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#1
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Does anybody here record drums one by one for more punch
I hear in many modern-day recordings songs sounding like the drums are
so isolated but not so much that they're programmed. They still sound live and all but the cymbals are so big and in your face without sounding like there's any snare in the overheads. The snare sounds different every time it hits but no cymbal bleed behind it in the centre. Overall, the drums sound like they are all live but so polished that there's no way gating or anything like that could get it to sound so punchy and seperated. My question is, could this be the result of the drummer recording the snare, kick and cymbals seperately? Such a technique makes sense to me in my head but since I've never tried it I wouldn't know how realistic the resulting sound would be. Any comments are welcome. Thanks, Dave |
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#2
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Sometimes people replace a particular drum track with a sampled one, or mix
them together. I'm sure some recording engineer/producers have been recording individual drums tracks on particular projects since the beginning of multi-tracking. However, I would point out that playing a drum kit is a 'whole body thing' and that the quality and feel of drum tracks can really suffer as a result if one is not careful. A really talented musician can do it, but the result it qualitatively different. Just be aware of that difference is all I'm suggesting. Skler "David" wrote in message m... I hear in many modern-day recordings songs sounding like the drums are so isolated but not so much that they're programmed. They still sound live and all but the cymbals are so big and in your face without sounding like there's any snare in the overheads. The snare sounds different every time it hits but no cymbal bleed behind it in the centre. Overall, the drums sound like they are all live but so polished that there's no way gating or anything like that could get it to sound so punchy and seperated. My question is, could this be the result of the drummer recording the snare, kick and cymbals seperately? Such a technique makes sense to me in my head but since I've never tried it I wouldn't know how realistic the resulting sound would be. Any comments are welcome. Thanks, Dave |
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#3
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"David" wrote in message m... I hear in many modern-day recordings songs sounding like the drums are so isolated but not so much that they're programmed. They still sound live and all but the cymbals are so big and in your face without sounding like there's any snare in the overheads. You mean, without 'appearing' to sound as if there's an abundance of snare in the overheads... If it's mixed well enough to present a good picture of the drum set as a 'whole'... and then placed into the mix appropriately, how would you know for sure? The snare sounds different every time it hits but no cymbal bleed behind it in the centre. You mean, you cannot readily *detect* that cymbals are present in the area of the snare drum... (same explanation as above). Overall, the drums sound like they are all live but so polished that there's no way gating or anything like that could get it to sound so punchy and seperated. If the kit is recorded live, that's called adequate recording experience and above all, a good drummer and a well tuned kit. The area the kit is recorded in also plays a bigger role than most would assume. Gates can work wonders to isolate, but I despise them. Compression can do a variety of little tricks, but I dislike the results for the most part. "Punchy", is a well tuned drum kit played by an experienced drummer. It's also knowing where the drum kit should sit in a mix based on the genre'. It's easy to make a great recording of drums and then bury it in the mix so as to make them sound like little more than cardboard boxes. "Separation" is taking a relatively accurate picture of the drum kits parts and then reassembling it so as to make it a cohesive whole; balanced and separated as necessary to fit the into the mix appropriately. Some people can do this with minimal miking, others mic nearly everything. Personally, I find it more difficult to mix a drum kit tracked with only three mics than to mix a kit that was close miked, almost without regard for how poorly the tracks may have been recorded. My question is, could this be the result of the drummer recording the snare, kick and cymbals seperately? I sincerely doubt it, though 'sampled' sounds are often layered onto the original drum tracks which can be ellusive to detect. Such a technique makes sense to me in my head but since I've never tried it I wouldn't know how realistic the resulting sound would be. Probably pretty nasty. You happen to be striking a sorta' sour note with me, since I was just recently flown to Montana to mix a western swing album wherein the amateur recordist failed in his attempts to record the entire drumkit, as he was afraid of the 'bleed' between tracks. As a result of this fear and inexperience, he went back and re-tracked all of the parts seperately with only a couple of small exceptions. Putting them back together again, with any semblance of cohesion, was probably the biggest turd I have ever had to polish. Don't get me wrng, the songs were good and so were the other players. But on this record, the drums simply had to take the back seat. The results were a mishmosh of out of tempo, bad sounding tracks with little on no 'feeling' at all left in them... certainly no "groove" what-so-ever. Every mistake an amateur could possibly have made, this recordist made with great flair, on each and every single track that he had subsequently re-recorded.... down to miking the ride cymbal with a 414 from about three inches away. (I never knew there was quite so much low end in a ride cymbal). Since he also recorded everything totally flat, it was difficult to find enough EQ to carve out a semi-smooth sounding cymbal. Any comments are welcome. In general, no... I don't think this is an accepted practice at all, and I would certainly *never* recommend it. It's bad enough when the drums as a whole are recorded separately from the main rhythm section, let alone each piece independently. I can't even imagine finding a drummer who would agree with such a suggestion. -- David Morgan (MAMS) http://www.m-a-m-s DOT com Morgan Audio Media Service Dallas, Texas (214) 662-9901 _______________________________________ http://www.artisan-recordingstudio.com |
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#4
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I had a great drummer in my studio a while back and asked him to try such a
technique as an experiment for both of us. He couldn't do it easily. It's like learning to play the drums all over again to some degree. An analogy might be like asking a guitar player to play a song he's intimately familiar with but only using the "d" & "g" strings for a pass. Possible but uncomfortable until you've done it for a while. Neil R "David Morgan (MAMS)" wrote in message news:q53vd.3919$N%6.1409@trnddc05... "David" wrote in message m... I hear in many modern-day recordings songs sounding like the drums are so isolated but not so much that they're programmed. They still sound live and all but the cymbals are so big and in your face without sounding like there's any snare in the overheads. You mean, without 'appearing' to sound as if there's an abundance of snare in the overheads... If it's mixed well enough to present a good picture of the drum set as a 'whole'... and then placed into the mix appropriately, how would you know for sure? The snare sounds different every time it hits but no cymbal bleed behind it in the centre. You mean, you cannot readily *detect* that cymbals are present in the area of the snare drum... (same explanation as above). Overall, the drums sound like they are all live but so polished that there's no way gating or anything like that could get it to sound so punchy and seperated. If the kit is recorded live, that's called adequate recording experience and above all, a good drummer and a well tuned kit. The area the kit is recorded in also plays a bigger role than most would assume. Gates can work wonders to isolate, but I despise them. Compression can do a variety of little tricks, but I dislike the results for the most part. "Punchy", is a well tuned drum kit played by an experienced drummer. It's also knowing where the drum kit should sit in a mix based on the genre'. It's easy to make a great recording of drums and then bury it in the mix so as to make them sound like little more than cardboard boxes. "Separation" is taking a relatively accurate picture of the drum kits parts and then reassembling it so as to make it a cohesive whole; balanced and separated as necessary to fit the into the mix appropriately. Some people can do this with minimal miking, others mic nearly everything. Personally, I find it more difficult to mix a drum kit tracked with only three mics than to mix a kit that was close miked, almost without regard for how poorly the tracks may have been recorded. My question is, could this be the result of the drummer recording the snare, kick and cymbals seperately? I sincerely doubt it, though 'sampled' sounds are often layered onto the original drum tracks which can be ellusive to detect. Such a technique makes sense to me in my head but since I've never tried it I wouldn't know how realistic the resulting sound would be. Probably pretty nasty. You happen to be striking a sorta' sour note with me, since I was just recently flown to Montana to mix a western swing album wherein the amateur recordist failed in his attempts to record the entire drumkit, as he was afraid of the 'bleed' between tracks. As a result of this fear and inexperience, he went back and re-tracked all of the parts seperately with only a couple of small exceptions. Putting them back together again, with any semblance of cohesion, was probably the biggest turd I have ever had to polish. Don't get me wrng, the songs were good and so were the other players. But on this record, the drums simply had to take the back seat. The results were a mishmosh of out of tempo, bad sounding tracks with little on no 'feeling' at all left in them... certainly no "groove" what-so-ever. Every mistake an amateur could possibly have made, this recordist made with great flair, on each and every single track that he had subsequently re-recorded.... down to miking the ride cymbal with a 414 from about three inches away. (I never knew there was quite so much low end in a ride cymbal). Since he also recorded everything totally flat, it was difficult to find enough EQ to carve out a semi-smooth sounding cymbal. Any comments are welcome. In general, no... I don't think this is an accepted practice at all, and I would certainly *never* recommend it. It's bad enough when the drums as a whole are recorded separately from the main rhythm section, let alone each piece independently. I can't even imagine finding a drummer who would agree with such a suggestion. -- David Morgan (MAMS) http://www.m-a-m-s DOT com Morgan Audio Media Service Dallas, Texas (214) 662-9901 _______________________________________ http://www.artisan-recordingstudio.com |
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#5
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yup. i'm not entirely sure of the reasons people do this. i think
it's partly a sound they're going for. but for instance, i was told by someone in the band that the new ministry record has all the drums recorded this way. if i see him again, i'll ask more questions. i was in the middle of a session at the time. -tE * Tony Espinoza SF SOUNDWORKS http://sfsoundworks.com 415.503.1110 vox ---------------------------------------------------------- Featuring the only SSL 9000 in San Francisco Check out the latest article in Mix Magazine! see link at http://sfsoundworks.com David wrote: I hear in many modern-day recordings songs sounding like the drums are so isolated but not so much that they're programmed. They still sound live and all but the cymbals are so big and in your face without sounding like there's any snare in the overheads. The snare sounds different every time it hits but no cymbal bleed behind it in the centre. Overall, the drums sound like they are all live but so polished that there's no way gating or anything like that could get it to sound so punchy and seperated. My question is, could this be the result of the drummer recording the snare, kick and cymbals seperately? Such a technique makes sense to me in my head but since I've never tried it I wouldn't know how realistic the resulting sound would be. Any comments are welcome. Thanks, Dave |
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#7
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I think that much of the separation you hear in those recordings might be
the result of really good miking techniques and good engineering and mixing. The use of supercardiod microphones and noise gates helps with bleed-in when spot-miking, and good use of EQ and compression during mixing integrates everything so that each instrument is visible in the mix but the kit also works naturally as a single instrument. In other instances it's the result of triggering, where the drummer plays a real kit but what is recorded are impulses from triggers attached to those drums -- those impulses are used to trigger samples in a drum machine or in the computer. Then the overhead mics are mixed in with the triggered sounds to add the cymbals and room sound. OFten triggering is employed in addition to miking the individual drums and the triggered and acoustic sounds are blended together. This is done a lot in metal music where each drum hit is supposed to kick you in the head but it still can't sound like a drum machine. There are also some pretty impressive velocity-sensitive multisampled drum kits out there that can be sequenced -- you can get great results out of them if you know learn how to use them and how to work within the limitations of the technology. Tim "David" wrote in message m... I hear in many modern-day recordings songs sounding like the drums are so isolated but not so much that they're programmed. They still sound live and all but the cymbals are so big and in your face without sounding like there's any snare in the overheads. The snare sounds different every time it hits but no cymbal bleed behind it in the centre. Overall, the drums sound like they are all live but so polished that there's no way gating or anything like that could get it to sound so punchy and seperated. My question is, could this be the result of the drummer recording the snare, kick and cymbals seperately? Such a technique makes sense to me in my head but since I've never tried it I wouldn't know how realistic the resulting sound would be. Any comments are welcome. Thanks, Dave |
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#8
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Neil Rutman wrote:
I had a great drummer in my studio a while back and asked him to try such a technique as an experiment for both of us. He couldn't do it easily. It's like learning to play the drums all over again to some degree. An analogy might be like asking a guitar player to play a song he's intimately familiar with but only using the "d" & "g" strings for a pass. Possible but uncomfortable until you've done it for a while. Plus you are taking for granted that the drummer can do the same exact performance several times in a row, or that the different things he plays will at least be compatible musically. But, what about the idea of replacing some of the parts of the drum kit with dummies? For example, get a set of V-Drums, and then replace the drums with V-Drums, leaving the cymbals in place, and record that. Then afterwards, switch everything out so that you have V-Drum cymbals and real drums, and record that. If you want, you could even mix the V-Drum and real drum components together into headphones for the drummer, so that they can hear a whole kit. Of course, I'm not a drummer, so this idea may suck. :-) - Logan |
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#9
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Logan Shaw wrote: But, what about the idea of replacing some of the parts of the drum kit with dummies? For example, get a set of V-Drums, and then replace the drums with V-Drums, leaving the cymbals in place, and record that. Then afterwards, switch everything out so that you have V-Drum cymbals and real drums, and record that. If you want, you could even mix the V-Drum and real drum components together into headphones for the drummer, so that they can hear a whole kit. Of course, I'm not a drummer, so this idea may suck. :-) - Logan I would not want to do 2 passes, one with electronic cymbals and one with real cymbals, except as an avant-garde experiment. Talk about a massive "phase wash" sound. Even editing the 2 versions on a DAW to line up would be problematic. It would be somewhat more doable to track "drums only" in 2 passes (one electronic and one acoustic, with a cymbal pass on one of the 2 versions) and then edit the drum hits in a DAW so they all line up. It would save 90% of the time doing this exercise if the acoustic drums were played first with the acoustic cymbals, then the acoustic drums were used as triggers for the electronic drums, then do any necessary clean up or line up work in a DAW. Then blend the electronic/acoustic drums to taste. RP |
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#10
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In article , David
wrote: My question is, could this be the result of the drummer recording the snare, kick and cymbals seperately? Such a technique makes sense to me in my head but since I've never tried it I wouldn't know how realistic the resulting sound would be. Any comments are welcome. Thanks, Dave You forgot to mention the toms. Record them one at a time too? Asking a drummer to do this is like asking a singer to sing a song one note at time. "Ok, this pass just sing when it's a G." You won't make any drummer or singer friends this way ; Let the mutha bang the whole drum kit. And spend a couple years learning how to record drums. Here'a a secret from a pro for ya: if you're serious about getting great, real drum sounds and you want to record it yourself, hire a great, experienced studio drummer with a great kit. You'll be more than half way there. David Correia Celebration Sound Warren, Rhode Island www.CelebrationSound.com |
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#11
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#12
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#13
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The idea is that
at least then you feel SORT of like you're playing a kit, instead of being put in front of a bass drum and being told, "Now play the kick drum like you would if there were a whole kit here, and in a few minutes we're going to do the same thing again with just the snare, and the toms after that, and...". Believe it or not, that "play just the snare, and we'll do the high-hat next," etc. type of production was actually occuring on a regular basis in the 80's, particularly in England. If I remember correctly, a few of the Duran Duran records were made this way, and I think the producer on some of those records (the late Alex Sadkin, I think) was famous for that. His reasoning was that he wanted the cleanliness of each track, so he'd be able to treat each drum without leakage. Seems like a perfectly horrible way to make music. John |
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#14
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#15
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Kurt Riemann wrote:
Drum kits are hard to do well, but it is possible. Great drummer + great mike technique + appropriate gear = what you're looking for. As a side note, I was listening to Dave Matthews 'Crash' CD last night. That is a hell of a drum mix. Amazing. |
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#16
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In the past I have had to overdub live cymbals to a drum program and it was
about as awkward a process as I can imagine. Sit there and 'air drum' the rest of the kit. Yikes. I agree with the guys who are recommending to hire a good drummer. I just came off a project where the drummer's bad time was the least of his problems. He literally did not know how to properly hold a stick or strike a drum. What an incredible illustration of the importance of the player. In the same room, with the same kit, same mics and preamps I have recorded drums that kick ass. The only difference on this project was the drummer and boy did the project suffer. We ended up triggering kick and snare but every time I hear a hit on the hi tom, I cringe because you can hear that he's hitting the drum near the rim: DOING (and nowhere near the center of the head). I had to edit every one of his tom fills to make the hits reasonably consistent in level. On the first downbeat of EVERY chorus and verse, his kick drum hit was around 10 dB louder than the average for the other parts of the song. Good grief. At least it was good for my Digital Performer editing chops. On the other side of the fence, I've also had the opportunity to work extensively with great drummers such as Bobby Rondinelli. He's a consummate professional, and you'd have to be an idiot to mess up the sound of his drums. He knows how to tune them, he hits them consistently and plays like a mo-fo. When you have that to start with, the rest of the recording process is easy. peace Steve La Cerra |
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#17
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"Northamusi" wrote in message... On the first downbeat of EVERY chorus and verse, his kick drum hit was around 10 dB louder than the average for the other parts of the song. This is the very reason I quit playing drums some 20 years ago. I simply couldn't keep my foot out of the crash in the studio. DM |
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#18
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Regarding that "separated sound", if you're using a DAW (which most people seem to be doing nowadays), you can emphasize certain drums through clever use of fades, and ducking. |
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#19
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Regarding that "separated sound", if you're using a DAW (which most people seem to be doing nowadays), you can emphasize certain drums through clever use of fades, and ducking. |
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#20
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John wrote:
Believe it or not, that "play just the snare, and we'll do the high-hat next," etc. type of production was actually occuring on a regular basis in the 80's, particularly in England. If I remember correctly, a few of the Duran Duran records were made this way, and I think the producer on some of those records (the late Alex Sadkin, I think) was famous for that. His reasoning was that he wanted the cleanliness of each track, so he'd be able to treat each drum without leakage. Wow! I'm into 80s stuff and I'll be curious to hear actual examples of this! Any particular songs?? -- Eric (Dero) Desrochers http://homepage.mac.com/dero72 Hiroshima 45, Tchernobyl 86, Windows 95 |
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#21
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I think a lot of bands did that, I know the Eagles did it some. Henley
is no slouch. The Police, Copland doing the high hat first and then the rest of the kit, or was it the other way around. I think the hi hat first would make the most sense, he had some very incredible patterns going on. Good stuff Maynard. |
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#22
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#23
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"db" writes:
The Police, Copland doing the high hat first and then the rest of the kit, or was it the other way around. I think the hi hat first would make the most sense, he had some very incredible patterns going on. Good stuff Maynard. Come to think of it I think it was The Police I read about in that Mix, not a jazz group. |
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#24
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georgeh wrote in
: Wow! I'm into 80s stuff and I'll be curious to hear actual examples of this! Any particular songs?? I read an article about making one of the classic jazz albums from that era a few months back .... I think it was in Mix. They talked about recording the toms separately from the cymbals, separately from the snare IIRC. Sorry I can't recall more details. I remember reading an interview in Modern Drummer in the late 80's with Frankie Banali. A producer made him record each drum seperately for an album he recently recorded and was complaining about how hard it was. -- Lee "The world is basically made up of two kinds of people: assholes and ass kickers, you gotta bend over or lift your foot." - Frank Zappa |
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#25
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"MC" wrote in message ups.com... Regarding that "separated sound", if you're using a DAW (which most people seem to be doing nowadays), you can emphasize certain drums through clever use of fades, and ducking. The only thing that hits a DAW in my world, is a completed stereo mixdown. But on MIDI projects, I've been tweaking decay, attack, etc., for a loooong time. ;-) -- David Morgan (MAMS) http://www.m-a-m-s DOT com Morgan Audio Media Service Dallas, Texas (214) 662-9901 _______________________________________ http://www.artisan-recordingstudio.com |
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#26
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"georgeh" wrote in message ... "db" writes: The Police, Copland doing the high hat first and then the rest of the kit, or was it the other way around. I think the hi hat first would make the most sense, he had some very incredible patterns going on. Good stuff Maynard. Come to think of it I think it was The Police I read about in that Mix, not a jazz group. Lots of MIDI going on there, no? |
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