I have a Shure 4 mic kit. When I run sound I always do 1 on the bottom of the snare placed in between snare and hi hat.....1 in between the first two toms.......1 on the floor tom between ride and tom......and 1 in the kick........i've recorded before but only with overheads. I want to try my band using the shures like this friday, but here is the problem I only have 8 tracks and we use them all(this is including the drums)........ do i not need the overheads, or should i just use kick, snare and two overheads?? any suggestions wil be appreciated.
No matter where you go.... There You are! Law of Location
I would forego the overheads. I would make sure you have a good mix on the snare, hi-hat and bass drum. Toms can have secondary consideration over the first three. You can get by with a mic between the mounted toms and one for the floor that can pick up some of the ride cymbal. (good placement on your part already) Then worry about the overheads.
What I did to solve the problem of too few available channels was to purchase a small mixer strictly for drums. I bought a Mackie 1402 which has 6 XLR channels that can double as mono 1/4 and it has 4 stereo channels. It is a very versatile mixer and smaller than standard rack mount size. (I do have it rack mounted however. The mounting kit was only a few bucks) I can then add that mixed kit to the mains and balance it with the rest of the band quick and easy.
Bish
"I play live as playing dead is harder than it sounds!"
I do the overheads, but I'd have a seperate small mixer for the drum mics, and then run the output from that mixer into the inputs of your main mixer on only one stereo channel.
If you don't have two mixers, obviously you can't do that - but you could probably pick up a cheap 6-8 channel mixer for under $100 on X-Mas sale someplace ;0
"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side." -- HST
well that works fine the seperate mixer and all, running live sound is fine i have no problem i have a mackie 8 channel mixer i use for drums. and I have a Yamaha EMX 5000 -12channel board. so that is no problem. I'm trying to record good. I am recording into an 8channel Alesis Adat (yea old school but the quality is awesome) then i'm going from there into my computer software (Cubase) I plan on tracking it into my computer so I will have ability to edit individual tracks on my computer. So i dont' want a single drum mix, unless i can't get around it. I'd rather have each mic a seperate track so i can EQ and add effects. I am going to Dry record, no effects or compression. Then I will add all that afterwards. So am I still on the right track, i mean i've record many bands, but always used overheads and a kick and it has come out awesome, but my band we are trying for a really good demo were everything is heard clearly and EQ individually????
Any more suggestions:
Oh I appreciate what u have told me so far thansk
No matter where you go.... There You are! Law of Location
Did I Do Good? I used all my mics. I set them up as described above. BUT i sub mixed my toms down to 1 channel and then threw up my two overheads and submixed them down to 1 channel. So on 4 channels I have Snare/Hi-Hat, Kick, Toms/Some Cymbals, Overheads/Basically Cymbals. Is this good or should I re do it and just use my 4 shures like I originally had planned.
It sounds ok, but I can't compare it to how it would sound though. What do u think. Feedback please.
Thank You
No matter where you go.... There You are! Law of Location
I maybe alone here but at somewhat if a disadvantage. I am not able to hear your recording or your mix so I can't tell how well it sounds.
Point made, if you are happy with the recording quality and can recreate it with ease, then it sounds like you've got it going on! :D
Bish
"I play live as playing dead is harder than it sounds!"
IF it sounds ok, you did good.
There are no rules in recording, you know, only general suggestions :)
Your ears are your guides!
One other option if you want all that stuff on seperate tracks is to record the drummer seperately from the rest of the band. That can be hard to pull of successfully though.
"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side." -- HST
