OK All funning aside I will talk shop. I really will follow this session through to completion here on Budget What Budget ... But I can't promise there won't be miss guided humor.
The drummer John B brought a Tama Rock Star kit, which is my least favorite budget kit in the whole world. But that's what this is about: recording with and on a budget.
So let's have a look in detail about recording cheap drums.
THE KIT:SNARE: I rented a Ludwig snare drum for this project because in the end that is the most important pc of the kit in terms of final mix.
KIK (Foot Drum , Bass Drum): Cheap KIK drums usually sound like ass so I don't even bother to try to tune or get a good sound... I simply stick an SM57 in there and wrap the shell in a blanket. The blanket will attempt to keep kik leakage out of the overheads etc. I will trigger a sample kik drum in the mixdown with Drumagog...
TOMS: They aren't TOO bad for this type of music (Think Blondie). So the Toms are skinned with Evans Hydraulics to go for a dead "thud" kind of sound.... We go with that.
Cymbals:... Well we use what he brought which aren't that bad...
MICING:KIK = SM57 (will be triggering so mic doesn't matter.. use the last mic standing)
SNARE: SM57 on top and another under .... (I like SM57's on snare) .... the snare drum needed a tab of "Moon Gell" on it to tame some overtones.
RAK TOM: Sen 421 ... Love the 421 on smaller toms...
FLOOR TOM: Audio Technica 4033
... My new secret weapon on F TOM ... bombastic on a budget! Floor tom had a pillow under it on the floor to tame overtones.
HI HAT: Was mic'd with an SM57. (Probably won't make into the mix but with lighter musical styles you never know. (Use a SDC if you have one)
OVER HEADS: The most important mics IMO. This is where we search for our best gear... In my case that's either Royer Ribbons (121) or RODE NT2000... went with the pair of RODE NT2000's into GT Brick Pre Amps.... Sounds sweet. I like the tube pre's here as they tend to soften the cymabs when going into digiatl.
The rest of the mics went into an RME Octa Mic preamp (8 pre's in a rack)
SETUP:The snare mic was about even with the rim and about 1" above pointed directly at the hit.... The Under Snare mic was down about 4 inches pointed at the center of the drum. (Phase flipped at the pre)
Rak Tom was about the same as the snare but using a 421.
Floor Tom: The 4033 was about 3 inches outside the ring and about 3" above, at about a 45 degree angle to the head pointing at the stick
The Over Heads: L overhead above the snare drum pointing straight down catches HI HAT as well as left crash. R Over Head approximately above the Floor Tom pointing straight down at the FT... catches the R Crash and Ride as well. Both overhead Mics are equi-distant from the snare and just barely high enough to miss getting hit with a stick... In this case the distance from center of snare to capsules was 42" but this varies from kit to kit.... I keep the distance the snare equal so the snare appears centered in the stereo image. As long as they are equal you can place them almost anywhere.
I also stuck a dynamic mic on the ride cymbal (a AKG D125)but doubt it will get used.... (Once again SDC would be preferable) (but we don't have any)
PROCEDUREYou may have noticed there are no "room" mics on the kit... I did this because we were tracking with other musicians in the room wit the drummer and I figured the room mics would have people walking in front of them etc.
We fed the drummer a click track straight out of the DAW into the mixer (Behringer MX9000), and he played with either the keyboardist or the bassist in the room with him playing along "direct" to avoid leakage. The lady singer was with me in the control room with a Blue Baby Bottle mic to sing "scratch" tracks live. Drummer had Over Heads, Click, Vox, and Bass in his headphones. (I like to keep the extra instruments to a minimum so the drummer has clarity of mix and room to feel around musically.)
This was all done to give the drummer a little more "live show" feel rather than having him play to canned tracks... In fact I have recorded this band 100% live before with good result, but wanted to track each member seperately this time for no reason other than to be able to use the best gear on each person rather than spreading it thin.
I mention the "mixer" above... I am using a Behringer MX9000 for headphone and cue routing. This mixer is not in the recording chain but rather is used only to combine the DAW output (click and previously recorded tracks etc.) and to monitor the tracks being recorded. (The pres are split with one leg going directly to the DAW (RME Soundcard) and the other to the "mixer". In this way we can forget about latency issues using a native DAW.) The "mixer" also gives me talkback and control room monitor level control... (A huge "big knob" with headphone mixing built in.)
NOTES:I don't have time to post sound clips as we go, but I promise final mixes will be posted...
The project will be in tracking / overdubs for the next three weeks and I will post similar rants about the Guitars, Keys, Bass, and Vox during that time.... Then I will take a one week break before mix, which will probably take about two weeks with band input and tweaking.... Then I will post some MP3 stuff and explain the mix... ETA 6-8 weeks
I am attempting to show that with mid level gear and a great band you can make a respectable record ITB... (Boy I hope I can live up to THAT statement)
I may even try to get the band to join in our discussion....
Hopefully this will be educational to some, and entertaining to the Terry and Ross's et al.
I will be more than happy to answer all questions / accusations that anybody may have... Feel free to post in this thread.
Thanks again to Fibes and Harvey for hosting this debacle.