Ableton Forum

Hey, I'm pretty new to the recording scene (As in I pretty much have zero experience, save recording guitar directly into a Zoom MRS-4, which is pretty simple.) My main area of focus is drums, and I am wondering if anyone has any tips as to what hardware I should buy to get a decent recording of drums. Any advice would be good, mics, mixers, anything. Thanks.

Get a Shure SM57 first.

AKG d112 for the kick drum .

studio projects B3 for the overheads. tastey mics. (double up as lovely vocal mics as well)

Get a computer interface with 8 inputs (the best deal around these days is a Presonus Firepod) that way you can record drums bass and guitar at the same time.

When you record into the computer the waveforms don't need to be super fat, give yourself a good bit of headroom to avoid clipping and digital distortion.

And when you set up those mics experiment with placement. Move the mics around, move the kit around the room. That is the art of it all.

http://www.saecollege.de/reference_mate ... cement.htm

http://www.epinions.com/inst-review-249 ... EA3D-prod6

http://www.drumset.com/articles/mar-97.html

Good luck.

Sales Dude McBoob wrote:Get a computer interface with 8 inputs (the best deal around these days is a Presonus Firepod) that way you can record drums bass and guitar at the same time.

When you record into the computer the waveforms don't need to be super fat, give yourself a good bit of headroom to avoid clipping and digital distortion.

Thanks, this is exactly the type of thing i was thinking of. I checked out the site. 800 bucks (american, I presume) Not cheap, but I guess no recording gear is really cheap.

davidbarry wrote:

Sales Dude McBoob wrote:Get a computer interface with 8 inputs (the best deal around these days is a Presonus Firepod) that way you can record drums bass and guitar at the same time.

When you record into the computer the waveforms don't need to be super fat, give yourself a good bit of headroom to avoid clipping and digital distortion.

Thanks, this is exactly the type of thing i was thinking of. I checked out the site. 800 bucks (american, I presume) Not cheap, but I guess no recording gear is really cheap.

if you want to tweak each individual channel on your PC, yeah.. that's the only way to do it. But, if you need to, it is possible to just plug all the mics into a mixer, mix down the live audio and just record a stereo feed from the mixer into your PC. That's really the only way I record drums nowadays (I could do it the other way if I want, but I prefer ambient room mic sounds anyway, so doesn't really make much of a difference). Sure it's more risky, but once you get things set the way you want (takes a bit of work), you actually can get a decent recording, especially w/ good mics and good preamps.

You can get a new Firepod for $599 American.

And yes, recording drums is expensive. Back in the old days all I had was a cheap cassette 4 track and an SM57, and I got a pretty killer sound. The problem was that my sound was my sound, I couldn't bring up the snare or experiment with the kick, etc.

Another vital thing is how good your room sounds. I have a bunch of good gear at my place and a sweet Rogers jazz kit to boot, but my room is just plain bad sounding.

Sales Dude McBoob wrote:You can get a new Firepod for $599 American.

And yes, recording drums is expensive. Back in the old days all I had was a cheap cassette 4 track and an SM57, and I got a pretty killer sound. The problem was that my sound was my sound, I couldn't bring up the snare or experiment with the kick, etc.

Another vital thing is how good your room sounds. I have a bunch of good gear at my place and a sweet Rogers jazz kit to boot, but my room is just plain bad sounding.

Looks like the Firepod is the way I'm going. It seems to be just what I need. As far as room sound goes, I was thinking about building a "room-inside-a-room" to make a better recording space for my drums. I was wondering if this is a bad idea. I was thinking of building a sort of "drum cubicle" with all the walls covered in some sort of sound absorbing material. The room my drums are currently set up in has quite a bit of echo-y-ness (resonance?), so I figured this may solve some of the problem.

Last thing: What are some good mic sets for recording drums. I am thinking about picking up a single Shure m57 (Because I hear its great for guitar or drums.) Beyond that, I would like to get a decent set of drum mics that dont run too high on price. (Considering the fact that I'm most likely going to buy a Firepod.)

Thanks for all the help everyone.

Vdrums.

davidbarry wrote:

Sales Dude McBoob wrote:You can get a new Firepod for $599 American.

And yes, recording drums is expensive. Back in the old days all I had was a cheap cassette 4 track and an SM57, and I got a pretty killer sound. The problem was that my sound was my sound, I couldn't bring up the snare or experiment with the kick, etc.

Another vital thing is how good your room sounds. I have a bunch of good gear at my place and a sweet Rogers jazz kit to boot, but my room is just plain bad sounding.

Looks like the Firepod is the way I'm going. It seems to be just what I need. As far as room sound goes, I was thinking about building a "room-inside-a-room" to make a better recording space for my drums. I was wondering if this is a bad idea. I was thinking of building a sort of "drum cubicle" with all the walls covered in some sort of sound absorbing material. The room my drums are currently set up in has quite a bit of echo-y-ness (resonance?), so I figured this may solve some of the problem.

Last thing: What are some good mic sets for recording drums. I am thinking about picking up a single Shure m57 (Because I hear its great for guitar or drums.) Beyond that, I would like to get a decent set of drum mics that dont run too high on price. (Considering the fact that I'm most likely going to buy a Firepod.)

Thanks for all the help everyone.

getting into building a new studio room is a lengthy and costly excercise. i'm halfway into building a studio at the moment and all i can say is that you really have to be serious about it if you wish to go ahead.


if your current room doesn't leak sound (annoy neighbors) i would first look at treating that room before looking at construction options.

if adding bass traps, and treating the room so it's acoustically nice but at the same time not too 'dead' doesn't help, i would first look at the option of an angled ceiling and only adding a slanted wall on one side... but if you want to go all out on building a proper room (which is worth it in the longterm if you are serious about the project) then you will have to make a rough budget which you will probably exceed by the time you are done.

when constructing a room in a room type thing you need to consider whether you are trying to get better room acoustics, or whether you are trying to achieve sound isolation. if you are just going for the acoustics, the shape of the room and the ceiling slant are your main points of focus. you will need to build studs with staggered noggins/cross beams and use some kind of acoustic drywall/plasterboard with some kind of nice absorbtion in between the layers. the main focus is to keep no two walls completely parallel as a soundwave which reflects off these two walls will meet at weird places in the middle creating frequency dips and whatnot in all kinds of different places.

once again, have a think about what it is u are trying to ultimately achieve and how much you can spend on it.

Tape Op is a great resource for this kind of info.