Recording Good Drum Tracks
A few weeks ago, I had a moment of clarity. For years, with me, there had always been a certain level of mystique when it came to recording drum tracks. The large number of knobs in any given studio environment scared me, I guess. Also, most of the engineers I had worked with chained all kinds of things together to get their signature sound. I didn't understand what the boxes they were plugging things into did, either.
This past weekend, I recorded my first drum set in a studio environment. All of the drum sounds I had been using over the past three years were either recorded by someone else or samples. There are few better teachers than experience. I learned a lot this weekend.
For one, I'm happy to learn that I'm a purist. All of those gadgets, boxes, whistles, compressors, and pre-amps that so many engineers get hung up on are quite secondary to three fundamental factors: 1) getting a good drummer who 2) plays well tuned drums in a 3) good sounding room.
The session I recorded was for my #1 client, singer/songwriter John Gillespie. The drummer was Keven Rader-Roderbaugh who also teaches drums at www.drumlabonline.com John and Kevin requested that I record them naturally; just to capture what they play live in a room together. Kevin's experience as a drum teacher fills the first fundamental criterion quite well; he's a master drummer to say the least.
What I noticed first about Kevin's kit was how great it sounded, right out of its cases. The heads were new and tuned. The cymbals were classy. The snare was probably one of the best around; I doubt I'll have the pleasure of recording a snare that sounds that great again. The kick drum was full. The second fundamental criterion was met.
The real x-factor for this session was figuring out if my drum room sounded any good. I have extremely high ceilings in my living room, so I figured that would be a good room to try first. I recently purchased some Primacoustic gobos to help dampen the sound of this room. I had great luck with acoustic guitar tracks and vocals with these gobos. It would turn out that they would also help with drums. I like a little ambiance, so I only deadened one end of the room. That way, the sound could go somewhere, but just not bounce all over the room and into the drum mics. Even before I hit record, I knew that this was going to work.
As for the technical mumbo-jumbo, I used the Audix drum mic set on all of the drums. I also used a Yamaha sub kick on the kick drum; this allows one kick drum mic to primarily be for attack and lower mids and the sub to capture stuff between 50 and 80 Hz. Kevin had three toms, so I pulled out an extra SM57 to accommodate his style. I ran all 8 of these channels into the Focusrite Octopre, which lightpipes directly into my 002 Protools rig. The only real EQing I had to do was with the kick drum...pulling out about 4 db at 300 Hz with a reasonable Q.
We were able to track 7 songs in one day. John and Kevin played very well together. I'm greatly looking forward to tracking more projects like this. It was just too much fun.
