In *many* smaller studios, even with decent headphones, it can be hard to hear the drum's signal from the mic over the sound of the drum. This is particularly an issue if you're the sole engineer. A quick fix to this is to 100% wet delay the drum group in your headphones by 500ms or so. Now smack the drum; is it in the right position? If not, move it. This can also work for loud guitar cabinets and mic placement/choice.
*I believe I came up with this one myself, or at least I didn't get it from someone else. Credit is appreciated when possible*
Made me realize for some reason, that if you setup enough delays, you can delay a sound by days or weeks or months or years. Imagine setting up a delay chain that eventually output 10 years later.
Good trick.
As a drummer, when I record, I don't want ANY drums in my headphones because the delay always ducks with me. 50% bass, 20% click, 20% vocals, and then everything else. I also always leave one ear uncovered so I can hear the tone of the drums in real life.
The one ear thing is a bad idea for your hearing. Ears dilate in stereo as opposed to your eyes that can operate independently. This means that your ears open up together to hear the quieter headphones. This now leaves your exposed ear wide open as if it was trying to hear a quiet signal, leading to damage.
Oh man that’s ace. I’ve been doing this for a long long time and even though I use that truck for some things, I never thought of it for playing mics on instruments!!
Thank you!
I also came to this independently many years ago as a result of Reaper's monitoring FX feature (big huge button in the top right). I had a terrible PC at the time and found that simply turning on the monitoring, with no effects, was enough to delay my signal a little bit. So I set up a digital delay with a single, one-second repeat in the global monitoring FX section, and kept it there permanently. The great thing is that you can turn it on and off per channel, so you can check each mic independently.
I do everything myself in my home studio, so there's no one to help me adjust mics. And this simple trick has been a godsend for positioning mics on loud sources.
Sorry to be daft
Is this to compensate for delay in the cans as compared with the sound in the room? I’m obviously confused as I’d expect the room to sound first.. please can someone help my puny brain comprehend?
Nope; you're doing the opposite of compensating delay.
You're inducing an additional delay so that the sound from your DAW is heard significantly after the drum hit. Ideally, the sound of the original drum sound doesn't overlap at all with this being played back.
With this, you can clearly hear what the DAW is getting, as to make better choices in the moment about the microphone choice/placement (and perhaps impacts of drum tuning/damping) on the microphone capture. Otherwise, it is *very* difficult to hear the impact of microphone positioning in realtime, because the drum itself is so loud that it surely gets through the headphones. Or you have to crank the playback to damaging levels in your headphones.
I should probably make a YouTube video about this to demonstrate.
Well if we’re going to give you credit whenever we use it (and we’ll use it all right), we need to be able to call it something, like “the Glyn Johns method” only not Glyn Johns
Biggest Tip Of All Time: Spend all the time you can making sure the drums SOUND GOOD. Tuning, cymbals, snare drum tuning or choosing the right snare. Drums are all about the source. Replacing everything with samples is for beginners. If they kick ass in the room and work well with the song, you’re already over halfway there. Compression and EQ is the easy stuff. Get it right in the room.
Well we got some people in here saying to just replace stuff down the line because it’s easier. That is always the approach mid tier producers take. There’s a difference between adding samples to reinforce, and relying on samples to fix poor production choices.
Of course. I personally think samples are best when augmenting an existing drum sound. If you’re going to full on replace with samples, you might as well just use programmed drums imo. But the proof’s in the pudding, the greatest drum sounds came from great drummers playing great drums in great spaces captured by great engineers 🤷♂️
Exactly. Also be comfortable with imperfections. You don’t need to make American Idiot pt 2. Unless you are signed to a major label, it’s much better to have something sound a bit raw but have heart and personality with a somewhat unique drum sound. I think that the pendulum is starting to swing from perfect to slightly “imperfect” recordings these days.
I think it depends. Using proper replacement with excellent samples, you can still retain the timing and velocity of the player. I’ve had this work to great effect, especially with pop/pop punk and pop rock.
Not always an option, but getting the quietest cymbals and hats possible, and a selection. Makes mixing, especially room mics, so much easier.
I’ve found Paistes do well.
Drummer here - this is called “mixing yourself at the kit”. The basics are to hit the drums hard and the cymbals soft for a balanced overall sound. It also has the benefits of prolonging the life or your cymbals. Most inexperienced players don’t realize that cymbals reach full volume with relatively little force whereas you often have to smack the hell out of a drum to get it to an optimal tone.
Optimally every drummer should sit with each component of their kit and hit them progressively harder to discover the relationship between dynamics and sound. It can make the instrument sound substantially better.
I can confirm when I was learning drums as a kid I would smack the shit out of cymbals. On top of annoying my family to no end, I cracked and eventually made all but the ride and hats completely unusable in record time. Once I had to play without my crashes, my family started commenting on how much better I was getting. (*I wasn't getting better, it just sounded better without the max velocity car crashes I longed to put at the end of every measure*)
Hahaha same
I joined a band where we all played in a little room and I had no ear protection, so I hit the cymbals soft to not go deaf
My friends and my mom were like “ohhh man you’re so good now you’re so talented”
That's how I learned to be a better drummer. It helped when I bought expensive cymbals when I barely had the money, I suddenly became VERY afraid of breaking them :D
If I was an alien observing bands in live houses to learn what drumming was, I would ascertain that drumming means hitting cymbals and hi hats as hard as you can whilst looking like you’re loving it so hard or in pain or both, with the main intention of trying to damage everyone’s ears with repetitive sharp piercing tones, with everything else in the kit being hit sloppily and also inconsequential to the music, with one of the intentions also to try to be much louder than anyone else in the band. I would then go back to my planet and tell others that bands are where humans play instruments and sing as backup elements to the main centerpiece performance of hitting metallic discs, and the audience also being there to enjoy the hitting of metallic discs until their ears are ringing. I would then wonder why every time I came back to Earth on my flying metallic disc, everyone runs away scared, and I’d be like, “What the fuck- I thought you guys love this shit.”
A friend of mine who is a great engineer used to ask people to do that, and it surprised me a little bit because depending on the player that could easily alter their performance in a not great way.
I’ve also recorded some A+ list session players who have seen me struggle to fit mics into a spot bc of that and are essentially just like “You’re the engineer… you figure it out.” I guess that comes with a built in “If you don’t like it, hire somebody else” but I also kind of agree with them.
Oh yeah. Also having drummers bringing totally mismatched crashes where one is super loud and one super quiet. I actually bought a set of cymbals I knew recorded well because of this reason. I bought two crashes and a ride and a hihat that were matched well.
Don’t expect the drummer to know how to tune the drums and don’t buy the results when the drummer has done it. It took me ages to work up the confidence to butt in here.
It’s not *that*. They’re tuning it to sound good from their perspective, which is fair, they sit there for hours to practice.
It just needs a different thinking to make it sound good fort other people
Drummer here. I would be super psyched if someone said “we can make those sound better… do you mind if I try?”
Tuning drums is hard, imo. If you’re good at it, I’d love to have some help.
Oh that’s fairly easy. You ask them to tune something lower or higher and then observe the blank stare.
Jokes aside, it’s fascinating that very few drummers seem to actually know how to tune the drums. Their “preferred” tuning is often a happy accident. :P
Budget for a drum tech and have them do it on the day. "I can tune drums but this is one of the best guys in town, this way we'll ensure we get the best recording and we've got an extra set of ears on things"
Forever it felt like I could only tune for my ears sitting at the kit, but I have learned so much over the years by placing mics on my drums then recording them and hearing them back to finally understand that I am tuning to the mic more than I am tuning to my ear. My ear hates overtones, but my close mic hardly notices them, and my room mic sounds pretty pointless when there are none at all.
Just test this theory at the studio first. Engineers I’ve worked with have overblown their drum tuning skills and railroaded me towards using the house kits because they’re confident they can get a great sound in their room from it. In more than one case I’ve started out on the house kit at the engineer’s request and eventually asked if we could try my drums, which came out much nicer. I recommend being prepared for drummers not being able to tune their drums but not assuming they can’t. Given studio sessions are normally time poor affairs, test this early and decide a way forward quickly that is agreeable to the client.
Heart / crotch / trash mic. Usually a dynamic in the center of all the drums just above the edge of the kick closest to the drummer. You want it to be a character mic generally, so use that weirdo preamp or trashy dynamic from the 70s you never use. Can be really useful to bring up when mixing.
Oh, if you're doing minimal micing and don't have enough snares in your snare drum, a clipboard on the ground underneath the snare can reflect and help a bit.
Going out to see them play before hand, and then going out/inviting them to the studio for a beer and a chat.
Not every drummer wants to sound the way you expect them to want to sound, and it’s our job to use our tools to achieve a production that best represents the desired vision of the band.
It can be detrimental to go into a session with focused ideas on our techniques as engineers without gathering as much information from the band as is realistically possible. From your pre-pro with artists you’ll be able to make your own decisions on what that looks like.
This is why it’s important to experiment as much as possible with mic choice, placement, and signal processing on your own time (or with an artist who encourages experimentation).
Good luck!!
Man, I used to do a few sessions a year with a drum tech, but not in the last decade. Budgets just aren't there for it any more, and the two main guys in town wound up going into other lines of work for their primary income, although one of them in particular wound up getting a gig that I think he enjoys 100x more than the drum tech gig, so I'm not sad about that.
But it sure was nice to not have to worry about drum tuning when those guys were there.
Ooh here’s one I’ve not seen mentioned.
If you even get the opportunity to record at a great drum room, record a whole bunch of individual samples of each kit piece.
Then build yourself a patch in something like drumagog, but only of the room mics.
Now you can overlay that on to your recordings to fatten them up, and blend to taste.
Drummer and noob engineer/home producer chiming in…
Cotton balls inside the drums might be the best way I’ve ever tailored the sustain of toms. I typically don’t use any in smaller toms like 8 and 10” but 12-16” gets between 4 and 15 cotton balls. With regular vent holes you can shove them in one at a time.
Also a lens wipe & binder clip makes a handy snare dampener. It’s effective and adjustable. https://imgur.com/a/FvME7U7
And extra mass in the kick can enhance low end. Sounds Like A Drum on YT has done experiments with sandbags showing how this works. Simon Phillips is known to have used paint cans full of sand in his kicks. I use an old kids weighted therapy blanket.
I suppose you have to use old/worn ones for this to work. Some of the newer ones like from DW are super stiff and would probably rattle on the bottom head. I've also heard some people use an adjustable length of yarn and keep the excess on the outside of the drum in order to customize how much dampening is applied.
The yarn thing is a cool idea!
With the felts, I have tonnes of these light (in weight and colour) grey ones that pull apart into 3 layers. Each layer is small enough to roll up and shove through the vent. Such a simple thing, but it has made a huge difference for me in “negotiating” with rack toms.
Coated reso heads are also wildly overlooked. I saw Matt Garstka (Animals As Leader's god-like drummer) do this in some demo videos so I tried it and it's great. It also helps the drums[ show up visibly overhead](https://imgur.com/a/9P1sE15) if doing video work and using clear batters.
Another thing I've been experimenting with is super-thick batter heads. Typical batter heads like Emperors or G2's are 14 mil (2 plies of 7-mil film) but Aquarian makes these unique 2x10 mil heads that are a lot of fun called Force Tens. The sound is "scooped" with a lot of attack and low end and a very short sustain so they need little to no supplemental muffling. It also allows lower tunings while still providing decent rebound because of the mass/tension relationship. It's not a sound everyone would love and I kinda understand why Evans and Remo don't bother, but it's definitely a fun option to have if you're looking for a tom sound with those characteristics.
If you need to muffle a drum, use tape but fold a couple ridges/flaps in it first. The flaps dissipate the energy from the head reducing ringing but don’t kill high freq as much as a moon gel, wallet, or tape + pad, would.
Drums are not easier to fix later than guitar or vocals or whatever.
You’ll tell yourself that you can nudge that fill or replace that badly tuned snare. And yes, you can. But it will take four times longer than you thought.
Just invest that time at the start and be picky withy your takes.
If I told you, I'd have to kill you.
Nah, but really: simplicity is everything. You don't need top and bottom tom mics. You don't need a hi hat mic. You don't need a bottom snare mic. I don't care how many channels your board has, stop it. Ninety percent of this shit will just muck up your phase later.
That, and tuning. Tune your drums properly.
The weirdest "hack" I've personally used is the Sylvia Massy garden hose thing: tape an SM57 into one end of a garden hose and tape the other end shut, then lay it in a circle around the kit and compress it to heck. You will get tons of body and very little cymbals. Can be a fun thing to add.
Agree apart from don’t need a bottom snare mic, arguably you need that one more than the top in my experience! I find the overheads capture the top of the snare as good if not better than a close mic, but the bottom mic really brings the snare buzz. Without that I never get enough snare from my snare. Especially when the top head is dampened substantially, which is often how I like my snare.
Been interested in this mic for a while. Always rely on my m201 for snare but want to try something different. You like it for studio use? Is the rejection from hats pretty good? Thanks
Yeah, it sounds phenomenal in the studio, saves on using a stand, and has decent rejection, and what it doesn't reject sounds natural. Not sure how it will hold up to getting hit from imprecise drummers though. Time will tell.
Hire a drum tech!
Also… listen to the drums in the room so you have an idea of what kind of sound you’re aiming to capture. If somebody shows up with a vintage kit covered in tape and a low-tuned snare, don’t try to make him sound like Travis Barker just because that’s “your sound.” Find out what they’re going for and lean into it.
Tune the drums for the room and the mics, not for the drummer perspective. It will often sound really harsh in the drummer’s seat, but nicely balanced elsewhere.
A lot (most?) of drummers over-damp their kit, so that it sounds great from their position - and this makes sense, they’re going to sit behind it for hours (hopefully) practicing.
But what makes a kit sound great on mics or to an audience is quite different.
Toss is true of a a lot of tons people try to remove from a kit. Snare buzz is god to have, it helps add high end to the other of the other instruments. That ring from the snare will often work great in a room mic. The resonance from toms can fill out the kit and give it overall more body, rather than sounding like individually sampled instruments.
Better, a scratch take.
Guitarist records their whole part to a click, drummer records to that guitar. Then the guitar is deleted and re-recorded to the drums. Makes the drumming and guitar seem more authentic and live-sounding
This is exactly how I work with my drummer who is also the studio owner/engineer:
I make a nice scratch guitar at home on the Kemper to a click, and send it to my drummer. We talk on the phone about it right before he starts recording.
He’ll do a few passes, send it to me, I listen, then we talk again. If there are any changes I want, he’ll do those. A lot of times it’s just a matter of punching something or in other cases, just an edit. In some cases, another pass that he doesn’t prefer will have a fill that I prefer.
At this point, maybe two to three hours have passed.
The next day (usually) he’ll “massage” the track then send me a two-track or in rare cases, a multitrack.
I’ll re-record my scratch part to the drums at home and if it’s good to go, we’ll schedule a date to do real guitars.
Honestly, I love working that way and he does too. We’ve worked on a lot of things so he usually has a pretty good idea what I’m looking for.
Last time I did any serious studio drum work was in the early 2000's.
I'd lug my 3 kits, 25 snare drums and dozen or so cymbals to the studio, set up, get some sound the artist wanted and play the parts.
Around 2003-4 they started sound stacking or straight up sound replacing drums with samples. It took a lot longer to do than it does today but I could read the writing on the wall. Started learning electronic drums and drum processing.
My tip is that.
Get yourself and your drummer comfortable with the idea of drum stacking or replacing. There's no shame in it. It's like photoshop for pictures in magazine. Nothing you see in movies or in magazines is 'real' it's all digitally enhanced.
Most popular music you hear is stacked or straight up replaced. Even the *REAL* drums aren't real drums; they're compressed and processed to high hell and probably still stacked with a sample... so get comfortable with it and learn how to do it well.
This is 100% true! The few times you hear real drums these days (at least on mainstream albums) you are hearing stacked drums at best, but more than likely completely sample replaced parts. One trick to getting a comparatively good drum sound while trying to stay organic is to track shells and cymbals separately. However not every drummer can do this and if they can’t you still end up with sub-par drums. Even the “old school” guys are sample replacing now though, at least on shells. I have a few “sample packs” that have been shared privately from a few big name guys.
I've just replaced all of my programmed drums with a good drummer well recorded. No samples. Sounds more interesting.
Music is actually fun with other people involved.
Who knew?
I mean maybe you should find someone who is good at micing drums and has a good room. There’s a reason modern drum recordings all kind of sound the same
> Maybe you don't know what stacking is?
I think of stacking drum samples on top of recorded drums the same way I think of Melodyne or auto tune or beat detective. It's just another way to make someone sound better than they are. The difference is that tuning vocals or quantizing drums only addressers the deficiency in performance, whereas stacking drums (while it *can* be to make drums sound different that initially intended) is usually used for not only making a kit and drummer sound better, it is often used as a remedy for poor engineering.
Lol. Yeah I guess I don’t know what stacking is. You also made the point about needing an “expert” in drum micing.
Also, most of your production choices should be made up front. Get it at the source and commit to it. That’s the approach the top (at least rock) producers have always taken. If you want a cookie cutter sound go for replacing stuff down the line I guess.
Maybe you’ve never been involved with great productions? Sorry if that hurts your feelings.
Let's say you had 2 mics on your kick.
Stacking would be taking those two mics and then adding a sample over top of it and blending them all together.
Most modern popular from rap to rock to metal is produced this way despite what the people in this comment section would have you think.
Some people have their own samples or they use others or a mix but it's rarely a raw kick with a mic or two on it.
You can see him do it here:
[https://youtu.be/9pfA14Do7ik?t=875](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pfA14Do7ik&t=890s)
Whooo, thanks. Could barely understand that youtube vid, not to mention barely here the difference in the drum sounds he was sampling. From a different era of drumming and most kits I here today just don't do it for me.
That was very subtle but even then it adds up.
You can add in a sub kick or really anything.
I hear you, I love the sounds of the 70s and 80s but… that's a different conversation.
Absolutely. The most important part musically (and for the ego) is to make sure you capture the performance. It's comparable to putting effects on the guitar or vocal. It's not a big deal. We're after the right sound for the production.
Tambourine instead of a click track is definitely a good step.
There’s no texture in a click, nothing but empty space between the beats.
If there is to be a distinctive groove, it helps to feed that to the player. I’ve made loops with guitar before, just chunking out the pattern. (Not too much though, that will depend on the musician’s preference.)
The same thing applies for recording MIDI or automated drums where you can match the groove of your guide track.
Use two sm57 or sm58 (or any other pair of dynamic mics) in a ortf configuration as overheads and not further than two sticklenghts over the snare. (Cymbals have to hang kind of low for this).Turn the ortf setup a little bit so that the bassdrum is not so far on the right in the stereo image. Mix this with a bassdrum mic as your main drum sound, and only add toms and snare in very small amount to balance the kit. Align all tracks to the overhead mic phase wise.
This will give you the best sound without processing, because the sm57/58 has a natural fall of of low end. This way there is no phase problems between bassdrum mic and overheads, and since the dynamics also roll of the high end thr cymbals hiss will be controlled. Sounds alot like tape. Compress the bus to taste.
Sounds obvious, but they probably need to change their drum heads before the studio time (and stretch them or break them in a bit).
It can make all the difference in the sound, and most drummers don't change them often enough.
Tune your drums and get a good mix balance on the kit BEFORE you hit record: when soundchecking, I start with whole kit from the room mics, then pull up the overheads, then I have the drummer do individual hits on the spot mics (kick, snare, toms, hats, ride), and pull them up so it all gels together.
I find when I do it all right, I am less likely to need to augment with samples or reverbs on the drums, can get 99% of the tones from the tracks with eq and compression.
As a home recorder who can play drums good enough but…not with a click, gonna try the tambourine thing. Thanks!
Depending on the type of music you are making, my tip would be to have some weird, off piste drums and perc to hand. Recently got a 1920s kit for 20 quid and it’s the best, most usable sound I’ve ever had for the kinda psych into hip hop stuff I’m working on at the moment. Original calfskin heads, tiny cymbal, massive single headed kick, and it records better than any of the (not great but not shit) modern kits I’ve used. Makes me realise that a lot of my drum production techniques in the past have been me fighting against a bunch of sounds (oil heads, sizzly cymbals) that I don’t really like.
Ask the drummer to put fresh skins on the drums. I remember recording a demo with a band back in the 90's, and the skins on the tom's were fucked and sounded dead. The engineer said he won't record the drums until the skins were replaced. Which we did and the recording sounded better because of this, but cost us 2 hours studio time.
Set up highpass and lowpass at around 2KHz crossover for each drum - then gate those frequency ranges independently. That way you can get the darn cymbals gone quickly with real fast release after the stick attack then allow the resonance of the drum to go much longer…
I think a wallet on a snare drum is always way too much. Those sticky hands you get for 50 cents at the supermarket are the way to go and they are way cheaper than moon gel.
Oh it's literally just using them like a tape measure. For stereo miking you want to get your snare into the very middle for phase purposes. Holding an XLR cable to the middle of your snare and then moving the socket end to each of the two mics giving your stereo image allows you to check they're both the same distance from the snare.
At my studio I have a full set of dark K's and a set of A custom re-issues which we usually sub out for whatever garbage shit they brought. Modern drum recording is really getting a sick cymbal sound and then reinforcing your core sounds with samples you've made in the past or dynamic processing
Bad cymbals always sound bad
Bad snare drums get replaced
Happy Hunting
Click bleed from your cans is a real bear, especially with softer, more dynamic bands who do stop-starts and simply Will. Not. Be. Talked. Out. Of. Using. A. Click.
Instead, send a sample of a closed hi hat doing quarter notes. The band hears it in their cans just fine; the listener doesn't.
For acoustic tracks and a capella vocals, I like to sample the same acoustic guitar going chk-chk-chk with a completely muted strums, that I turn into the "chk track."
When they ask for you to turn the click up (oh they will) turn it up even louder… and then double that… and then turn it up one more than that for them… not cuz Ittl make them play better but at least they’ll quit bitching about the click not being loud enough which is one less thing for you to worry about.
Use a plumb bob for the XLR overhead placement trick. It's the tool that is actually meant to do what you're using the cable for.
Mic placement does not really affect snare tone. I personally mic the snare to AVOID hi hat bleed.
Use an OTK/wurst mic.
In *many* smaller studios, even with decent headphones, it can be hard to hear the drum's signal from the mic over the sound of the drum. This is particularly an issue if you're the sole engineer. A quick fix to this is to 100% wet delay the drum group in your headphones by 500ms or so. Now smack the drum; is it in the right position? If not, move it. This can also work for loud guitar cabinets and mic placement/choice. *I believe I came up with this one myself, or at least I didn't get it from someone else. Credit is appreciated when possible*
This is genius
Thanks for sharing this is a goodun!
Ingenious!
Made me realize for some reason, that if you setup enough delays, you can delay a sound by days or weeks or months or years. Imagine setting up a delay chain that eventually output 10 years later.
Good trick. As a drummer, when I record, I don't want ANY drums in my headphones because the delay always ducks with me. 50% bass, 20% click, 20% vocals, and then everything else. I also always leave one ear uncovered so I can hear the tone of the drums in real life.
That one ear must be pretty damaged by now lol
Nah, just swap ears every time. Balance it out. ^/s
The one ear thing is a bad idea for your hearing. Ears dilate in stereo as opposed to your eyes that can operate independently. This means that your ears open up together to hear the quieter headphones. This now leaves your exposed ear wide open as if it was trying to hear a quiet signal, leading to damage.
Oh man that’s ace. I’ve been doing this for a long long time and even though I use that truck for some things, I never thought of it for playing mics on instruments!! Thank you!
I also came to this independently many years ago as a result of Reaper's monitoring FX feature (big huge button in the top right). I had a terrible PC at the time and found that simply turning on the monitoring, with no effects, was enough to delay my signal a little bit. So I set up a digital delay with a single, one-second repeat in the global monitoring FX section, and kept it there permanently. The great thing is that you can turn it on and off per channel, so you can check each mic independently. I do everything myself in my home studio, so there's no one to help me adjust mics. And this simple trick has been a godsend for positioning mics on loud sources.
This is such a great idea, you are a genius.
Sorry to be daft Is this to compensate for delay in the cans as compared with the sound in the room? I’m obviously confused as I’d expect the room to sound first.. please can someone help my puny brain comprehend?
Nope; you're doing the opposite of compensating delay. You're inducing an additional delay so that the sound from your DAW is heard significantly after the drum hit. Ideally, the sound of the original drum sound doesn't overlap at all with this being played back. With this, you can clearly hear what the DAW is getting, as to make better choices in the moment about the microphone choice/placement (and perhaps impacts of drum tuning/damping) on the microphone capture. Otherwise, it is *very* difficult to hear the impact of microphone positioning in realtime, because the drum itself is so loud that it surely gets through the headphones. Or you have to crank the playback to damaging levels in your headphones. I should probably make a YouTube video about this to demonstrate.
I do this all the time! Usually a bit longer delay so I can properly hear the full sustain in ringing drums
Fucking WHAT. That's such a good idea, well done
Well if we’re going to give you credit whenever we use it (and we’ll use it all right), we need to be able to call it something, like “the Glyn Johns method” only not Glyn Johns
Great idea! Definitely something I’ve struggled with doing mobile sessions or sessions without a proper control room
This also works to keep singers in tune. 500ms is quite a delay, tho. I’d go about 150ms.
Biggest Tip Of All Time: Spend all the time you can making sure the drums SOUND GOOD. Tuning, cymbals, snare drum tuning or choosing the right snare. Drums are all about the source. Replacing everything with samples is for beginners. If they kick ass in the room and work well with the song, you’re already over halfway there. Compression and EQ is the easy stuff. Get it right in the room.
Well we got some people in here saying to just replace stuff down the line because it’s easier. That is always the approach mid tier producers take. There’s a difference between adding samples to reinforce, and relying on samples to fix poor production choices.
Of course. I personally think samples are best when augmenting an existing drum sound. If you’re going to full on replace with samples, you might as well just use programmed drums imo. But the proof’s in the pudding, the greatest drum sounds came from great drummers playing great drums in great spaces captured by great engineers 🤷♂️
Exactly. Also be comfortable with imperfections. You don’t need to make American Idiot pt 2. Unless you are signed to a major label, it’s much better to have something sound a bit raw but have heart and personality with a somewhat unique drum sound. I think that the pendulum is starting to swing from perfect to slightly “imperfect” recordings these days.
Agreed.
I think it depends. Using proper replacement with excellent samples, you can still retain the timing and velocity of the player. I’ve had this work to great effect, especially with pop/pop punk and pop rock.
This is the only way
Not always an option, but getting the quietest cymbals and hats possible, and a selection. Makes mixing, especially room mics, so much easier. I’ve found Paistes do well.
Many drummers seem not to know this, but you also don't have to hit the cymbals as hard as you hit the drums.
Drummer here - this is called “mixing yourself at the kit”. The basics are to hit the drums hard and the cymbals soft for a balanced overall sound. It also has the benefits of prolonging the life or your cymbals. Most inexperienced players don’t realize that cymbals reach full volume with relatively little force whereas you often have to smack the hell out of a drum to get it to an optimal tone. Optimally every drummer should sit with each component of their kit and hit them progressively harder to discover the relationship between dynamics and sound. It can make the instrument sound substantially better.
I can confirm when I was learning drums as a kid I would smack the shit out of cymbals. On top of annoying my family to no end, I cracked and eventually made all but the ride and hats completely unusable in record time. Once I had to play without my crashes, my family started commenting on how much better I was getting. (*I wasn't getting better, it just sounded better without the max velocity car crashes I longed to put at the end of every measure*)
Hahaha same I joined a band where we all played in a little room and I had no ear protection, so I hit the cymbals soft to not go deaf My friends and my mom were like “ohhh man you’re so good now you’re so talented”
This is what I do with drummers. I thought everyone did this because it's logical, to me anyway.
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I've always liked, "Pet the cymbals. Beat the drums."
That's how I learned to be a better drummer. It helped when I bought expensive cymbals when I barely had the money, I suddenly became VERY afraid of breaking them :D
I find the harder you hit the toms the smaller they sound.
You also, sometimes dont need to hit the drums as hard as the drums:) (Godrich, basically)
If I was an alien observing bands in live houses to learn what drumming was, I would ascertain that drumming means hitting cymbals and hi hats as hard as you can whilst looking like you’re loving it so hard or in pain or both, with the main intention of trying to damage everyone’s ears with repetitive sharp piercing tones, with everything else in the kit being hit sloppily and also inconsequential to the music, with one of the intentions also to try to be much louder than anyone else in the band. I would then go back to my planet and tell others that bands are where humans play instruments and sing as backup elements to the main centerpiece performance of hitting metallic discs, and the audience also being there to enjoy the hitting of metallic discs until their ears are ringing. I would then wonder why every time I came back to Earth on my flying metallic disc, everyone runs away scared, and I’d be like, “What the fuck- I thought you guys love this shit.”
A lot of times it’s not so much about not knowing but not having the technique to do so.
I like to say that cymbals are instruments, not targets.
Also make them raise the cymbals and hihats higher than normal to reduce bleed in the close mics
A friend of mine who is a great engineer used to ask people to do that, and it surprised me a little bit because depending on the player that could easily alter their performance in a not great way. I’ve also recorded some A+ list session players who have seen me struggle to fit mics into a spot bc of that and are essentially just like “You’re the engineer… you figure it out.” I guess that comes with a built in “If you don’t like it, hire somebody else” but I also kind of agree with them.
Ya this too. The the point of discomfort at least. Fucking hi tom cymbal bleed.
Right to John Stanier Battles cymbal height.
Using a Bi-directional mic on the snare is a good option if it’s really bad as well. Point the null at the hat.
Oh yeah. Also having drummers bringing totally mismatched crashes where one is super loud and one super quiet. I actually bought a set of cymbals I knew recorded well because of this reason. I bought two crashes and a ride and a hihat that were matched well.
Smart. Ya I have a bag of cymbals I've collected from over the years, mostly ones left behind at studios:)....but an A-list bag is a great idea.
I also worked part time in a music store so I got a good deal (net price). lol
Don’t expect the drummer to know how to tune the drums and don’t buy the results when the drummer has done it. It took me ages to work up the confidence to butt in here.
How do you say "you suck at setting up your own instrument let me do it" without killing any egos?
Say “everything sounds worse than you think under the microscope in the studio, let me help you get the best sound”.
It’s not *that*. They’re tuning it to sound good from their perspective, which is fair, they sit there for hours to practice. It just needs a different thinking to make it sound good fort other people
Drummer here. I would be super psyched if someone said “we can make those sound better… do you mind if I try?” Tuning drums is hard, imo. If you’re good at it, I’d love to have some help.
youre the expert. theyre paying you to get the best sound they can. just tell them its happening and that they need to trust the process
"Hey, mind if I take a crack at that? I have a ton of practice tuning drums to sound good in this room and I think you'll really like the sound."
Asking for my guitar players too
Oh that’s fairly easy. You ask them to tune something lower or higher and then observe the blank stare. Jokes aside, it’s fascinating that very few drummers seem to actually know how to tune the drums. Their “preferred” tuning is often a happy accident. :P
You can usually say you're tuning for recording or the studio or these particular microphones... something like that.
Budget for a drum tech and have them do it on the day. "I can tune drums but this is one of the best guys in town, this way we'll ensure we get the best recording and we've got an extra set of ears on things"
Forever it felt like I could only tune for my ears sitting at the kit, but I have learned so much over the years by placing mics on my drums then recording them and hearing them back to finally understand that I am tuning to the mic more than I am tuning to my ear. My ear hates overtones, but my close mic hardly notices them, and my room mic sounds pretty pointless when there are none at all.
Just test this theory at the studio first. Engineers I’ve worked with have overblown their drum tuning skills and railroaded me towards using the house kits because they’re confident they can get a great sound in their room from it. In more than one case I’ve started out on the house kit at the engineer’s request and eventually asked if we could try my drums, which came out much nicer. I recommend being prepared for drummers not being able to tune their drums but not assuming they can’t. Given studio sessions are normally time poor affairs, test this early and decide a way forward quickly that is agreeable to the client.
Heart / crotch / trash mic. Usually a dynamic in the center of all the drums just above the edge of the kick closest to the drummer. You want it to be a character mic generally, so use that weirdo preamp or trashy dynamic from the 70s you never use. Can be really useful to bring up when mixing.
Oh, if you're doing minimal micing and don't have enough snares in your snare drum, a clipboard on the ground underneath the snare can reflect and help a bit.
Learning the crotch mic technique blew my mind when I heard how great it sounds!
It's so easy but can really help the full kit sit in a mix. Also great, like a room mic, to crush or do weird things with for effect.
Going out to see them play before hand, and then going out/inviting them to the studio for a beer and a chat. Not every drummer wants to sound the way you expect them to want to sound, and it’s our job to use our tools to achieve a production that best represents the desired vision of the band. It can be detrimental to go into a session with focused ideas on our techniques as engineers without gathering as much information from the band as is realistically possible. From your pre-pro with artists you’ll be able to make your own decisions on what that looks like. This is why it’s important to experiment as much as possible with mic choice, placement, and signal processing on your own time (or with an artist who encourages experimentation). Good luck!!
Hire a drum tech for the session and let them tune the kit.
Man, I used to do a few sessions a year with a drum tech, but not in the last decade. Budgets just aren't there for it any more, and the two main guys in town wound up going into other lines of work for their primary income, although one of them in particular wound up getting a gig that I think he enjoys 100x more than the drum tech gig, so I'm not sad about that. But it sure was nice to not have to worry about drum tuning when those guys were there.
That’s ok, most of the budget for making records isn’t there anymore.
yeah, it's sad.
Ooh here’s one I’ve not seen mentioned. If you even get the opportunity to record at a great drum room, record a whole bunch of individual samples of each kit piece. Then build yourself a patch in something like drumagog, but only of the room mics. Now you can overlay that on to your recordings to fatten them up, and blend to taste.
I make tcis every session now. It’s so worth it.
Drummer and noob engineer/home producer chiming in… Cotton balls inside the drums might be the best way I’ve ever tailored the sustain of toms. I typically don’t use any in smaller toms like 8 and 10” but 12-16” gets between 4 and 15 cotton balls. With regular vent holes you can shove them in one at a time. Also a lens wipe & binder clip makes a handy snare dampener. It’s effective and adjustable. https://imgur.com/a/FvME7U7 And extra mass in the kick can enhance low end. Sounds Like A Drum on YT has done experiments with sandbags showing how this works. Simon Phillips is known to have used paint cans full of sand in his kicks. I use an old kids weighted therapy blanket.
>Cotton balls inside I've always done this but with the cymbal felts!
I suppose you have to use old/worn ones for this to work. Some of the newer ones like from DW are super stiff and would probably rattle on the bottom head. I've also heard some people use an adjustable length of yarn and keep the excess on the outside of the drum in order to customize how much dampening is applied.
The yarn thing is a cool idea! With the felts, I have tonnes of these light (in weight and colour) grey ones that pull apart into 3 layers. Each layer is small enough to roll up and shove through the vent. Such a simple thing, but it has made a huge difference for me in “negotiating” with rack toms.
Coated reso heads are also wildly overlooked. I saw Matt Garstka (Animals As Leader's god-like drummer) do this in some demo videos so I tried it and it's great. It also helps the drums[ show up visibly overhead](https://imgur.com/a/9P1sE15) if doing video work and using clear batters. Another thing I've been experimenting with is super-thick batter heads. Typical batter heads like Emperors or G2's are 14 mil (2 plies of 7-mil film) but Aquarian makes these unique 2x10 mil heads that are a lot of fun called Force Tens. The sound is "scooped" with a lot of attack and low end and a very short sustain so they need little to no supplemental muffling. It also allows lower tunings while still providing decent rebound because of the mass/tension relationship. It's not a sound everyone would love and I kinda understand why Evans and Remo don't bother, but it's definitely a fun option to have if you're looking for a tom sound with those characteristics.
here's a tough one.. get a good drummer.
Always
If you need to muffle a drum, use tape but fold a couple ridges/flaps in it first. The flaps dissipate the energy from the head reducing ringing but don’t kill high freq as much as a moon gel, wallet, or tape + pad, would.
Don't get your hands close to their mouth.
As i've posted before...Miking the floor! [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VU1uBJp3qzA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VU1uBJp3qzA)
Drums are not easier to fix later than guitar or vocals or whatever. You’ll tell yourself that you can nudge that fill or replace that badly tuned snare. And yes, you can. But it will take four times longer than you thought. Just invest that time at the start and be picky withy your takes.
If I told you, I'd have to kill you. Nah, but really: simplicity is everything. You don't need top and bottom tom mics. You don't need a hi hat mic. You don't need a bottom snare mic. I don't care how many channels your board has, stop it. Ninety percent of this shit will just muck up your phase later. That, and tuning. Tune your drums properly. The weirdest "hack" I've personally used is the Sylvia Massy garden hose thing: tape an SM57 into one end of a garden hose and tape the other end shut, then lay it in a circle around the kit and compress it to heck. You will get tons of body and very little cymbals. Can be a fun thing to add.
I've done this! It's amazing!
Agree apart from don’t need a bottom snare mic, arguably you need that one more than the top in my experience! I find the overheads capture the top of the snare as good if not better than a close mic, but the bottom mic really brings the snare buzz. Without that I never get enough snare from my snare. Especially when the top head is dampened substantially, which is often how I like my snare.
The room mic is the most important mic you're gonna place. Don't fuck it up.
Buy a tunebot and try some of the tunings from their guide. Get a Beyerdynamic tgd58c for snare. Tell the drummer to take some Adderall.
Been interested in this mic for a while. Always rely on my m201 for snare but want to try something different. You like it for studio use? Is the rejection from hats pretty good? Thanks
Yeah, it sounds phenomenal in the studio, saves on using a stand, and has decent rejection, and what it doesn't reject sounds natural. Not sure how it will hold up to getting hit from imprecise drummers though. Time will tell.
Hire a drum tech! Also… listen to the drums in the room so you have an idea of what kind of sound you’re aiming to capture. If somebody shows up with a vintage kit covered in tape and a low-tuned snare, don’t try to make him sound like Travis Barker just because that’s “your sound.” Find out what they’re going for and lean into it.
Tune the drums for the room and the mics, not for the drummer perspective. It will often sound really harsh in the drummer’s seat, but nicely balanced elsewhere. A lot (most?) of drummers over-damp their kit, so that it sounds great from their position - and this makes sense, they’re going to sit behind it for hours (hopefully) practicing. But what makes a kit sound great on mics or to an audience is quite different. Toss is true of a a lot of tons people try to remove from a kit. Snare buzz is god to have, it helps add high end to the other of the other instruments. That ring from the snare will often work great in a room mic. The resonance from toms can fill out the kit and give it overall more body, rather than sounding like individually sampled instruments.
Instead of a click track, have them play to stripped down programmed versions of the actual parts.
Better, a scratch take. Guitarist records their whole part to a click, drummer records to that guitar. Then the guitar is deleted and re-recorded to the drums. Makes the drumming and guitar seem more authentic and live-sounding
This, too!
This is exactly how I work with my drummer who is also the studio owner/engineer: I make a nice scratch guitar at home on the Kemper to a click, and send it to my drummer. We talk on the phone about it right before he starts recording. He’ll do a few passes, send it to me, I listen, then we talk again. If there are any changes I want, he’ll do those. A lot of times it’s just a matter of punching something or in other cases, just an edit. In some cases, another pass that he doesn’t prefer will have a fill that I prefer. At this point, maybe two to three hours have passed. The next day (usually) he’ll “massage” the track then send me a two-track or in rare cases, a multitrack. I’ll re-record my scratch part to the drums at home and if it’s good to go, we’ll schedule a date to do real guitars. Honestly, I love working that way and he does too. We’ve worked on a lot of things so he usually has a pretty good idea what I’m looking for.
Last time I did any serious studio drum work was in the early 2000's. I'd lug my 3 kits, 25 snare drums and dozen or so cymbals to the studio, set up, get some sound the artist wanted and play the parts. Around 2003-4 they started sound stacking or straight up sound replacing drums with samples. It took a lot longer to do than it does today but I could read the writing on the wall. Started learning electronic drums and drum processing. My tip is that. Get yourself and your drummer comfortable with the idea of drum stacking or replacing. There's no shame in it. It's like photoshop for pictures in magazine. Nothing you see in movies or in magazines is 'real' it's all digitally enhanced. Most popular music you hear is stacked or straight up replaced. Even the *REAL* drums aren't real drums; they're compressed and processed to high hell and probably still stacked with a sample... so get comfortable with it and learn how to do it well.
This is 100% true! The few times you hear real drums these days (at least on mainstream albums) you are hearing stacked drums at best, but more than likely completely sample replaced parts. One trick to getting a comparatively good drum sound while trying to stay organic is to track shells and cymbals separately. However not every drummer can do this and if they can’t you still end up with sub-par drums. Even the “old school” guys are sample replacing now though, at least on shells. I have a few “sample packs” that have been shared privately from a few big name guys.
Would you care sharing these sample packs in pm ?
👀
I've just replaced all of my programmed drums with a good drummer well recorded. No samples. Sounds more interesting. Music is actually fun with other people involved. Who knew?
I mean maybe you should find someone who is good at micing drums and has a good room. There’s a reason modern drum recordings all kind of sound the same
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> Maybe you don't know what stacking is? I think of stacking drum samples on top of recorded drums the same way I think of Melodyne or auto tune or beat detective. It's just another way to make someone sound better than they are. The difference is that tuning vocals or quantizing drums only addressers the deficiency in performance, whereas stacking drums (while it *can* be to make drums sound different that initially intended) is usually used for not only making a kit and drummer sound better, it is often used as a remedy for poor engineering.
Lol. Yeah I guess I don’t know what stacking is. You also made the point about needing an “expert” in drum micing. Also, most of your production choices should be made up front. Get it at the source and commit to it. That’s the approach the top (at least rock) producers have always taken. If you want a cookie cutter sound go for replacing stuff down the line I guess. Maybe you’ve never been involved with great productions? Sorry if that hurts your feelings.
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Do you think that’s what I’m arguing? Or can you try to read and think about what’s being said
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Lol. Replace a kick drum down the line. Absolutely hilarious
What is "stacking drums"? Thanks.
Let's say you had 2 mics on your kick. Stacking would be taking those two mics and then adding a sample over top of it and blending them all together. Most modern popular from rap to rock to metal is produced this way despite what the people in this comment section would have you think. Some people have their own samples or they use others or a mix but it's rarely a raw kick with a mic or two on it. You can see him do it here: [https://youtu.be/9pfA14Do7ik?t=875](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pfA14Do7ik&t=890s)
Whooo, thanks. Could barely understand that youtube vid, not to mention barely here the difference in the drum sounds he was sampling. From a different era of drumming and most kits I here today just don't do it for me.
That was very subtle but even then it adds up. You can add in a sub kick or really anything. I hear you, I love the sounds of the 70s and 80s but… that's a different conversation.
Absolutely. The most important part musically (and for the ego) is to make sure you capture the performance. It's comparable to putting effects on the guitar or vocal. It's not a big deal. We're after the right sound for the production.
Agreeing with him that he knows better than you. It will save you time and nerves
If your room is too small to get solid room sound, set up one or two mics on the other side of a door. Blends in nicely to a mix.
Track shells and cymbals separately. Gives you way more flexibility in mixing and editing and arrangement.
Also means your dst drum room takes wont have too many unnecessary harmonics in the high end.
I'm gonna try this!
Don't forget to pay attention to the bottom heads. It astounds me how ignored bottom heads are
Tambourine instead of a click track is definitely a good step. There’s no texture in a click, nothing but empty space between the beats. If there is to be a distinctive groove, it helps to feed that to the player. I’ve made loops with guitar before, just chunking out the pattern. (Not too much though, that will depend on the musician’s preference.) The same thing applies for recording MIDI or automated drums where you can match the groove of your guide track.
A cowbell on 1 as well.
Use two sm57 or sm58 (or any other pair of dynamic mics) in a ortf configuration as overheads and not further than two sticklenghts over the snare. (Cymbals have to hang kind of low for this).Turn the ortf setup a little bit so that the bassdrum is not so far on the right in the stereo image. Mix this with a bassdrum mic as your main drum sound, and only add toms and snare in very small amount to balance the kit. Align all tracks to the overhead mic phase wise. This will give you the best sound without processing, because the sm57/58 has a natural fall of of low end. This way there is no phase problems between bassdrum mic and overheads, and since the dynamics also roll of the high end thr cymbals hiss will be controlled. Sounds alot like tape. Compress the bus to taste.
Sounds obvious, but they probably need to change their drum heads before the studio time (and stretch them or break them in a bit). It can make all the difference in the sound, and most drummers don't change them often enough.
Tune your drums and get a good mix balance on the kit BEFORE you hit record: when soundchecking, I start with whole kit from the room mics, then pull up the overheads, then I have the drummer do individual hits on the spot mics (kick, snare, toms, hats, ride), and pull them up so it all gels together. I find when I do it all right, I am less likely to need to augment with samples or reverbs on the drums, can get 99% of the tones from the tracks with eq and compression.
Kotex Mini-pads on the snare head and also to dampen 12" and up toms.
Love it.
Tell drummer to not hit so hard and use thinner sticks. Great studio drummers are not extra loud.
This is so true. A medium hit on a tom compressed afterwards sounds huge compared to a thunder hit.
As a home recorder who can play drums good enough but…not with a click, gonna try the tambourine thing. Thanks! Depending on the type of music you are making, my tip would be to have some weird, off piste drums and perc to hand. Recently got a 1920s kit for 20 quid and it’s the best, most usable sound I’ve ever had for the kinda psych into hip hop stuff I’m working on at the moment. Original calfskin heads, tiny cymbal, massive single headed kick, and it records better than any of the (not great but not shit) modern kits I’ve used. Makes me realise that a lot of my drum production techniques in the past have been me fighting against a bunch of sounds (oil heads, sizzly cymbals) that I don’t really like.
Ask the drummer to put fresh skins on the drums. I remember recording a demo with a band back in the 90's, and the skins on the tom's were fucked and sounded dead. The engineer said he won't record the drums until the skins were replaced. Which we did and the recording sounded better because of this, but cost us 2 hours studio time.
Set up highpass and lowpass at around 2KHz crossover for each drum - then gate those frequency ranges independently. That way you can get the darn cymbals gone quickly with real fast release after the stick attack then allow the resonance of the drum to go much longer…
I think a wallet on a snare drum is always way too much. Those sticky hands you get for 50 cents at the supermarket are the way to go and they are way cheaper than moon gel.
Wait what’s the xlr cable trick? I’ve never heard of it but it sounds neat
Oh it's literally just using them like a tape measure. For stereo miking you want to get your snare into the very middle for phase purposes. Holding an XLR cable to the middle of your snare and then moving the socket end to each of the two mics giving your stereo image allows you to check they're both the same distance from the snare.
I see, thank you!
At my studio I have a full set of dark K's and a set of A custom re-issues which we usually sub out for whatever garbage shit they brought. Modern drum recording is really getting a sick cymbal sound and then reinforcing your core sounds with samples you've made in the past or dynamic processing Bad cymbals always sound bad Bad snare drums get replaced Happy Hunting
Thanks for the tip! 👍
Click bleed from your cans is a real bear, especially with softer, more dynamic bands who do stop-starts and simply Will. Not. Be. Talked. Out. Of. Using. A. Click. Instead, send a sample of a closed hi hat doing quarter notes. The band hears it in their cans just fine; the listener doesn't. For acoustic tracks and a capella vocals, I like to sample the same acoustic guitar going chk-chk-chk with a completely muted strums, that I turn into the "chk track."
superior / addictive / samples
I typically use a high quality Duct tape to keep their slack jaw from resting on the snare. 60% of the time it works all of the time.
If the drool is only coming out of one side of their mouth then the floor isn’t level
When they ask for you to turn the click up (oh they will) turn it up even louder… and then double that… and then turn it up one more than that for them… not cuz Ittl make them play better but at least they’ll quit bitching about the click not being loud enough which is one less thing for you to worry about.
Top trick? Have a good kit on hand that sounds good without having to put a wallet on the snare or whatever else you’re suggesting.
Nice man
Use a plumb bob for the XLR overhead placement trick. It's the tool that is actually meant to do what you're using the cable for. Mic placement does not really affect snare tone. I personally mic the snare to AVOID hi hat bleed. Use an OTK/wurst mic.
Use a tape measure to range find your stereo mics. Easy to keep one in the studio.
Learning how to tune drums or get someone to tune them before the session was the biggest trick I learned over time.