WELL WELL WELL.

I spent the day with drums, mics, recorders, and my old body. I'll tell you what I learned today.

I suck on drums. That's what I learned.

between the poor sound quality after all the trials and tests on getting a good/decent mix, man, I'm just not up to what I thought I could do. Honest, I was planning to keep it simple - WAY simple, and MAN that's the hardest! There's so much space in there, my arms and legs just WANNA put more stuff in there - an extra kick, an extra snare hit, something... and WHEW it ended up a big pile of poo.

So. Maybe I'll grab a few samples out of it, and just LOOP them. Or, maybe, I'll jsut stick to the dang drum machine...

I had such high hopes. What a let down. I SWEAR I used to be good on drums... HONEST.
[This message was edited Wed Jun 11 17:17:28 PDT 2003 by otan]

Sometimes when we just want to record a jam, we put two boom stands over the drum kit, one to the left and another to the right.

about 6-7 feet high pointed down.

Doing that, you can get a decent stereo sound in a roll.

two condenser mics to the left and right of the kit is what I would do.
[This message was edited Tue Jun 10 9:19:16 PDT 2003 by yamomma]

yamomma said:

Great picture! I love the color of the drums. (Hey, you got clothes on! )

VinaBlue said:

I get that very same comment, ALL THE TIME.
[This message was edited Tue Jun 10 9:43:14 PDT 2003 by otan]

Otan U betta beg, borrow or steal some more mics. I would definitely place one half way inside the kick.
GIMME SOME BOTTOM!

Red said:

Go Listen to Brown Sugar by the Rolling Stones. It was recorded with one mic, placed in front of the drums, chest height, about 3 feet back.

Now, tell me I need a mic in the kick! It's all in placement baby.

If I put a mic inside the bass drum, that leaves room for just one more mic for overall. That won't work. I'm not interested in a stereo fill, I won't be using toms. I'm doing the bare-bones James Brown kit - snare, hat, cymbal, and bass. Keeping it simple, keeping it funky.

I really dig the retro way of miking drums - today's drums are way over-miked IMO. very cool if you're matt chamberlain but for most guys it's the equivalent of playing a Marshall stack on 10, SM57 mic, every song. boring

I'd go as far as to say today's production in general is all about overproducing. give me some imperfect, yet soulful vintage flavor

otan said:

Then I'd still do just that.

Overhead mics on the left and right of the kit.


Really, you just got to play with it and see what comes out best.

I used that Oktavia mic. Set it up on a mic stand at 10 ft tall and put it at the opposite end of the room (20 ft).

It created a natural reverb and picked up the entire kit.

With the SM57's, I've found that you have to put that filter thing in and place it 8 foot above the kit to get the cymbals.

Just my 2 cents

Thanks y'all. Experimentation is the key. Great. I have SOOO much time to do some o THAT crap.

Anybody got a spare nanny?

well...a'ight then

OK I just called Charlie and posed the question to him, here's his answer to the mics on Brown Sugar:

"We only had three mics on the drums. We ran a U47 up over the top up over the top, about nose high to the drummer. We had a high stand out in front, with the mic facing downward at the kit, from the bass drum in with a little boom that came over the snare. So it gave a good overview of the whole kit, so you could play with a lot of dynamics and you could get an incredible sound.

On the bass drum we used the E-V 666, a fantastic dynamic mic for the time. It was on a little stand looking to the backside of the drum. Then I had a hi-hat mic, which I think was another (E-V) RE-15, though it could have been a little (E-V) 635A, that remains in question.

The RE-15 was a better mic, had more response. We avoided using the 635A unless we had to. Actually, if not the RE-15 it might have been an SM57, more likely than the 635A.

otan said:

Hey Otan-

you've heard my music...pretty Lo-fi, but I like my drum sound.
Anyway, I'd aim of a mic about 2 inches above the kick, almost between the toms about 10 inches away from that...then use one over head. There u get the kick punch, plus u give the cymbal some room to breathe.

Red said:

Well, crud, then where did I hear that it was just a single mic? That's the song recorded at Muscle Shoals right? Dang. My info is all wrong.

that's right - BS was recorded at Muscle Shoals...or more commonly known as the 'burlap palace'

WELL WELL WELL.

I spent the day with drums, mics, recorders, and my old body. I'll tell you what I learned today.

I suck on drums. That's what I learned.

between the poor sound quality after all the trials and tests on getting a good/decent mix, man, I'm just not up to what I thought I could do. Honest, I was planning to keep it simple - WAY simple, and MAN that's the hardest! There's so much space in there, my arms and legs just WANNA put more stuff in there - an extra kick, an extra snare hit, something... and WHEW it ended up a big pile of poo.

So. Maybe I'll grab a few samples out of it, and just LOOP them. Or, maybe, I'll jsut stick to the dang drum machine...

I had such high hopes. What a let down. I SWEAR I used to be good on drums... HONEST.

Oh Otan darlin'
Of course it's going to seem a little overwhelming, but hey, U have nuphin' but time bud. Summer's here..shed those clothes (cept maybe a jock strap) and flail away baby. Hit the 2nd hand shops, classified and little by little build up your kit. Ain't nuphin' 2 it but 2 do it. Have fun!

One word for ya from the resident drum teacher - Rudiments!!

cloud9mission said:

Two words from the drum student: MY BACK!!

otan said:

Well if I don't play for a month I sound like poo too.

practice everyday for a week, even it's stamping the floor and hitting your knees with your hands.

It will come back.

otan said:

[This message was edited Thu Jun 12 8:16:49 PDT 2003 by cloud9mission]

here's my playing style: HUNCHED OVER the kit like quasimodo crafting a new bell. Or something. AND I played something like 6 hours yesterday, recording a song for 1-2 hours, them moving to different song, seeing if my amazing talent would be more suited for a different song... and then moving on to another, and then another... everytime I caught myself hunched over, I'd try to sit straight, and then, BAM, I'd hear a change in the playing, either volume or tempo, (tho I was playing to clicktrack the whole time) so I'd start over.

AUGH.

Yamomma- I'm air drumming constantly here at work. I think I gotta get behind the kid and wail away for a couple more weeks... that's the problem - I'm a MASTER at the patterns, when there's no sticks in my hand, nor a kit in front of me. The problem comes when there's a real kit - I'm so used to executing these patterns in the air. And before you start laughing - I REALLY can play... so I know I'm hitting a good pattern, etc, but, when there's a real kit there - you know what I'm talking about... I'm fantastic at coming up with coolio patterns, but translating them to a real kit - there's the challenge. I definitely gotta build up the muscles and real coordination - not air coordination.

I'll do it. I WILL. It's just frustrating to take a day off from work, expecting MAGIC to just flow from me. Dang. At this rate, I'll NEVER learn how to play the pan flute.

otan said:

The same thing happened to me when I hadn't recorded vocals in a looong time. Plus, I don't sing much anymore because I don't have a car and I used to just "wail away" on the way to work.

A few months ago I got sooo down on myself because I took some time off of work to record and ran into the same problem you did. Everything was going fine until I decided to record vocals. Then it was like, "What the fuck am I doing? Why do I sound like shit?" I felt like such a weiner.

Also, your freudian slip (kid for kit) tells me you have other things on your mind. Maybe. So, keep practicing! I know how frustrating it is to expect the magic to flow and feel that let down. Take a break and come back to it in a day or two.

cloud9mission said:

Notice the piece of paper on the floor in the picture.

What's the piece of paper? Reminder to practice later?

And don't hit me for this one - but, what are drum rudiments? The drum basics? Practices? Warmups? Altoids with an attitude?

otan said:

You're kidding right? You're such a funny guy. Next you'll say you don't know what paradiddles are... That's uh, two diddles.

otan said:

http://www.vicfirth.com/e...ments.html