How's this sounding?

A while back I posted a drum recording I did before when I only had two Shure KSM32's at my disposal.

http://acapella.harmony-central.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1265278

I finally was able to purchase the Shure Beta 52, 3 SM57 drum mic pack so I've been messing with a lot lately. Coupled with my increased knowledge on my Roland VS2480, I think I'm making loads of progress, but wanted to see what y'all thought.

This recording has the Beta52 in the kick, an SM57 between my 10 and 12 toms, another 57 between the 14 and 16 floor tom, a 57 on the snare and the two KSM's as OH's. I just recorded the drums trying to keep a bit of a structure while covering the whole kit. Then I tracked a quick, simple generic chord progression and bass line on top to see how things would settle in a mix. Just put a SM57 on the guitars and went direct with the bass. Sorry to say that the "song" sounds a bit like "The Darkness meets Green Jelly" but I was just going for sound here, nothing more.

Anyway, any comments, suggestions or criticisms are welcome as we'll be moving full speed ahead with a demo recording, once we feel we're getting satisfactory results with the sounds. This is crudely mastered to the best of my ability, and it could stand to be a touch louder when I compare it to pro-CD's, but it's getting better me thinks. Thanks for listening!

DrumMicTest

edit: oh yeah, I had to convert to an MP3 to get it under the 5MB limit on my hosting site. So it lost a "little" pizzazz in the process, but it's the highest "resolution" (??) mp3 I could go with. Thx!

snare drum sounds prooty nice.

cymbals seem mixed a bit low, but you get the shimmer.

low points:

ride cymbal's bell sounds kinda weak

bass drum is tight and punchyish, but sounds generic. I was wanting more BOOM.

overall, you've made a lot of progress since the first clip you posted. Keep it up, and keep getting to know your gear...

I thought that the guitar was a little too loud in the mix.

I like the snare.

The toms seem like they are kind of uneven in volume, like when you do that fill at some point one of them is really low. But they have an okay sound to them...

Also, the guitar is a lot louder than the kit, so it makes it hard to hear the fills, too (can't say that I'm real fond of that guitar tone ).

If it were me, I'd want more mass in the attack of the bass drum, oir at least something to give it a bit more definition.

But all in all, it is comeing together-- it is ceratinly good enough sounding that the focus is on the playing and not the quality of the recording.

Thanks for listening dudes. Appreciate it.

Yeah, hoff, the kick started out with a lot of the high-end tick and little body, so I've been slowly backing off of that and trying to get more punch. I'll probably have to retrack to accomplish that though.

And yeah, I'm quite happy with the sound of the ride, but it's not right up in your face. The trade-off is, as I raise the level of the OH's, the snare rattle comes through more, but I'll see what I can tweak there.

DNR - I did bring down the guitar levels a touch - they used to be RIPPIN - but listening back, you're probably right that they're still a bit too present.

Thanks again! Got some things to work on now!

Phew! Thanks. That's definitely a good thing at this point. Tom levels are a bit of a bitch when I'm using one mic on two drums. I'll have to see if I can smush stuff a bit more to even things out.

kick sounds like {censored}. High hat sounds killer.

This helps. Succint and to the point. Thanks!

Kick is perfect, IMO.

Snare is nice and poppy.

Guitar is WAY to loud IMO.

Toms are weak and drowned out by guitar.

Bell is good.

Overall good mix.

Originally posted by ulank Phew! Thanks. That's definitely a good thing at this point. Tom levels are a bit of a bitch when I'm using one mic on two drums. I'll have to see if I can smush stuff a bit more to even things out.

Ideally you'd be getting most everything from overheads. I don't know if you could make that work, but my feeling is that mics are a little like spotlights in taking a picture... One or two, and you get a good, high contrast picture. A couple more and you can fill in the details that have to sound a little hyped (snare and kick). Too many, and you get all kinds of weird, conflicting shadows from lots of directions.

Good drum sounds on my speakers. Nice feel in the opening half too. Tight but not at all antsy.

In the minuses,

Thought the guitar sound was a little sterile and on the harsh side but well played.

The ride bell - sounded rinky dink

I'd say mission accomplished.

I caught the Darkness comparison right away, thought that was kinda funny.

These are my impressions after listening a few times through my monitors:

I liked the kick at the beginning by itself, but it seemed to get lost in the mix at times after the guitar kicks in.

Guitar was a bit harsh and too loud as has been said.

The ride bell sounded really fake for some reason.

Crash sounded good.

China (I think there was one) was really quiet.

Snare was awesome.

The toms seem to be panned a bit too wide. They go outside of the hi hats.

I'd like to hear the hats a little less centered if possible.

Bass fit nicely.

You are on the right path that's for sure. Now just teach me to get that snare sound!

Snare has a really nice tone, but for my personal taste I'd give it a little more meat in the mix (relative to teh rest of teh kit) by compressing it a little and bringing up the level.

Also, I'm hearing a strange mid-range clicky sound in the kick drum that doesn't sound natural and pleasing to the ear. I'd scoop that frequency a bit by sweeping the eq until you find it. If I had to take a wild guess, you'll probably find it in the neighborhood of 2k to 3k.

For a good clicky attack, boost at around 6khz.

If you want a bit more of a punchy sound in the kick, then boost your eq at around 80 to 100hz, and scoop a little bit out at around 500hz.

Results may vary depending on how the raw un-processed sound is... but those are typically good starting points to work with. Try sweeping the eq until you find the sweet spot.

Wow, sounded good! As some others said, the guitars kinda drowned out stuff which made it tricky to hear. Personally, I think everything individually sounds pretty good, but almost a little sterile. You might consider a touch of reverb (just barely). Also, I'd recommend playing around with compression a little on the snare, etc.; it seems to give things a little more punch in my opinion. The kick sounded really good, almost too good.

Good job making the guitars way too {censored}ing loud. You'll have to deal with that a lot, so making sure your mix cuts through even the most harsh guitar sound is a definite plus.

Kit sounds great! No more comments that haven't been said of course...

Cool. Thanks all very much for the comments and insight!! Gave me some food for thought and I already did some minor tweaking last night based on many of these comments. Different speakers/sound systems yield different results so it's interesting to hear what sounds consistent to everyone vs. what sounds different. I wanted to sit on the new mix overnight to let my ears get a fresh listen then I'll post a re-polished copy. After that, I think my head is done with this mix.

As far as the snare sound, that's my Yamaha Beech Custom Absolute with a Remo Powerstroke3 on top and an Evans 300weight snare side head. I'm pretty sure I have 14-strand pure sound snares on there, but I don't remember exactly to be honest. Top head is tuned pretty tight, but not cranked. On the bottom, I usually tune the lugs around the snare bed a bit looser as that seems to help add a touch of fatness and keep the sympathetic snare vibrations from sounding like a snot-rocket.

Thanks again all...mucho appreciated!

Originally posted by ulank Cool. Thanks all very much for the comments and insight!! Gave me some food for thought and I already did some minor tweaking last night based on many of these comments. Different speakers/sound systems yield different results so it's interesting to hear what sounds consistent to everyone vs. what sounds different. I wanted to sit on the new mix overnight to let my ears get a fresh listen then I'll post a re-polished copy. After that, I think my head is done with this mix. Thanks again all...mucho appreciated!

Smart idea... that's usually what I do when mixing. Give your ears a day to rest then come back to it. Also, typically I'll burn a disc and listen on a few different systems... the car, boom box, big home stereo system, etc, to get a good idea of how the mix translates to the real world.

Yep, that's pretty much what I've been doing as well. I should buy stock in CD-R's!

Almost sounds like an electronic kit...

OK, I took the general consensus into mind and retweaked a few things. I tried to clean up the panning (though the hats still bleed over to the center quite a bit...nothing I can do anymore. ) I also balanced the tom levels, brought down the guitars a touch, pulled out some more cymbal "spice," and fattened up the kick a hair. Again, thanks a bunch for your feedback. More ears always help, especially since I'm new to all this. Next steps are bass and guitar tones, but I won't bother any of ya with all that horse{censored}.

DrumMicTest2

That third tom still disappears. Listen to it at lower volume levels, and maybe you'll hear whart I'm listening to.

But I like the meatier BD. I'd still like to hear more attack on the bass guitar and the BD.

But of course, I don't let anyone listen to me mix... I sure as hell wouldn't let a bunch of jerko on the net listen to my unfinished mixes

Originally posted by scarecrowbob That third tom still disappears. Listen to it at lower volume levels, and maybe you'll hear whart I'm listening to. But I like the meatier BD. I'd still like to hear more attack on the bass guitar and the BD. But of course, I don't let anyone listen to me mix... I sure as hell wouldn't let a bunch of jerko on the net listen to my unfinished mixes

Thanks. Yah, it was actually both the third and the floor tom that were dropping out a bit. Best I could do was pull that mic up a touch, and smush everything a bit more, but too much caused more bleed, getting into more gating, etc. and at that point I'm just going in circles.

As far as people listening to the mix, I honestly don't care because this isn't any sort of actual song. It's all there for sonic purposes. If it was anything of musical purpose, I wouldn't share it before completion.

Oh yeah, BTW, I took your advice and it was prett spot on. The earlier mix had a spike at 3.5K to 4K. I liked that because it gave a nice woody attack/slap to the kick. At the same time, it stepped all over the mids and fought the guitars. Once I slid over to 6K, the whole kick sounded more natural, had more depth with enough attack still and it got out of the way of the guitars. Thanks!

the 'chorus' makes me sing...Keep on rockin in the free world

but i have to add in the DUM DUM DUM myself

sounds good though

Note that I'm only giving you preoper respect for sharing ....

If you get mics farther away, you can get a good mix without close micing...

... if you can avoid bleed from other instruments (I just give everyone a headphone mix and point the amps in another direction) then you'll get a

Think about it like ringing toms (to think of th eother discussions here)... an even tom mix is best, even if it means that the toms lose some presence because your relying on the overheads.

And all that is just some drunk dude on the net (who keeps failing at drumming jobs, BTW)... this drunk is more interested in the content than the form... the form is "good enough"-- they're to the point where (if I were assessing the band to hire themn as an act) the content is the importanta point.