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Basic Drum Mic Setup

Lesson 18 from: Recording Metal with Eyal Levi: A Bootcamp

Eyal Levi

Basic Drum Mic Setup

Lesson 18 from: Recording Metal with Eyal Levi: A Bootcamp

Eyal Levi

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Lesson Info

18. Basic Drum Mic Setup

Next Lesson: Cymbal Mic Setup

Lessons

Class Trailer
1

Intro to Bootcamp

13:45
2

Purpose of Pre-Production

15:55
3

Technical Side of Preproduction

11:33
4

Pre-Production: Setting Up the Tempo Map

12:05
5

Pre-Production: Importing Stems

10:11
6

Pre-Production: Click Track

15:27
7

Creating Tracking Templates

17:04
8

Intro and the Tone Pie

04:52
9

Drums - Lay of the Land

10:45
10

Bearing Edges

03:10
11

Wood Types

10:37
12

Depths and Sizes

04:00
13

Hoops

02:39
14

Sticks and Beaters

07:39
15

Drum Heads

07:31
16

Drum Tuning

1:03:55
17

Drum Mic Placement Intro

10:38
18

Basic Drum Mic Setup

53:37
19

Cymbal Mic Setup

35:25
20

Touch Up Tuning

46:56
21

Microphone Choice and Placement

40:34
22

Drum Tracking Intro

01:01
23

Getting Tones and Final Placement

34:52
24

Primary Tracking

31:54
25

Punching In and Comping Takes

20:11
26

Guitar Setup and Rhythm Tone Tracking

01:59
27

Amplifiers - Lay of the Land

10:01
28

Amplifiers & Cab Shoot Out

27:13
29

Guitar Cab Mic Choice and Placement

03:56
30

Guitar Tracking and Signal Chain

29:08
31

Finalizing Amplifier Tone

51:24
32

Guitar Mic Shootout Round Robin

05:22
33

Intro to Rhythm Tracking

07:46
34

Setting Up Guitars

15:02
35

Working with a Guitarist

05:05
36

Final Guitar Tone and Recap

04:11
37

Guitar Tracking with John

15:19
38

Guitar Tracking with Ollie

32:03
39

Final Tracking

22:08
40

Tracking Quads

33:44
41

Intro to Bass Tone

01:26
42

Bass Tone Setup

07:36
43

Bass Tone Mic Placement

16:42
44

Bass Tracking

45:09
45

Intro to Clean and Lead Tones

02:15
46

Clean Guitar Tones

34:05
47

Lead Tones

10:58
48

Vocal Setup for Tracking

11:27
49

Vocal Mic Selection and Setup

02:39
50

Vocal Mic Shootout

09:14
51

Lead Vocal Tracking

38:09
52

Writing Harmonies

07:44
53

Harmony Vocal Tracking

23:25
54

Vocal Warm Ups

11:40
55

Scream Vocal Tracking

18:57
56

Vocal Tuning and Editing Introduction

01:35
57

Vocal Tuning and Editing

29:26
58

Routing and Bussing

25:16
59

Color Coding, Labeling and Arranging Channels

17:54
60

Setting Up Parallel Compression

30:51
61

Setting Up Drum Triggers

10:41
62

Gain Staging and Trim

1:00:54
63

Drum Mixing - Subtractive EQ

25:39
64

Drum Mixing - Snare

23:01
65

Drum Mixing - Kick

11:39
66

Drum Mixing - Toms

24:47
67

Drum Mixing - Cymbals and Rooms

17:24
68

Drum Mixing Recap

08:58
69

Mixing Bass Guitar

16:27
70

Mixing Rhythm Guitars

1:16:08
71

Basic Vocal Mix

1:08:59
72

Mixing Clean and Lead Guitars

58:55
73

Mixing - Automation

43:36
74

Mastering - Interview with Joel Wanasek

31:02

Lesson Info

Basic Drum Mic Setup

We're just gonna do a quick little line check deal just to make sure that nothing's broken and everything is happy. Okay. Then we'll have Anup go in there and do it, okay? Sounds good. Okay cool. Do me a favor and just tap the kick drum mic for me. Sure. I Just wanna make sure it's working. (tapping) Are you actually tapping the microphone? Okay cool. (laughing) The reason I have him tap the mics is because if he's not actually tapping the mic sometimes it's hard to know what we're hearing because bleed into other mics, so, just a word of caution is make sure that if you have a drummer tapping the mics, that he's literally just flicking it with his finger and not possibly damaging a very expensive investment. Okay, tap snare top. (tapping) Cool. And literally all you want to be hearing is the scrape. Do it a little more? (tapping) That's it. Snare bottom. Tom one. Tom two. Okay, great. Do me a favor, just kick for a second. I just want to make sure that nothing is blowing u...

p. (drums pounding) Okay, great, let's get Anup in there. Alright, let's start with kick, please. (drums pounding) And try to hit at like more the level that you would actually be playing at. I can't hear you, what? Yeah. Yeah, hit it hard. (drums pounding) Snare, please. (drums pounding) Okay, little ringy, little hot, a little pingy. Yeah. Yeah, bring the level down a little bit. I feel like the tone itself is just a little. Yeah, there's no muffling on it right now, so it's gonna have that steel characteristic. (drums pounding) It feels a little wimpy to me. Little wimpy? Little wimpy. But, might want to just hear him play in the context of the beat. Hit the first tom. (drums pounding) That sounds pretty good, get him a little more level on it. Keep going. (drums pounding) Turn down the input. It's not bad. Might be a little on the long side. Yeah, but I mean just as an initial tone, it's. Yeah. I like the way it sounds, I do think it's a little on the long side. Floor tom, please. (drums pounding) Meow. Yeah, a little bit. Little bit. Let me just record this real quick. Hey. Okay, what I need you to do. I'm just gonna record you really quick, one second please. So yeah, just play a couple things, kick snare, kick snare and some toms and then just give me like two hits of each drum so do some filly kind of things and rock a little bit. (rock and roll drumming) Maybe a little more. Slightly faster stuff. (rock and roll drumming) Alright, then just kinda go across the drums, two hits each. (drums pounding) Cool. Thank you. Alright, so what everyone in the viewing audience noticed is that I recorded that and one thing that I do is every single time that we are somewhere in the process of getting drum tones, I capture it, just so that we can always go back to it, we always know if we're messing things up, or getting better or what, but I just like to capture it and drop a marker. What is that, what kit is up there? That's the birch bubinga kit with the steel snare. Okay. So, yeah, just call it Birch Bubinga Steel Snare One. Okay, so what I'm gonna suggest is that maybe we shorten tom one just a little. What do you think about the floor? It needs a little refinement. Do we want to, this is where we could maybe swap out the drums real quick and maybe go for, see what the other Yeah. toms have to offer. Switch out toms and snares and kinda do the same thing with these guys. Sure. See where we're at. I gotta say already that I like that kick. Okay. I mean, I went ahead and I flipped the EQ on the kick on, it's got a high shelf. And a scoop. Where's the scoop at? Like 300, 350. Yeah. Somewhere around in there. I just did that 'cause I figure that's the kind of stuff you'd do to a kick drum anyways. Anyway, yeah. Yeah, on kick drum you are gonna scoop the mids and boost the highs, so, may as well get that at the source. I like it, though. But yeah, so let's change up some drums. Okay. See what happens. Sounds good. Alright, Matt's coming in. One thing that I think should be said is that no matter what the scenario is, whether that sounded like the most perfect drums you can ever imagine or not, we would still be checking different drums, that's just what we do because it's really really hard to know where you're at without some sort of frame of reference and I know that those of you who don't have access to multiple drums won't be able to do that, but I suggest that if you only have one drum set, borrow some other drums. It's good to always check against other things, so yeah, I mean I thought those toms sounded decent. Snare, little pingy, whatever. We're just gonna check other drums that we've got going and just see what we get immediately, and who knows, maybe we'll blow this out of the water, maybe this is the best that we've got and if this is the best that we've got, then we'll keep refining this. What they're doing right now in the other room is changing drums out. (drums clanging) You guys aren't gonna mess around with these? The drums? Yeah. Not yet. Oh. (mumbling) So, one thing I noticed, I haven't fixed it yet, is it sounded like the kick drum is clipping a little bit. I think it's on the input of the pre-amp, so I am gonna fix that once we start working on kicks again. You can kinda see it in the waveforms, too. And I solo'd the kick and you can kinda hear it. (drums thudding) A little bit. The clipping. A little, juts a little. I think it's on the input of the pre. Either way, I like this kick. (drums thudding) That's a pretty good decent start. I can hear the distortion now that it's soloed. Oh yeah, and snare for sure. The snare, was there any. No, I think that's way better. As far as distortion goes. I think we're fine there. So, we have the walnut toms up with the smaller of the brass, the nickel-plated brass snare. Okay, so I'm just dropping a marker and we're gonna start listening. Hey Anup. Yep. Let's hear that snare. Alright. (drums pounding) It should be the same tuning but once again, wide open so we still haven't muffled anything. Yeah. Little bit darker. Hear a little weird. Shh, you hear that? (drums pounding) Hear how the snares trail off? Yeah, we can tighten the snares, I can get rid of that. Okay. I feel like the Doh-Var response is kinda dark, though, comparison to steel. Yeah, sounds kind of weak to me, too. Let's hear tom one. Rack tom. (drums pounding) That's the walnut? That's the walnut. That actually sustains a lot. It sure does. But it actually sounds kinda nice. But you notice how it's like attack and then the sustain is longer but it's quieter quicker. Mhm. That actually sounds kinda nice. It's interesting. Alright, floor tom. (drums thudding) I feel like, I wonder if that's distorting. Are we hearing the head warble, or the mic distort. Do you hear what I'm hearing? (drum pounding) That sounds like a mic. Think so? 'Cause there's a (humming). Yeah. (drum pounding) Here, let me pan it to here real quick. Yeah, just to check. Oh, it's the speaker. It's the speaker. Yeah. (chuckling) Hold up. Alright, I think that we should mention this, because this has happened to us before. Yes it has. On Genalex, actually, on my Genalex. So, if you're working with a low end instrument, like a floor tom or a bass drum or bass guitar and you start to hear this weird, I just call it like a sustained fart or something, like a (humming). Here, hit your floor tom again. (floor tom buzzing) Thanks. Now, I don't know if they're gonna be able to hear that on the recording because it's the speaker doing it. Right, right. Maybe they'll be able to hear it through my lapel mic or something, but if you can't hear this because what we're hearing is that basically there's just a long, low, buzz thing happening every time he hits that. That's why I panned it to the left speaker, because I've heard this before, and it ended up being a messed up speaker. When I panned it to the left, it was gone. Hit the floor tom again. (drum pounding) Yeah, it's the speaker. Ah, man, okay. Cool, thank you. I would be curious, I'm curious to hear what a different snare sounds like. I like those toms. Okay. Let's record that stuff and then we'll swap out the other guys and put 'em up. Yeah. I do think that they could be a little shorter, but I still like them. Hey. Anup? Yeah. Okay, so we're gonna do another recording just like the one we did before, so just play some stuff, mess around and then give us like two hits on each drum. Okay. (rock and roll drumming) What's that about, that's a lot of bleed. Doesn't sound right. (mumbling) Do a little more of that toms and stuff. (rock and roll drumming) Yeah, do like a tom beat. (rock and roll drumming) Could you give me a more tom-centric beat? (rock and roll drumming) Those are pretty cool. I think that's it. Hold up. I think the 12 might be a little high, maybe, but I think that's pretty cool. Do a little more? (rock and roll drumming) Okay, thanks. Alright, let's see what else we got. Okay, I'll put the birch up and then the matte black snare. Okay. So, what's up there now? The birch toms with the matte black brass snare. Anup, can you hear me? Yep. Yeah. Thank you, I'm glad. Let's hear that snare. (drum pounding) Alright, tom one. (drum pounding) Least favorite. Tom two. (drum pounding) I feel like that tuned up might have a lot of power to it. They're significantly shorter than the other toms, for sure. Yeah let's record this. I feel like this one might have a lot of like, this one could be very explosive if it was. Okay, yeah. It definitely needs some touch-up tuning for sure. Hold up. Okay, I'm gonna record you, and same deal, okay? (rock and roll drumming) Okay, thank you. You can come on in here. (rock and roll drumming) That's the first snare. (rock and roll drumming) I feel like that one was muffling. It's probably gonna be it. It's gonna be the one. It bites, yeah. Here's the second snare. (rock and roll drumming) It's kinda weak. Definitely mellower, for sure. (rock and roll drumming) And then here's a third snare. (rock and roll drumming) This is something good to point out. I tuned all of the top heads the same. So all of those top heads, when you set 'em side by side, and put 'em on the ground, they're all the same pitch. But this is to show you what different shells and different depths do to pitch of a drum. On those snare drums. I'm gonna do something real quick to adjust the display. The difference is I'm grabbing one hit of each drum, 'cause we don't have a snare. By itself. By itself. Let's just see. I'm gonna put them back to back to back so we can hear the differences. So yeah, this is all same levels, same mic positions, same head type, same pitch. There's one difference. The matte black snare has an Emperor on it, but all the pitches are tuned to the same. That drum could be brightened up with the Ambassador X if we choose to go that route. For the body of it. (drum pounding) Yeah, you can hear the difference. (drum pounding) I don't like that last one. (drum pounding) Alright, that's not how we're gonna get a snare sound, I just wanted to hear the. The difference in the tuning. (drum pounding) I feel like when he's playing, that first one, I really do think that that one is the best out of three, however the last one probably a different head might make a big difference, what do you think? Maybe, we also have the other set of snares that if we wan to change those out and make any one of them snare-ier, possibly add a little bit more low end to it, because of that as well. We want to do that with the steel? Yeah. Okay. I almost feel like let's see how good we can get this steel. Okay. Do you have an opinion, Anup? I actually like the first and third one. Okay, so. Alright, so my favorite's the first, you like the first and third. You kinda. I was leaning toward the first anyway. First one the most. Okay, so we're all on the same page. Let me, just for the sake of doing this thoroughly, why don't we change something about the third one. Maybe the snares, maybe a head, something. I'll change the head out to the same head as the other two. Okay, and maybe yeah the wider snares on the first snare. On the steel, okay. Okay, let's check the toms real quick. Gonna mute stuff. (drums pounding) Not bad. Birch babinga. I guess, we don't have you just doing Dum-Dum Dum-Dum. Yeah. That might be. (drums pounding) I mean, that sounds really good too. That's the walnut. Let me hear what the birch bubinga sounds like while he's playing. (drums pounding) That's walnut. (drums pounding) I'm gonna say that I really don't like that birch 12 inch. Mkay. Do you like it? They all sound good to me, it's just a matter. I think the walnut definitely punches more. That's why I like this birch one, it's like, it has a Woob-Woob. It's this weird. It's more tone. Yeah. It's more tone, shorter. Not enough attack. Yeah, but I though the floor tom was decent. (drums pounding) But compared to the other floor toms. (drums pounding) It doesn't sound that different than the walnut. It's a little bit more scooped sounding. Definitely more scooped than the birch bubinga. The birch Babinga has the most mid-range to it. Uh-huh. I kinda like the walnut toms. The walnut rack tom? What do you think, Anup? I think all of them sound good, I think it's just a matter of preference. (drums pounding) I feel like that could be turned into something really cool. (drums pounding) What about, grab a hit of the walnut rack tom and a hit of the birch floor tom and let's put those next to each other and see if those actually sound like they're in the same family, 'cause that might be the combo. Sorry, I probly should have played more consistent grooves for each one. Yeah man, you should have. You should have. (laughing) Just kidding. What, so you want walnut rack. Walnut rack and then the birch floor. Okay. Let's just see what they sound like when you put 'em together. Alright. (drums pounding) I think they sound pretty cool together, but what do I know. (drums pounding) Yeah, they're not too far apart. It sounds like the walnut has a little bit more meat to it than the birch one does. It does. Alright, let's see what the walnut floor tom sounds like back to back with the other one. I'm surprised, I've never really done anything with walnut before. Except for eat 'em. Yeah. I like those. They're good. (drums pounding) Can you scoot it over some? No chance. Please? Okay. See, you just gotta ask nicely. This is walnut. I mean, walnut is here. Birch and then walnut. Yeah, birch then walnut. (drums pounding) There's more meat in the walnut for sure, it's not as scooped as the birch is. I like the walnut. I could always scoop it if I need to. Right right, it's better to have more of it there than to have to add it. Yeah, I'm really impressed with those walnut toms. Yeah, they sound great. Okay, so alright. Let's do that stuff to the snares that we were discussing. Okay, put the walnuts back up. Put the walnuts back up. Do we want to try the 24 inch kick drum, too, and see. Sure. Okay. May as well. I like this kick, though, but I like how tight it is, I feel like it's gonna be really EQ-able, really workable. (drums pounding) And we haven't even really messed with the placement of the mic or anything. Yeah, there's still a lot to do with it. I mean, sure, let's hear the 24 just, but I feel like it might be, it might be too much. Okay. Well, let's switch 'em out real quick. So yeah, this is what we do. But, times a lot more. When we're actually making a record, we'll do this sometimes for days on end with multiple drum kits and just keep going 'til it's perfect. This is a condensed version, but I still think that we're gonna end up with a really good drum sound, 'cause they already sound really good right out the gate. (drill whirring) We'll put this up there and let me just switch out the wires on this guy right here. (mumbling) Okay. (mumbling) Play something now? You know, this might seem like some real 101 stuff, but we do have a snare bottom mic, which is pointing up at the snare, and we also have a snare top mic which is pointing down at the snare and so clearly the phase is gonna be coming in at opposite on those and a lot of you guys do that on plug ins, flip the phase, but I like to just do it on the hardware on the way in, if at all possible, if the pre-amps I'm using have a phase flip, polarity flip, I'll just use it so that I don't ever have to worry about it again and so as you can see, snare top and bottom are in phase. Now, one thing you should also keep in mind, that it is okay if the snare bottom comes in a little bit behind the snare top, that's normal. (drum pounding) (tapping) Where are we at? 24 inch kick, walnut toms and the matte black snare with the new head on it. 24 inch kick, walnut toms, and the matte black snare. Mhm. Okay. Okay, so you put the same head as all the other ones. Yeah. Just so we see what's going on. Yup. Okay, cool. You good to go? Yeah. So, how 'bout this, before you forget. Why don't you start this one by giving me two hits of each and then play some beats and now you know kinda what beats we need. Cool. But give me a second to start recording, 'cause there's a little bit of a process I gotta go through. Okay. Okay. I'll tell you when. Rolling. (drums pounding) Those are the toms, right? Sustained. Yeah. (drums pounding) Play some beats. (rock and roll drumming) It sounds like the kick drum's pushing the pre-amp a little bit. It is. Play a little more. (rock and roll drumming) I need to switch pre-amps. This is the one that's. The pre-amp gate is. All the way down. Well, it's when this knob. We might need to switch to this API. Hey, Anup. Yep. I'm gonna need you to do literally the same thing you just did. Give me two of each and then play some beats and maybe try to make them a little steadier. Okay. Give me a second just to get the recording going. Okay. Okay. (drums pounding) Yeah that's better. (drums pounding) I like the way the toms are like here and then gone but they're still resonating underneath, that's cool. Yeah. (rock and roll drumming) Okay, thanks. Alright, man. Switch out the kick drums and the snare drums? Let's listen to this kick real quick. (drum pounding) It's a very different sounding kick. Yeah. Very different sounding. Has a lot to do with the head and the hole in the front of the head and the size of the drum. I think we're gonna get more awesomeness out of the 22, it sounds like. But, man, I feel like that snare's just kinda. I don't know. It's got a lot of ring, though, we gotta get rid of. That's true, but I just feel like the first snare. What's the attack like on it, though, versus the first one? And I put the bigger snares on the first one so we'll get a little bit more. (drums pounding) Yeah, the attack's better on that one. That's the first snare. Here's the. (drums pounding) This has more body, but the other one has more attack. It does. Why can't we just use them both at the same time? (chuckling) Well, the snares on the first one will actually add a little bit more body to 'em because they're wider, they give that little low end effect on 'em. Okay, let's check that out. 22 inch kick and the steel snare. Yeah. Okay. Did you already change the wires on 'em? I already changed the wires, yeah. And those toms are sick. Cool. Okay, cool. Alright, we're gonna go back to the 22. Awesome. And the steel snare. It's actually sounding a little bit lower because of the hole placement and I don't know, there's just, you know, every drum's different. That was the most least graceful way to take it out of there. (laughing) There we go. How many strands is this? 30. Cool. Go for it. (drums pounding) Wow, that kick's a lot louder. Yeah. (drums pounding) (rock and roll drumming) Hold up. What were you saying? I think we're able to, with the snare, keep the attack but give it some more body. Yeah. It's a little pingy, but I feel like with muting. Yeah, with a little bit of moon gel we can dial that in for sure. Yeah. Let's hear some more. Hey, give me some more but like slam it and maybe play like a metal beat or something, like something intense, like heavy. (heavy rock drumming) Thank you. You can come on in. Maybe it's the I-5 too. There's always that. Yeah, we could switch out the mic. Yeah. 'Cause I feel like the snare sounds dinky, but I know that the snare sounds good, you know what I mean? Right. But I feel like there's a dinky kind of quality to it. It's fixable. Let's hear that. That was distorting. Nope. You should check that kick drum head, by the way. Hm? You should check that kick drum head, too. Is it loosened up? It's starting to. Dent a little bit? Dent a little bit. Already? Yeah, well we didn't put any patches on it. So we need to do that. I think this is the one we should use. I mean, listen to the difference. (drum pounding) That's the 22. (drum pounding) They're both good, what do you think? The patch is definitely gonna change the sound of the 22 a little bit. The 22's gonna cut more. 22 has a little bit more. That sounds a lot tighter, too. Yeah. Yeah. Let's do what we can to save it. Okay. I know it's gonna change the tone, but otherwise it's gonna get destroyed, so we have no choice here. Right, right, right. Snare, let's check this out. This is with a 30 strand on the steel. Yes. The first beats weren't. What's that? The first two hits weren't good rim shots, which is why I did. There you go. (drum pounding) Do you at all feel like maybe the snare could be a little lower? Or maybe it's just the muffling. We could, I mean, I think we need to muffle it first. Okay. I think that ring is leaning towards the higher side. And the rooms, there's a lot more low end in that room that we're not hearing through those mics. Mhm, true. (drum pounding) Those are winners. (drum pounding) Yeah. Yeah. They sound great. Okay, so let's-- Patch the kick, want to change out the snare mic? Um, the thing is, not yet. For the muffle. I don't want to change out the snare mic yet 'cause I want to, just for consistency reasons. Let's just see if muffling helps. Okay. And if it still sounds dinky, we'll change the snare mic and attack it that way. Okay. I just want to see if it's the ring that's throwing me off. Right, okay. Okay cool. Let's do that. But hey, it's sounding great. Yeah, so far. Those toms are great. You cool? Yeah man. I definitely prefer that 22 over the 24. Yeah it sounds a lot better. That's also coming from a feel thing, too, when I'm actually playing the kit. Mhm. Well, good. It just sounds tighter. 'Cause I like it better, too. Yeah okay, cool. Generally I like to wait until we see how hard the drummer hits to put on the patches, 'cause they do change the sound, so we're hoping it doesn't change it too much. Go ahead and put these pedals down. There we go. Alright, and the other thing we're doing is we're going to take some of the ring out of the snare. First thing, let me make sure the tuning's good. (tapping drum) Alright, and then we're gonna take some of the ring out. You don't have to use a full thing of moon gel. As a matter of fact, I like to approach the muffling scheme from the idea of symmetrically muffling the snare. What I do is I take one of these full moon gel's here, and I like to cut them up into eighths, usually. We have much more control over how much muffling we're putting on each drum. What I generally like to do is start with one eighth of these and I'll put it right over near the microphone about an inch in and see where it leads us with the snare drum sound. (drum pounding) Already cut out quite a bit of ring. (drum pounding) Cut it down quite significantly. Then I'll go across the head and do the same thing with another piece. (drum pounding) And with two little tiny pieces, we've already gotten all the ring out of the drum. The cool thing about this is we have a lot more little pieces that we can distribute if necessary, plus if we want more ring, all we have to do is move these back. With muffling, on moon gel type things, the closer to the edge you are, the less overtone it's gonna take out. Moving these back to where they're about, let's say about a half inch off of the rim. (drum pounding) There's still some ring in there. Move 'em in to about an inch and a half inside and (drum pounding). Ring is almost gone completely. We could either continue moving these in, but with these large sticks I'd be afraid of actually hitting the sticks, so what I'm gonna do, move these back towards the edge a little bit, and instead add two more pieces. Symmetrically, dividing the head into even parts. Now we have four little tiny pieces, still only a half a moon gel on the drum. (drum pounding) And I've gotten rid of all the ring right there with just little tiny pieces. I could essentially do the same thing with one piece if I wanted to, but it would have to be pretty far in the drum. (drum pounding) Almost all of it's gone with just this little tiny piece so it's not about how much you use. As a matter of fact, you should try to use as little muffling as possible at all times because what you're doing with these moon gel type muffling things is you're creating a thicker head and when you create a thicker head, it's going to move slower, which can get rid of some of your attacks and transients that are involved with most drums. The least amount of muffling possible is the best way to go. (drum pounding) Right there, four little pieces, I think that should do it. I'll save this in here, just for the toms, if we want to shorten some of the toms later, but AL seems to be liking where they're at now. You just added some moon gel? Yeah, and I told the concept of what I do with the moon gels and using smaller pieces symmetrically across the drum. I thought you were gonna do that, cool. Yeah, there's only four little tiny pieces on that drum, and it's completely wiped out with overtones. (drum pounding) So this is the 22 steel. Same configuration, just with moon gels. Walnut with moon gel. (rock and roll drums) Yo. Anup. Hey. I'm gonna start recording you in a second. Rolling. (rock and roll drumming) That's better. Still, the snare mic feels a little bit dull. doesn't it? Yeah. Hold up a second. Yeah, and it's not just dull, but it's like dinky. Yeah. Do you think that it's a snare mic issue? Yeah, let's try the snare mic, I think we might be. The mic is a little bit further into the drum right now than sometimes, too so maybe we should move it back a little bit first? Yeah. Okay. How far in is it? It's about that far into the head. Oh, oh yeah. So we could move it back to the edge. Absolutely. Okay. Absolutely, yeah. Yeah, so basically the further into the center of a drum that you have the microphone, the more you're gonna get just a mid-range thwack of the stick. You're gonna get a lot less overtones and a lot less of the shell, and so it can tend to sound dinky. I didn't realize that the microphone was that far in over the drum. So we're gonna move it back and hopefully that'll give us a little bit more of what we're going for. (drum pounding) Thank you. I think it might be better, but not great. Not drastically different. (drum pounding) That's before. So we lost some of that proximity effect. Yeah we did. Alright, let's change mics. Do you think that the tuning, is it the right pitch? Um, I'd have to hear it with a track in order to really judge that. Okay. Is it feeling a little high to you? Yeah, I think so, but let's change the mic, see what happens. You want to try the M-80? Yeah. Okay, I'm muting that. The M-80 is right there next to the window. Got it, I see it. Okay. I'll put this down closer to the first position. Which was somewhere I thought around where it was before. Looks close. Probly like there, huh? Okay. Alright, so you just put the M-80 on the snare. Yeah, and I put it closer to the first position so we could get some of that proximity effect back. Okay, cool. This mic rejects quite a bit of proximity effect, so it might be just a little clearer. I hate that I can't hit three. Like, we've got to solve that before we start tracking. Command space bar? That too. Let's hear the snare. (drum pounding) I think I need to give it a little more level. Little level. Yeah, that's better. Yeah. Got a nice attack to it. Hey. Hold up. You know what I think might be a good idea? Might be a good idea for us to set up a couple of overheads and put some cymbals on there. Mhm. So we can start hearing what the snare would sound like in context of. Overheads two. Okay. And then that way we can start to get more detailed with miking of the actual drum set and the cymbals as well. Okay, perfect. I almost feel like without getting an overhead picture of the snare, we might be running in circles. I kind of like this better, but I also am not totally in love with the snare yet. But that's a lot better, I mean. That's why I want to hear it. Yeah, we definitely need more of a room type sound, because out there it sounds completely different and I know there's a lot of body that we can capture that we're not. Yeah. There's a lot more stuff. As far as toms go, length, are we good on the length of toms? Do I need to shorten any? Good question, let's have him play a few more. Hey, I'm gonna just need you to play some toms in one second. Go for it. (drums pounding) Yeah. Play some fast fills. (drums pounding) Thank you. Thanks. A little bit. A little bit shorter on both? Yeah, but just a little bit. Mostly the floor tom though, probly, huh? Yeah yeah yeah, for sure. (drums pounding) Okay. Very little though, I mean this is pretty good. (drums pounding) Okay, perfect. Both of them, though. Just a hair. Yeah, just a hair. Okay. So, we're gonna reduce the length of the sustain on the toms, which is super easy. This is why I kept these little pieces from before. We can always go in to make the snare drum a little bit drier if need be, but we need to reduce the length of the tom on their own in just a little bit. We're gonna use just a couple little tiny pieces here. We're gonna go underneath about an inch from the edge on both sides here, with both little tiny pieces. And then, (drum pounding) yeah perfect. And then on the bottom, on the floor tom, same thing except we're gonna go probly about two inches in on the floor tom because we want a little bit. The floor tom is ringing more than the other tom is. Go in about two inches on that drum just a little bit to get it to calm down. (drum pounding) That might be too far. Back off just a hair. Let's try that. (drum pounding) Alright, now I'm gonna just touch up the tuning one more time. (drum tapping) (drum pounding) (drum tapping) (drum pounding) Cool, let's see what that sounds like. And then we're off to the overheads. So what did you do? Two eighth inch piece, or eighth of a moon gels on each tom. Rack tom was about a half an inch to an inch inside across the heads and then the floor tom was about an inch and a half in from each side. So moon gels on the bottom of the toms. Okay, cool. (rock and roll drumming) Hold up. Do you think that some attack might be gone from the floor? I don't know, let's hear it. (drums pounding) [Engineer] That's before. (drums pounding) No, it's still there. Sounds good. (drums pounding) Okay, I'll go in there with you, let's set up some overhead mics and start get some cymbals on there and start seeing how we can lengthen these drums and start hearing some more stuff. Okay. Unless if you think there's anything else to do. I almost feel like at this point. It's been too easy? (laughing) It's been too easy and we're just gonna be spinning wheels if we don't just do that. Yeah, we need to get some other mics up for sure. Okay, alright. Cool. Cool. We're gonna add overhead mics. Okay, cool. We're not gonna do the cymbals, like the tones, just quite yet, but put them up so that we can position some microphones. Get some levels and stuff. Yeah, and we also just want to hear what the overhead mics are gonna do to the drums. Because they sound really good, but for instance the snare sounds very short. Matt was telling me that this room is giving the snare a lot of low end. I kind of want to see what's gonna happen. Cool, alright.

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Ratings and Reviews

Ron
 

I'm on lesson 19! Already worth every dollar!!! Priceless insight! I have already incorporated some of the ideas (preproduction common sense stuff that I never thought of, but damn). VERY HAPPY with this course! ALWAYS LEARNING and looking forward to the next 50 (or whatever) lessons!!! Excellent course! GREAT PRODUCER/ENGINEER, GREAT DRUM TECH, and GREAT BAND!!!! THANK YOU!!!!!!!!

ceeleeme
 

I'm just part way though and I'm blown away by the quality approach Eyal takes to getting the best out of the sessions. I love how well everything is explained and Eyals calm manner is just awesome it really makes you want to listen to the gems of wisdom he offers.

user-eb82bd
 

Amazing knowledge is being presented here. If you want to start out recording, this should be your first step, it'll save you lots of time and get you awesome results. Highly recommended class.

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