Rule #1. There are no rules.
Where have I heard that before? (Check Secrets
of Mixing.) But consider that the source of the sound is
even more
important than the kind of mic you use.
So even though great mics are helpful (and top-notch mic cables too),
you can make a super recording even if you don't have the most
expensive mics in town. If Bruce Swedien can use an SM57 on Michael
Jackson (ref: an old R/E/P or Mix article), we know it's about tone
matched with talent, not a name brand. Bruce has over 30 years of
experience, and knows his monitors, so there is great depth behind his
selection of microphones and any processing (or lack of processing) he
uses. Once I bought some cheap AKG condenser mics that years later
brought a hefty asking price because they sounded sweeter than 451's,
so consider keeping around any mic that's in good shape.
Let's
start
on drums. I'm not going
to go over the obvious stuff like the closer the mic is to the drum,
the less cymbal leakage you'll get. I'd rather give you the insider
stuff like Secret #1: The secret to a
great drum sound is a great sounding drum. Either you or the
drummer should know the ropes about tuning drums.
Here's what you can try: use new heads, preferably
Ambassadors or Pin Stripe heads. Do not use those black DOT things! If
the
only drum heads you can get within 400 miles are dots, carefully take a
straight edge razor (I know... I come from the times of analog tape
splicing) and slip the blade under the dot and carefully peel it off
the
heads. Who thought of dots anyway? They mute the very part of the head
that contains the most fundamental tones of the drum!
Next, put the drum on the floor and carefully stand on the head. Yes,
you heard right. Assuming you have tightened down the head reasonably,
you must stress the heads so that it won't stretch out when you're
playing in the session and lose the tension that determines the tone.
You'll hear a
kind of cracking sound when you step on the head. That's normal. I'm
also assuming you don't weigh 300 lbs. and you know that the drum isn't
a trampoline. Less stretching is needed on the bottom heads.
Tighten the head some more, and stand on it again, carefully. Bounce a
little just to exercise it. Now, put it on the kit, and tune each lug
tapping with a stick by the lug you're tuning. Get them all to have the
same pitch, higher than you ultimately want it. After getting them all
the same pitch, de-tune one lug a lot, hitting the drum repeatedly in
the center while you're listening to the pitch. You'll start to notice
less of a 'boing' and more of a 'Kthummn' sound. If it doesn't quite
work
at first, tune that lug up and try de-tuning a different lug.
Generally, pick a lug that isn't exactly where the mic will be. Some
detuning of the bottom head (2 heads is better than one...except for
the kic drum) can be cool, and generally the pitch of the bottom head
should be higher than the top head...but...experiment. (I'm not a fan
of small holes in the front of kic drums. I'd rather remove the front
head than deal with a 2" hole to put a mic.)
Next, get some duct tape, and take a six-inch piece and curl it into a
sticky-side-out donut. Stick the donut on the head about one inch or
less from the rim, trying different places while hitting the drum. You
may not even need padding like this, but often it helps. Floor toms
sometimes need more padding (particularly on the bottom), like a small
amount of cloth taped
directly on the drum. Try to use the least amount of padding possible.
Snare drums are different in that you don't want to de-tune your lug a
lot, and the two lugs surrounding the actual snare wires should be
tuned higher than the other lugs on the bottom. Much of the snare tone
(particularly the fundamental low component) depends on how loose or
tight the snares are, so invest in a good set of them. Padding helps
sometimes, and if one pad (or donut) doesn't do the trick, add another
one. No padding on the bottom head of the snare.
Don't use those big foam tires to stick on the inside of the kic drum
head. Just add a small or mid-sized pillow pressed up against the
bottom quarter of the inside head and add weight to hold it down firmly.
Weren't
we
talking about
mics? Yep.
Secret
#2: The
drummer is more in charge of mixing the drum sound than you are. In
other words, if he/she hits the cymbals super hard and the toms super
soft, guess what? You'll have a nightmare on your hands trying to get
the toms to sound big and the kind of mic won't be that significant.
The drummer literally should think of the attack volume applied to each
instrument (like cymbal, hat, snare, kic) like a separate channel of a
mixer. Physically raise the cymbals as high as comfortably
possible,
and hit the toms hard. Easy on the hi-hat.
Tip: Sounds that are mixed
(acoustically or electronically) are RELATIVE TO EACH OTHER. Hitting a
cymbal softer gets the same result as hitting a drum harder in the
context of the whole kit. So if the toms aren't sounding loud enough, hit the cymbals softer - particularly the
crashes.
The "Teeter-Totter" principle is always at work here. The louder one
thing is, the softer something else will appear - so again - the softer
you play the cymbals, the louder your drums will sound. Extra bonus:
live sound engineers will love you when you apply this technique!
Trick: You must be good at Zen. That
is, to hit the cymbal softer and still have ATTITUDE and EMOTION takes
experience and discipline. The best drummers in the world can hit a
cymbal softly and love it and produce intensity just as much as if they
hit it like a home run. If all else fails, don't hesitate to put duct
tape on the cymbals to mute them a bit. I know. They won't sound as
pure, but the toms, kic, and snare will almost magically come forward
in the blend.
Ahem. Back to the mics.
Secret
#3: Measure the distance from
the center of the snare to the capsule of the left overhead mic, and
then match the distance to the capsule of the right overhead mic.
Chances are it won't look even, but the sound of the snare will be in
phase in the overheads and the snare will have much more punch and
clarity. <>
Secret #4: What mics
to use?
SM57's are great for snare and toms (MD 421's are fatter in size and
sound), any good condensers work for overheads, and large-diaphram
dynamic mics are great for kic (EV, Shure, Sennheiser, etc.). CHECK IN
MONO to be sure stuff is in phase! Then add hi's at around 12K, cut
(peak mid-band) at around 400hz, and add bottom between 60hz - 120 Hz
(peaking or shelving, whichever is fat but not whoofy) to the toms.
Gate the toms slightly to taste.
Bonus
multitrack analog tape tip archive: When using
analog tape, bounce the toms
to separate tracks. Then spot-erase all of the cymbal/kit leakage,
leaving only the toms on the new tracks. If you've never spot erased
before on multitrack analog, practice on something expendable first, or
just be prepared to re-bounce those duplicate tom tracks. Spot erasing
is when you take the tape out from the capstan and pinch roller, set
the tape 1/2" in front of the tom attack, hold the reels, press
play/record on the duplicate tracks and then pull the tape backwards,
thereby erasing in front of the signal. After a couple feet of erasure,
press stop and rethread the tape. Now you have a large punch-out window
so you can erase the rest of the leakage in between the other tom hits.
You can also mult (DAW term: copy) the toms in mixdown and skilfully
turn them on/off using
(automated or non-automated) mutes... and you can even get pickier with
the eq on those channels.
Back to
DAW tips: More
commonly when using a digital
workstation like Pro Tools or Digital Performer, using volume
automation or hard cut waveform splices, edit the leakage in
between the tom-tom notes. Try leaving 50% of the leakage in before
cutting it out completely. Some leakage can give character to the tone
of the drum kit. There's no hard-fast rule here because every drum
sound is different for different songs.
Secret
#5: Experiment. Put up more mics than you're
actually going to use (easier to do, of course, if you have a console).
Start to take note of what mics sound better up close, far away, etc.
Room sound can be your
friend, even when you're going for a cool retro drum-booth-room
thing. I used to think that my small-ish drum booth was funky
compared with a massive live room. Years later I heard some old tracks
and man, that tiny room sounded great! It wasn't ideal for everything,
but you'll be surprised when something "less than perfect" gives you
character and personality to the sound.
Wild kic drum mic
technique: I liked using a Sennheiser 441 deep in toward the
center of
a kic drum, while at the same time I used an SM7 (large diaphragm
dynamic) back about 9 inches and off-center about 6 to 8 inches. I then
put the SM7 out of phase on the console and summed both mics to one
track. The odd phase characteristic created a dip in the mid-bottom and
a boost in the presence area. This came about by using Rule #1 (see
above) and gave me a more unique sound. Sometimes a parametric eq helps
find a sweet spot for the lows too<>.
Added idea from Jeremy
who wrote: "I just bought some Direct Sound Extreme Isolation
Headphones and use them to monitor the drum sound, while moving the
mic around until I find the sweet spot. I've done this for all the drum
mics, and the guitar amp mic."
JV:
sounds good!
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More on mics: Some mics sound
fatter than others, like a Sennheiser 421 is fatter sounding than an
SM57. If your guitar cabinet has 4 speakers - put a dynamic right up to
the
grille facing into the mid portion of the speaker, not the very center.
The
warmth comes from the larger surface area of the speaker and the highs
come from the center. Put another
mic about a foot away from a different speaker, again, a little
off-axis to the cone. Put another mic about 4 feet back from the
cabinet.
Now,
borrow 7 mics from your buds and put them anywhere you can
imagine around the speaker, in the room, etc.
Once I had miked two amps side by side, and after one amp got
taken away, I pulled up the mic that was left miking the air next to
the remaining amp. Guess what? It sounded very cool, and I've used that
trick many times. If you can, get another cabinet with an open back. A
couple mics around the back, close, far, you name it, sounds cool and
adds fatness (more lows come off the back of the speaker). In a word,
experiment. Sum the mics to a stereo pair of tracks. Change the
phase... be creative.
Q: John--I'm using two
SM81s in a 20'x15'
room (10' ceiling), fairly well acoustically treated, What is your
preferred method of overhead drum miking? -Pete
This is somewhat hard to describe, since every set is a bit different,
and some music calls for closer miking, and sometimes distance is cool.
Generally, I set the overhead left (as the drummer sees it) 3-4 ft.
above the snare, sort of aimed between the hat and left cymbal. The
right side about the same height (measure capsules so they're the same
distance from the snare) aimed between the ride and outside crash. I
angle the mics out slightly for more separation.
Have the drummer set the cymbals as high as comfortably possible, and
play them easily, unless you're doing thrash rock. As a general rule,
imagine that the mic "sees" whatever it's pointed at (in cardioid), and
just try to look at what it's going to pick up. Listen to the overheads
soloed in mono and the whole kit in mono, and if the sound changes to
much, or gets a mid range tone in mono, then there's phase problems.
Aim the mics further away from each other, or separate them more.
I have almost never
needed a hi hat mic using this set-up. Go closer in
to get more pinpoint accuracy and up close sound, back away for more
ambient sound. A room mic or two blended in slightly can be nice, but a
lot of variables go with that.
Old school
analog tape tip: Put the toms in stereo on tracks 1
& 2 (I know, it's not the popular thing), the kic on 3, snare on 4,
overheads on 5 & 6. Why? When you think about it, the least stable
track on 2" tape is #24, the next least stable track is 1, because they
are edge tracks. Given that the kick is one of the most important
elements of the mix, I think it stands to reason that it should get a
more stable track. The toms are only hit on occasion so the stability
isn't as big a concern.
On ADAT, same thing. the edge tracks are less stable, but the symptom
is drop outs and glitches, not fading in-and-out high end (like analog).
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I
could have
all the gear in the world
and never could
achieve such a full sound...until I followed these tips! I was blown
away at the difference it made! The drummer just stared at me with the
slack lug trick. But when he checked the playback, he was
flabbergasted!! Thanks again for all you help....you brought me to the
next level." -Cory
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Q: I am having problems getting a good
guitar tone. I am using an Ada-mp1 guitar preamp; DigiTech 2101 effects
unit in a Marshall cab... I use AKG and Peavey mics into a Mackie
mixer. I go into my computer and use Free Filter to apply more eq, and
I can always use the speaker simulator (though I find the tone the
simulator lacks a lot of ambience). The tone sounds very processed,
muddy and thin. Any suggestions? -Gerry
I come
from the old school - Vintage Strat through a Marshall amp on 10
with a Fuzz Face. Less is more will help in this case - and I hope the
Ada is a tube amp. Remember that part of an awesome rock guitar sound
can come from the sheer volume level (and well-picked overdrive
settings, either amp or pedal based), and this gives a sense of
hugeness that you won't feel when you're listening through small
powered studio speakers.
If
you're
used to a big guitar sound, it may help to get some bigger
Tannoy, JBL or Adam monitors (preferably with a sub on both sides) so
it feels more similar. Better yet, go to an
audiophile stereo store and get some really accurate large-scale
speakers and high-end power amp (more here) using great speaker
cables.
Put the speakers a foot or so from the wall (or in the corners) and
move your console back about 4-8 feet so that the low end has a chance
to develop in the room. Put your favorite CDs on and move the speakers
around adding low end traps to the room and some diffusers so that your
CDs all sound good (along with the natural differences each one will
exhibit).
Powered
speakers also have a disadvantage that the amp is inside the
speaker box where the electronics are getting vibrated all to shitake
mushrooms. This blurs the image and tightness of the low end. I know.
Buying a new monitor system may not be appropriate for your budget
right now. Don't you just love it when someone has a costly answer to
your question? ...here's more help:
Some
newer
guitar amp emulation devices (the Pod) are really cool, and
just plugging in direct from one of those could help. But to get that
sound of a real speaker cranked, think mics.
As
far as
the computer filters to simulate amp settings, let me go
back... '54 Strat into a tube Marshall on 10 with a Fuzz Face.... Save
the computer for a last resort - concentrate on the source first. Why
simulate a speaker when you own one? Or rent some good mics and pre's
for that all important big-name session.
Gear
marketing tells you we can have a great studio in your bedroom.
The truth is great sound comes from the player, the experienced
engineer, and then the gear. You can get a great sound anywhere if you
take the time to work on it. Just remember that most hit records/cds
are engineered by people who have spent years working on getting that
sound, and going through all the frustration that goes along with that
process. If you want that sound, you may have to go through that time
and frustration. If you allow for that ahead of time, it won't be as
frustrating.
Helpful: Many
engineers say
"Less is more." and it's true in many cases. When I worked with Mark
Kendall from Great White, 70% of the time we spent getting guitar
sounds was spent at the amp. So before you even look at the computer
filters and the digiwiz effects boxes, really listen to the source.
How can I get a more fuller, alive sound
when miking my alto sax? -Ed
Use
some
nice warm sounding mic pre's, and mic from the front and from
the right side of the sax (player's perspective). Try a dynamic in
front about 6 inches or more away from the bell, and a warm condenser
facing the side about 6 to 10 inches away. Blend the two sounds and
compress if needed. I'd avoid effects processors till mix time, and if
possible use really good mic cables.
Also helpful: check
to be sure you cables all
have correct
polarity (no wires switching from positive to negative aka. XLR pin two
with XLR pin 3). Here's a helpful web page from Rane on correct cable
connector wiring techniques.
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