Ok firstly let me just say thanks to anyone if they read this, furthermore if they can offer any help at all or suggestions no matter what they are. Secondly I realize this topic has been covered a lot before and I have done a bit of reading up and I know exactly how I would attack this if I had all the right gear and ideal conditions. But I am working with the limited recourse's available with me and I believe the gear we have should be capable of getting the results we are after. I am using my laptop; A HP Pavilion DV5. I have a mackie mixing desk with 4 channel xlr with phantom power. We have the following mic's: 1 Shure SM57, 1 Shure SM58, 2 x Sennheiser mic's (from I think the 800 range), 1 'stagg' condenser mic. I will take a line out from the 'tape out' on the board into the line in on the laptop. I will turn on the monitoring option on the track within reaper so I can monitor though good quality headphones. We are a bluesy rock band not chasing record deals or anything. We just want a good tight sold demo, 3 tracks to put on a myspace page or make a CD to give to pubs etc to get gig's with.
Not sure which Sennheisers you have, I would put the 57 on the kick, 58 on the snare and the two sennheisers as overheads, one left above the cymbals, one right above the cymbals, both pointing at the snare.
If the Senns are dynamic 'vocal' mics, I would use the condenser for the cymbals, placing it over your (drummer's) head, pointing at the rack toms. 57 on snare, 58 inside kick, and one of the Senns on the floor tom(s). This would force your kit into mono, but give you more toms than Dazza's suggestion. If stereo overheads are more important than toms, though, go with his idea.
What kind of drum sound are you trying to achieve? When I hear "bluesy rock" I think about an airy, room-oriented sound. So, I may not even close-mic the bass drum. Perhaps put the condenser mic 6-12 ft back from the drums (roughly 2-4 ft off the ground) pointed at the kick and snare. MAYBE, I would close-mic the snare with the 57 and use one of the Sennheisers as an overhead. That would give you a concise, mono drum sound that would be very easy to mix.
Ok some goodi deas there guys nice one. Il try them out. So for a fairly tight drummer with limited experience of recording what would be some good suggestions to get some good solid tight drum tracks down as a solid base for the other guys to record theyre parts on top of? My idea is to record a track of the song being sung by the singer perhaps with him siging to a click. I would then record a few takes of the track and use the best fills and the tightest sections and discard the bad bits copying and pasting to create a good take. This would be possible as the guide track is recorded on the click.The other option is to just record without a click and go for a more natural feel. I guess I could still re record sections or fills which didnt sound good and paste them im. What are my options and what would people suggest? Thanks a lot.
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My method would depend on how comfortable the drummer is with playing to a click. WITH CLICK If it were me, I would have the drummer (or yourself) record 4 - 8 bars of shaker-playing, then you can loop it as many times as you need in REAPER. That way, you'll have something in there to keep time without the unwanted rigidity and robotic-nature of a standard click. Are the tunes you're playing guitar-driven? Whatever provides the main pulse of the tunes (other than the drums), I would have that player record with the drummer, if you can achieve decent isolation. If decent isolation is not possible, I would have the "Driving Instrument," lay down the guitar part to the "enhanced click" Then, bring in the singer to lay down a scratch vocal track. WITHOUT CLICK Record the guitar and drums at the same time (you might have to sacrifice a mic for this :o), with as much isolation as possible. Make sure you get the drum take(s) you want, then you can throw away the guitar take (unless he/she stumbles across the "magic guitar take" :)). Lastly, have the vocalist sing over the top, and you're ready with a drum track!
Thanks for the wealth of knowledge you guys from each corner of our world have shared with me! I appreciate it lots :). Some good ideas there Il try them out and see what sounds best.
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I personally have been geeking out over the Glyn John's method lately and it's all I've been using on my last several tracks. 4 mics, Condensers (or sometimes ribbon) for overheads, dynamics on snare and kick (dedicated kick mic is best, but you don't seem to have one). Basically you start with getting a balanced kit sound from the first overhead positioned about the center of the kit facing down toward the kick pedal either from behind the drummer or in front of the kit. Get the sound as balanced with this mic as possible. Second overhead actually goes to the side of the floor tom and not very overhead at all, keep it roughly even with the hight of the hi-hat. This is very important, use a tape measure to ensure the diaphragm of OH2 is EXACTLY the same distance from the center of the snare as the diaphragm of OH1. Then Pan OH1 50% R and OH2 100% Left. Blend in kick and snare mics to taste. I prefer using a hyper or super cardioid on the snare to minimize hi-hat bleed, as the overheads get quite a bit. This method will give you a decent balance of toms and cymbals (though riding the faders to bring out the toms on drum fills doesn't hurt) and also creates a very nice natural stereo spread of the kit. Since this leaves me with only 4 drum tracks to work with, which are alreday naturally panned, it manages to eliminate a lot of mixing/editing work for me later. Note: I've seen several variations of the Glyn John's method, so if anybody wants to add any such variations, I for one would be happy to hear them!
Are we reading this right? You're using a 4 channel mixing board going into the stereo jack of the laptop? Us e the Asio4All drivers if latency is a problem; it probably will be. Any chance of getting more board channels or mics? If not, try what has been recommended. Then try something that I have done with very good results. Put the 58 or 57 in the kick. Take one dynamic, doesn't matter too much, and come in under the high hat and mic the side of the snare shell. And if you have the option, pan hard L and R. That way you'll have separate tracks recorded and you can mix to taste later. Cymbals are usually WAY too loud and toms don't get used much, so this usually works well with limited channels or mics. Another trick would be to mic the kick and snare, run those through the PA for amplification, then use the other 2 mics to record in front of the PA speakers a few feet. Keep the mics down low close to the floor for increased bass and less reverb type of sound. By doing this you can crank the kick or add 'verb to the snare, catch the whole kit, and not have the cymbals overpower everything.
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We did this by one condenser mic over head well kinda not to high and towrds the front of the kit. We also had a PZM 30D Boundary Mic On the wall. by the way all the instruments are in the same room.. 12 x 15