When working with a multi-miked drumkit recording you need to be aware of phase issues and how to correct them.
Recognizing the phase issues will take some practice but if you go step by step you should have no problems.
Before doing any processing or even setting levels, go through one mic at a time and check the polarity.
What you’re listening for is improved punch and low end.
Starting with the overhead mics check, that those 2 mics are in phase. It’s rare but not unheard of.
Next add the snare top mic. Bring up the volume and then try inverting the polarity, listen if the low frequencies change, decide which way it sounds best, with the most low end or punch and continue to the next mic.
If you have a mic on the bottom of the snare pointing up it’s very likely it will need the opposite of the snare top mic.
Add the kick mic, toms, room mics and close miked cymbals.
Then you can move on to panning, balance and processing.
Here is an example of the kit before and after checking the polarity of each mic using this process.
In this case one of the kick drum mics and the snare top needed to be flipped.
There is no preset for this, every time you record or mix drums you’ll need to check this and compensate. You’re going to have to use your ears!
If you layer and blend samples you should check they’re all working together in phase as well.
Changing the timing of individual mics like you might do with multi-miked guitar amps is not something that I mess with when it comes to drums. It’s not something that you should need to do.
I just watched this interview with Mastering Engineer Greg Calbi on the subject of the Loudness Wars. It turns to a bit of a rant but he makes a lot of sense. I think my own mastering skills just improved having watched this.
If you have the time, spend some time on YouTube and watch some more of the interviews with him.
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Maybeshewill is one of my favorite post-rock bands and they’ve started working on their third LP. They’ve posted a few updates on their site (read part 1, and part 2) but there hasn’t been much info for a while and nothing specific about the gear and techniques. I decided to give Jamie Ward (Bass, Engineer, Producer) a little poke to find out what’s going on behind the scenes on the new record.
Hi Jamie
I was wondering if you could share some info from the production side of things on the new record. What’s the progress?
We’re still at a writing stage in the record but we’re not too far off now. We’ve had two recording sessions so far. One for drums for a few tracks at a studio called Seamus Wong where I do some engineering and one for guitars for the single we’re putting out (To the skies from a hillside) at my home studio. On previous albums before I joined the band Maybeshewill have recorded everything themselves with whatever gear they could get their hands on and wherever they could. These sessions have been a bit of an explorative venture. I can record drums fine at my home studio but it’s pretty dry so tracking in a larger room was a bit of a no-brainer.
We’re doing more recording sessions in September. I think I’ll try a few more room mics on the drums this time see if I can bring out even more ambience. .
. What’s the guitar tracking signal chain?
For the single we used mostly used John’s Gibson 335 into my friends Marshall JVM, into our toured-to-death Marshall AX cab. I miked it up with 2 (Shure) Beta 57′s one into my TLA C1 and one into my SSL X Logic Alpha Channel. One of these has much crisper high end and one has much fatter low end, no prizes for guessing which one’s which.
In the past the band have used distortion pedals into a Plexi and also Guitar Rig so the sound is a bit of a departure form the previous album’s guitar sounds. At the time I just thought “Lets get the best gear we have together and make it sound as rad as possible”, the tone is slicker but perhaps not as punk, a less gritty aesthetic than the pedal distortion on albums previous. We only had one day to get it done so there was no time for indecision. I don’t take D.I’s either, I like to make commitments. read the rest of the interview
Attention
My collection of circuit bent toy samples is now $10.
What!? Why???
This is closer to the price it should have been from the start. Since it is a niche product I could have charged way more for it. I feel this is still a very fair price.
This price change does not affect previous purchases.
