding that in turn creates more work for me during the mixing process. But different strokes for different folks. If it sounds good it sounds good. And an experimental mind set when going into record is always where my head is at.
I will be posting a follow up video to this one later tonight that, based on your comment, might be interesting to you. I use lots of mics on a kit tuned up without any muffling (well, the kick has a 14"x14" slab of foam in it) to produce both natural and more typical (unnatural) drum tones. Please check it out and let me know your thoughts if you're willing! I'm hoping people with find it a useful follow up to the otherwise very DEAD sound I used for this video.
Thanks for commenting!!
@@drumdotpizza definitely thanks for replying! When will the video be out? I'm in Ohio it's almost 10 here but I'll definitely check out your video. Sounds interesting
Sounds like hitting a stack of newspapers 😆
Yes! This is a very dead, manufactured drum sound. Not my typical approach, but typical for the producer I was working with. Since he is the fellow whose comment was the inspiration for this video, and since that kit was already set up I went with it for this video. I then thought better of it!
So... later tonight I am posting a follow up video using room mics (in the 'processed' sound, not just for a room perspective -- there was no room mic(s) in the processed of this video, as I'm sure you noticed). Also the drums are tuned without muffling, so lots of life. Did a couple of different approaches for the processed sound just give people an idea of how 'natural' drum sounds are often achieved with multiple mics (not just a few) as well as a more common approach to mixing drums in rock/pop/country music.
Please check it out and let me know your thoughts if you're willing! And thanks so much for commenting!!
I was about to say studio heads and live heads are different animals.
Big eye opener for me when I started mixing and recording my drums. In my case. My drums sound better recorded then in the room lmao
Nice
Drums drums drums very useful ❤🥁❤️🏁👍
You definitely need ambient mics to catch the sound of the room. You can't get the ambience putting a mic one inch from the drum. I'll go to the grave saying that. Ambient room mics. Move them around a little to find the sweet spot and BOOOM. My best drum recording I made at home with two mics. One between bass snare and hi hat and one room mic. So much better than any studio I ever recorded at lol PS Manual volume control lol if the cymbals are too loud hit them softer or the toms not loud enough play them harder lol
I can't recommend enough experimenting with moderate-distance micing on your drums. Even just moving your tom mics higher up like 6-8 inches instead of close mic'd makes a big difference. If you can manage a sound this natural I'm a fan of a 3 mic approach with overheads where I do one in the middle pointed mostly at the snare and the others off to the side getting as much of each tom as possible. you end up with a very natural sound, down side is that you generally have to hit the toms real hard.
Yes! Putting directional mics too close to your drums just results in artificial low end that you wind up having to EQ out (I do anyway). I think people are trying to get isolation by putting mics so close, but isolation isn't as critical, IMO, as having useful, musical signals to mix/blend together. The leakage from well placed mics on a well tuned and played kit really isn't that annoying or problematic, unless there is some really specific effect you're trying to create. Overheads generally hear the whole kit anyway, but the close mics are just filling in what is missing, more often than not, rather than trying to present each drum in an isolated way (again, unless that is the effect you're trying to create).
Well said!
Unmic’d and processed kits, even good ones sound pretty naff in real life 😂
100% agree. I think a lot of people first fall in love with the sound of recorded drums. This could be from listening to their favorite albums. Then this sparks interest in learning to play the drums. When they finally sit down behind the kit and play, they think the drums sound like dookie. Little do they know with some mic-ing, compression, and EQ they are only a few steps away from capturing their, ideal sound.
@@joshsinclair7548 in other words, engineers do gymnastics to make acoustic drums not sound like acoustic drums. Artifice.
@@HabAnagarek don't kid yourself. Even the most "acoustic" sounding drums in your favourite tracks and almost always still processed a good amount. They're just processed to sound "natural" instead of "artificial".
@@uj5436 Of course. But my point about making them into something they're not, and that listeners and musicians alike expect this artifice, stands.
Pretty much!
Royer Labs suggestion for a minimalist drum recording... stick a mono ribbon 5 feet in front of the kit, add 1176 compression. Their tag line is 'you are there recordings', I haven't tried this setup but it'll be interesting to see how raw it would sound compared to the gizillion mics per drum processed recordings.
Worth trying! I have done so (not on their specific instruction... I had not seen this bit of advice from them), and while it can be charming, certainly, I'm admittedly too much of a control freak to really be satisfied with the result. My control freakiness isn't the determiner of the value of a given technique, of course, so your mileage may vary.
I was reading an interview with the sound engineer from Simon and Garfunkel recordings. He reckoned the best sound for their vocals was one mic. He speculated the reason for this was that the vocals were mixed using actual air pressure rather than voltages in a mixer. Im interested to see if the same theory applies to the drums by treating it as one instrument rather than a collection of individual pieces. You're going to lose some control though! But is the result worth it? PS Royer have a page on their website dedicated to drum recording with their mics.
@@colinavery3262 Your mention of minimalist miking makes me think it may be worth doing a video on that subject INCLUDING the preparation appropriate for the drums when doing so. It would actually go rather handily into my drum sound physics discussion rather nicely. Hmmmm....
I wonder how much of the in-person sound we process is from our conductive hearing. In other words, the vibration through our skull vs ear drum.
Ooh!! I like the way you're thinking! I have never thought about it like this before. There is definitely a visceral response to being in the room with drums, both as player and listener. I long ago noticed how loud drums were when I was listening to someone else play them than they seemed when I played them. I have written this off as part and parcel to the expectation of knowing what I'm playing (so I'm never surprised by simply hearing what is played). Not so when listening to others. Yet there is definitely conductive hearing at play (as evidenced by putting on a pair of gun muffs). That is the part that I absolutely have no idea how to represent in a video.
A great observation, and food for thought! The visceral spike of transients are mellowed by the perception of microphones. That is something well worth keeping in mind when crafting drum tones for recording!
Thanks so much for your comment!!
I get the best drum sound with two sm57 8 feet apart in front of the drums outside in open air with no wind.
No room is better than a sub-par room.
I actually agree with that statement!! Real spaces are real. 'Perfect' simulations in reverb processors are only really useful (to me) for vocals, and then only when something ideal is wanted. I dig crummy reverbs on drums, because they are felt before they're heard, so they don't use up your headroom, and they're never in the way, but they give a great sense of space.
Thanks so much for commenting!!
Can't beat a good mic'ed kit sound. I use hydraulics because I like the colors 😂 but I do miss the punch of remo pinstripes.
The light bulb finally turned on when I would listen to the recordings I did from my zoom which was about a foot over my left side at rehearsal studios. Man why doesn't my snare sound THAT good in MY studio? BAM!!!! Once I realized the "ears" were not an inch off the heads I started using room mics on tracks that I was just recording drums. PROBLEM....I have other bands come in to record and they are in the same room, thus no drum room mics. Just had a light bulb moment..RE AMP the drums? Thoughts?
Sure! There are no rules. I have 'reamped' drums before with great results. I put together a nice blend of the tracks, relatively unprocessed, and turned it up through my monitors in the control room I had at the time with a couple pairs of mics in different areas. The room was pretty large, though not terribly reactive, so the effect was controlled, more of a distance sound than particularly ambient, but a little dynamics and EQ processing did wonders! I probably added a bit of reverb to the 'room' sound too to make it feel a bit bigger.
Honestly enjoyed the raw sound the best ahah dryer and funkier.
This is a great video and something I wish a layman listener would understand. Most people either experience drums in recordings or at major professional events. So the sound is as processed live as it is in studio. Also your listening position and perception is based entirely on the amplification system and NOT the live drums.
I play in a small band and most of our gigs are in small British pubs and clubs. I was acutely aware of how disappointing the drummer often sounds compared to the rest of the band, because you are experiencing a drummer "in the room" making their sound entirely acoustically. Everyone else is amplified. Our singer was particularly critical of the lack of definition coming from the kick and snare. That lovely thud and crack you're used to in recordings and big events.
I responded by going hybrid. We use a Roland td-30 and zildjian cymbals and mix the entire band through our PA with our Behringer X32 even at the smallest of events. It's a lot of work, we've dumped the backline entirely and with the exception of our guitarist who old school and uses a wedge the rest of us use in-ears. Using in ears adds the benefit of being able to play to a click throughout the gig which also improves the bands tightness.
The overall results have been that many regard us as having the best live sound of any band in the area.
So true! People have become spoiled as listeners, it seems, and we want to hear finished sounds even in live events (even SMALL live events). Electronic drums can definitely help with that, sonically (and as a sound engineer I appreciate mixing a quality electronic drum kit in a smaller venue). But as a drummer, I really hate hitting mesh heads! :(. A useful evil it would seem, however. :). Cheers!
That snare is perfect!!! How did you achieve this sound?!
Thank you! I have a love/hate relationship with 'dead' snare drum sounds (I really LOVE 'riiiinng' of unmuffled drums!).
I taped a few strips of mylar (cut from old drum heads) to the batter with equally long strips of tape. Does a good job of killing the sustain of a low-tuned head (snare drums can get really sloppy and out-of-control sounding with low tunings) without absolutely killing all but the lowest frequencies (like a wallet would).
Also, the drum itself has a very dense and rigid rosewood shell (100% rosewood, not just an exterior veneer), so that produces a strong fundamental tone as well. Sounds really dead, and not all that attractive on the unprocessed sound, but is nice when spanked with compression and EQ'd a bit to bring out the attack and body.
BTW, I am posting a follow up video to this one later tonight, this time with a drum kit tuned without muffling (other than light muffling in the kick). Still doing the 'in the room' sound along with unprocessed tracks and then the tracks processed with the intent of a 'natural' presentation (like an ideal 'in the room' perspective) and then a more typical processed arrangement for rock/pop/country music. I'm hoping it will be as helpful, if not more so, than this one.
I would love to know your thoughts if you are willing to share. Thanks so much for being here!!
@@drumdotpizza looking forward to seeing more videos. I pretty much live on youtube but don't do videos anymore. Maybe someday. But drums are My favorite!! I'll have to try this trick. Clearly you know what you're doing. Keep up thevideo, I'll ring the bell!
Okay...honest question from an "ear-purist." What, then gives the best approximation of the "what the drummer experienced" sound in recording? Glynn Johns? Glyn Johns with a Fletcher-Munson-curve eq adapation? Direct over-the-shoulder? If the goal is not "capture the room", but "capture what the drummer experienced" (down to "feeling the bass drum") with the most minimal path to product, where would you start?
I wish I had a worthy answer for such a reasonable question. Unfortunately, even after decades of recording drums I have yet to find a method of recording that recreates the sensation of sitting at/playing the drums (or just what they sound like from the perspective of the drummer or someone in the room with the drums -- there is a visceral component that great audio reproduction still just doesn't reproduce, even with a powerful, full range speaker system.
The best I've been able to do for myself is to use multiple microphones and processing to create what is, to me, the ideal experience of being in the room with the drums. The part two of this video you're commenting on had me doing that, among other more typical approaches to mixing drums. Have you see that one?: th-cam.com/video/s3DpxY6vSCk/w-d-xo.html
That’s also true for guitars.
I believe every beginner believes that guitars are supposed to sound full, with bass and all.
But nope haha
If my drums sound very similar recorded and in person, what does this mean?
I like in the room best.
I'm a fan too (though if I was actually going to use it I'd probably optimize the microphone placement and definitely do a little post processing! :)
I will always use a small condenser microphone on the snare, you get better articulation and snap! A 57 always disappointed me.
Yeah, I have a love/hate relationship with the 57. It does have a chunkiness that translates to authority in a dense mix, which can be really helpful, but it really does lack the finesse for capturing more subtle textures produces by softer playing. I have begun experimenting with a combo of 57 (or 545, usually) along with a condenser mic on top to blend as needed for the character I want. It's been interesting so far. I may share my experience once I feel I've dialed in the technique a bit more.
removing the high pitch overtone from the snare is a huge lie that studio drums have, lol.
Drum Shop of Portsmouth mikes the drum sets they are trying out. They do up close, overhead and audience. My main take away is that all drums do same…….
I remember Steve Albini saying the mic pickup should be oriented parallel to the drum head to avoid sound waves moving obliquely across the diaphragm. I noticed the SM57 on your snare is practically perpendicular to the plane of your snare head. Have you experimented with this angle?
I'd not heard that from him, though it definitely sounds like something he'd say! I can't say that I can tell a difference, sonically, from the angle of the mic to the drum beyond just pointing at the part I want to hear (the center, closer to the edge for more harmonic content, etc.). I use the Granelli elbow with my 57 (and 545) for snare drums to allow for tight placement with the 180-degree null point (where the mic is least sensitive) directly facing the hi-hats. This provides great rejection of hi-hat bleed that can't be achieve when a normal 57 (with an XLR sticking out the backside) forces one to place it between the rack tom and hi-hat which is very common. That placement allows for plenty of off-axis hi-hat bleed that requires more heavy handed isolation techniques (noise gates/expanders) to try to control. With the Granelli placement directly under and away from the hi-hat I rarely have to do much to isolate the drum, which allows the full character of the drum to come through (though it's pretty dead in this example). I like the ring and overtones of an openly tuned snare (this example notwithstanding), so anything I can do to reduce the need for expansion is appreciated. This desire for isolation along with wanting to point it at the part of the drum I'm wanting to capture informs my current mic placement for the top of a snare.
There's a TapeOp Conference from 2005 where S. Albini talks about drum mic'ing. I mention him because he captures the sound of listening to a kit in a room (Pixies, Don Cab, In Utero). Your technique to avoid hi hat bleed makes perfect sense. Also, the Glyn Johns pair of overheads spaced apart is tried and true. Beatles, Stones, Zep, Who, Eagles. I would like to experiment with re-amping drums. Mic them and run them through various speakers and then record that with a rented Neumann KU 100.
Great comment!!
I love Albini's drum sounds! His drum sounds feel natural and realistic, but I think it'd be more accurate to say he 'creates' that sense of being in the room with the drums rather than 'capturing' it. Maybe that is splitting hairs (probably is, I apologize), but for the sake of clarity it's worth pointing out that he is creating his ideal of what it should sound like being in a room with drums rather than capturing what it actually does sound like. I think the difference is vantage point. His technique allows you to hear every drum with its full, ideal tone and articulation, as if each drum were being auditioned with the listener in the ideal spot to experience the tone of that drum in that space. For EACH drum. That's not possible when the listener is in one spot of a room with a set of drums of varying distances pointing in various directions.
Albini is a master of creating an idealized, natural sounscape, but his approach requires LOTS of microphones and balancing to craft that image. It requires such effort, because drums just don't sound the same recorded as they do in the room ;)
But now you've got me thinking. Hmmm......
@@drumdotpizza Don't tell me you're thinking about a dummy head.
No, I don't have the pockets for a dummy head (though AKG made one back in the 1970s that used dynamic elements, IIRC, and those might not cost as much when one surfaces). No.. I'm wondering what it would take to mimic Albini's drum sound. He has a great space there in Chicago (my room is much smaller), but it's got me thinking. Might have to try it soon!
Interesting that you put so much dampening on the floor tom, then added an artificial tail to the note afterwards. Wouldn't less tape in the first place, give the same effect?
If I understand the question correctly (no guarantee that I do!) then answer is, no.
The drum sound in this video is the sound Jon and I created for the tracks I was doing for him when his comment prompted me to make this video. The muffling of the floor tom had primarily to do with absorbing higher frequencies and shortening the decay. Then I exaggerated the attack frequencies after tracking as well as adding (what I believe you are referring to) a bit of compression to create an artificial, stylized decay. Less muffling would have altered the frequency making it sound more natural (not what we wanted for this sound) and likely resulting in longer decay that would have presented quite differently, likely even requiring some gating/expansion to shorten to the desired length.
It does seem counterproductive to take something away with the setup of the instrument only to seemingly add back what was lost, but there is no way to actually restore what was being removed with the muffling. The addition of higher frequencies (EQ) and sustain (via compression) are altogether unnatural sounding processes that creates a very different sonic result. It doesn't actually restore anything. It's just the last link of the chain to create the result we wanted. Keeping it more natural to begin with would have resulted in a very different sonic conclusion. I hope that makes sense.
Coupled with other comments I have received I do wonder if this was the right sound to use for this video? Perhaps I should do a part two with a more natural presentation in mind?? The sounds are still quite different, but several folks have mentioned adding room mics (which we didn't want for this sound, but is part of my normal M.O.) that I wonder if a part two would be helpful?
What do you think? Should I do one of these with a more natural presentation in mind?
Hmmm....
Thanks so much for asking the question!
@@drumdotpizza Thanks for the very thorough answer. I'm very curious about drum sounds and how to achieve them as a player who has recently started recording my drums. It's an absolute minefield so I appreciate any insights that like minded people can offer 👍
👍
Mine sound almost the same 🤣🤣🤣
Okay so the processed drums are like an attempt to recreate the room sound but make each drum feel closer and fatter
I actually used no room mics at all in the 'processed' portion of these recordings (only used as an attempted reference for standing next to the drums in the room). Wasn't trying to recreate room sound, but the extreme compression used on the drums no doubt does increase the presence of any room sound that bled into the mics.
Yeah, something about the energy and brightness that the room and processed sounds both have is missing from the sound of the close mics when they're unprocessed. They don't sound the same by any means but there's an interesting similarity
Is the processed version just the close micing? Or is it combined with the room sound?
Just close miking for this sound. This is the drum sound that Jon and I came up with for the tracks I did for him the day before, so I just rolled with it to show what we had done.
I am definitely a room mic kind of guy, normally, but Jon really digs the dry, in-your-face, dead drum sound, so that is what we were going for here. The Jecklin disc I just put up to capture, as best I could, the actual sound of the drums in the room, so listeners could hear the difference between what drums sound like standing in the room compared to what the mics on the kit (no room mics) sounded like.
I'm actually about to upload a part II of this video concept using more natural sounding tuning and including room mics, so hit the bell button to be notified of that if you're interested in seeing it.
thanks so much for being here!
Yeah I get bothered when I watch a drum tuning video and even the sound from their video is nowhere near what it actually sounds like and it can be frustrating