Ben Kweller needs no introduction…but he deserves one, so here goes. Due to the masking and "they'll bleed into every mic on the kit" characteristics of the loud cymbals, those hits are already being washed out and occluded by the cymbals, so reducing their brightness and impact can help those other drums to cut through more audibly, especially if the skins were also recorded to individual tracks. He has engineered, produced and performed on countless recording sessions in a diverse range of styles, with artists such as Alien Ant Farm, Jules Day, Voodoo Glow Skulls, John McGill, Michael Knott and Alexa's Wish. It can help to do the song in sections - intro, verse, chorus, etc. This positioning is designed to increase the sound rejection of the rest of the kit. Ride: And second, you’ll help isolate the hi-hat from the rest of the kit, which can be helpful to either eliminate bleed and/or raise/lower the hi-hats themselves in the overall mix, independently of the overall balance. If you have a ride cymbal or crash that’s really present, take out a little 1k mid-range to open the sound up. Unless you ask them to (nicely, and preferably in advance of the session so they can practice doing it), they're going to do the same thing in the studio that they do live. Remember, these are just guidelines, always defer to the judgment of your ears. In additional installments, we’ll tackle the rest of the kit plus effects, so stay tuned (no pun intended). Best Guitar Picks, Effects Pedals, & Accessories, Audio-Technica Presents: How to Record Drums, The Best Drum Microphones for Your Home Studio, PART TWO: How to Record Drums: Snare and Kick Drums, ENTER TO WIN an Audio-Technica Drum Mic Package, How to Record Drums: Gated Reverb, Compression and Room Mics. Here are a few of our favorites: And lastly, we’ll close out this installment with a few more practical techniques for miking your ride cymbals, again courtesy of our friends at Audio-Technica. Note that it is running in "HF Only" mode, so that only the highs are attenuated when it is triggered, Figure 3: The Spitfish de-esser is an excellent plugin that is available for Mac and PC, and best of all, it's free. Applying a fixed EQ -- often with a basic low-pass or high frequency shelving filter (Figure 1) to the cymbal and overhead tracks to try to attenuate the bright and overbearing cymbals is sometimes the only solution, but it can leave the rest of the drum kit sounding lifeless and dull. Just sayin'! Stereo placement is crucial to a great drum mix. If you put it on the bow of the cymbal, you're going to get a lot of unwanted overtones in the mic (plus you play a K). Try different overhead mic placements. You’d be surprised how many times we see mics placed too close to unopened hi-hats at live gigs, only to be knocked over the second the drummer starts using the pedal to open and close them. Only sonic information above a user-set frequency will be attenuated by the compression. For starters, you’ll be keeping the mic out of the way of the drummer, which is always a good thing. Be careful that it doesn't affect their groove or "feel.". Like most parts of the kit, you’ll want to place the mic close to the source to eliminate bleed; just be careful with the ride because a mic positioned to close to the cymbal can add unwanted low-end boom that will muddy up a mix. The closer your mic is to the bell, the more focused the sound will be. Using the mouse to draw in the automation is fine too, but a control surface will allow you to mix faster and with better "feel", and you can always go back and use the mouse to fine-tune things as needed. These will often have cymbals that are excessively loud or overly bright in comparison to the rest of the track. Oops! Required fields are marked *. © 1995-2019 Harmony Central, Inc. All rights reserved. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Sometimes just letting them hear the problem is enough to encourage them to make an effort to correct it. https://www.wikihow.com/Position-Your-Drums-for-Ultimate-Comfort Your email address will not be published. If you have a large diaphragm condenser around, set it up as a room mic with the capsule aim more towards your ride and you'll get a good sound. If a automation pass doesn't work, you can always go back and try again, or just go back before the part where you messed up and continue writing automation from there. A better sounding room will make a big improvement in the overall sound of your drum tracks, and with laptops and modern multichannel interfaces, there's no reason why you can't take the tracking tools to a better room and record the drums there. [WR]: You mention mic position relevant to amplifiers, but what about monitor wedges? Positioning/Placement. ... 10. This can be further complicated by lower quality microphones, preamps and converters, or less than optimal use of those tools. Placing the overhead mikes directly above the cymbals and aimed down at them often accentuates the brass in the overheads at the expense of the rest of the kit. Aim at the center of the head- 3″ up- roughly at a 45-degree angle. This technique can be particularly helpful for overly loud hi hats, as it can help reduce the amount of bleed from them into the snare mic. If you find yourself in a situation where you have less than ideal drum recordings, your best option is to go back, fix the problem and then re-track the drums, but if that option isn't available to you, you'll need to make the best out of what you have. Try different overhead mic placements. Distortion/Saturation. The idea here is to set it so that only the loud cymbal hits trigger de-essing, but not so low that other things, like snare and kick drums trigger it by themselves. At this point in your setup, you can sit behind your snare with your feet comfortably accessing the pedals. This might seem like a no-brainer, but make sure the mike is positioned high enough above the hi-hats so as not to interfere with the opening and closing. Mic Placement. Phil Spector might not agree, but hey, it’s not the ’60s anymore. Raise the height of the cymbals a few inches above where they normally sit. While we all know that it's best to get the sound right from the source, there are times when, for whatever reason, you're faced with mixing a song with less than stellar sounding drum tracks. Placing the elements of your kit properly in the left, right and (phantom) center channels will make the drums sit well amongst the rest of your mix, and will spread out and “de-congest” the overall balance of the track, as opposed to drums that are centered down the middle with no thought to proper spatial placement and panning. This aids in capturing the “fullness” of the entire drum set, which can be further complemented by individual miking on snares, toms, cymbals, etc. Mic placement is one of the biggest factors of good live sound — nothing you do at the board can fix poor mic placement. There are 2 mic set-ups for each drum but is more elaborate and complicated. When you close the hi-hats using the foot pedal, there’s a lot of air being pushed around, and a big attack like that can spike or possibly damage fragile diaphragms, especially in smaller condenser mics. Stereo Imaging. I used the -10db pad on my pre-amp and a lot of comression to stop from peaking. - that way, you can memorize and concentrate on where the issues are for that section so you can manually compensate for them with corresponding adjustments of the fader while writing volume automation. COVER STORY: Ben Kweller on the Making of His New LP, How to Record Drums: Miking Overhead Drums and Cymbals. Until then, be sure to check out the entire range of Audio-Technica instrument microphones here and follow Audio-Technica on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Positioning. Try a different drummer. Cymbals can sometimes be overly bright and harsh sounding due to the conditions in smaller, acoustically under-treated rooms. Powered by Invision Community. Try placing the mic underneath the ride cymbal, approximately 3 inches above the rim but still pointed at the center of the head.

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