***The Official Home Recording Studio Thread***

robfosters said:
No, they're deep house. I'm more of an uplifting trance man. Plenty of soaring leads, filter sweeps, epic pads, that sort of thing.

Talking about drums, Armin Van Buuren once said it could take him 2 days to get the perfect kick drum for a song. :eek: He must be ultra fussy.
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Lowe has suggested mics and curtains and allsorts...I have just re-read this thread...

I'm so anal! lol

Its taken me 3 months to decide what Overhead mics to get :eek::o
 
I don't know what was going on with the Beatles and the drum sound.

Its gash across every record...

Was there trouble with mic drums in the 1960's or what?

The drums recordings on cream records are crap as well...

Small faces...loads...
 
easyrider said:
Yeah...Ogdens Nut Gone Flake has some of the best drum playing on and yet its panned totally left and sounds like a mushy mess....:(
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I often wonder if that was a trick the Engineer/Producer did to make it more stereo.
I have artists where I have stereo and mono versions and most of them have drums panned to one side - oh look, Ringo is over there.
 
I read it was to do with the limited amount of tracks (4) and the fact stereo hadn't really been established yet so they weren't sure on how to use it.

Having stereo drums would have meant using 2 tracks on a tape. Normally they would have drums/percussion/bass on 1 track, guitars on another, vocals on another etc. It would have been difficult to have stereo drums because they would have had to have something else on each of those drum tracks.

Sometimes drums were panned off in 1 direction because frankly they didn't know what they were doing as far as stereo was concerned.
 
ShortWarning said:
I read it was to do with the limited amount of tracks (4) and the fact stereo hadn't really been established yet so they weren't sure on how to use it.

Having stereo drums would have meant using 2 tracks on a tape. Normally they would have drums/percussion/bass on 1 track, guitars on another, vocals on another etc. It would have been difficult to have stereo drums because they would have had to have something else on each of those drum tracks.

Sometimes drums were panned off in 1 direction because frankly they didn't know what they were doing as far as stereo was concerned.
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But they did have Sound On Sound technology because Eddie Cochran used to do all his own parts and of course the genius that was Les Paul.
Back in the 70s I had an old 2 track reel to reel which I could bounce tracks on.
If the producer was any good he would be able to stack tracks on each other.
I watched a documentary on Abbey Road when they first got their 8 track and they didn't know what to do with the extra tracks.

It does make you humble listening to the old Sun recordings, Buddy Holly, Phil Spector and many more when you hear those near perfect recordings done in 1 take.
 
SexyGreyFox said:
But they did have Sound On Sound technology because Eddie Cochran used to do all his own parts and of course the genius that was Les Paul.
Back in the 70s I had an old 2 track reel to reel which I could bounce tracks on.
If the producer was any good he would be able to stack tracks on each other.
I watched a documentary on Abbey Road when they first got their 8 track and they didn't know what to do with the extra tracks.

It does make you humble listening to the old Sun recordings, Buddy Holly, Phil Spector and many more when you hear those near perfect recordings done in 1 take.
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Which is what they did but they would still need 2 tracks for stereo drums so they would have to stack different elements on the left and right side of the drums. It would have been crazy difficult and it probably just wasn't worth it considering 90% of listeners were listening in mono.
 
The Beatles bounced tracks... 3 tracks to the 4th sometimes adding the 4th track at the same time live...

Meaning 4 track rhythm section on just one track...Leaving 3 free for further instrumentation.

Still doesn't mean the drum sound has to be pants though...

This is one PZM mic on my Kit and my name aint Geoff Emerick :p
 
Yes but 1 track is 1 channel. So those 4 bounced tracks will be panned into the middle or 1 side, so you have maybe, bass, guitars and the left drum channel. Well you now have you rhythm section in one channel. You would have to find things you want specifically in the left channel and specifically in the right channel to go along with the drum tracks and that's potentially an extra track wasted.

I'm not saying it wouldn't be possible but it probably wouldn't have been worth the effort as it's all going to end up in one mono in most cases (back in those days).

As for them sounding pap. They probably just used 1 overhead back in the day. It's hard to get a really good sounding kit from a mono Mic in such dense mixes. With that being said, there were better sounding drums back then.
 
ShortWarning said:
With that being said, there were better sounding drums back then.
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Like I said above, a well setup and tuned drum kit with the correct heads etc can still sound amazing with just one mic in the room.
I used to engineer in both studios & live and the amount of times a drummer would ask for that deep bass in your chest sound but I'd have to explain that you need to start from the bass drum. Some thought I could even change tin can cymbals into Jon Bonham crashes - you need a starting point.
 
SexyGreyFox said:
Like I said above, a well setup and tuned drum kit with the correct heads etc can still sound amazing with just one mic in the room.
I used to engineer in both studios & live and the amount of times a drummer would ask for that deep bass in your chest sound but I'd have to explain that you need to start from the bass drum. Some thought I could even change tin can cymbals into Jon Bonham crashes - you need a starting point.
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So Ringos kit and Gingers were pap?

Cause they sound rubbish on the records...
 
easyrider said:
So Ringos kit and Gingers were pap?

Cause they sound rubbish on the records...
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It's possible they weren't tuned correctly but we'll go back to the earlier replies concerning drum recording - it wasn't important back then.
However, Ginger's kit was around the same time as early Zeppelin so we've got to put that down to Engineers/Producers not giving a toss.
And another however, Ginger was so vocal about everything so he must have been out of his skull in the studio to not notice his kit was sounding bad in the mix.
To be honest I'll set a bit of time aside today to have a listen to Ginger, any particular tracks you think are awful?
 
I never realised how bad those drums were on Cream recordings :eek:

Listening uncompressed, through DAC into triple driver earphones.
No bass drum, no snare but you can hear the hi hat.
White Room a bit better but awful drum sounds.
 
SexyGreyFox said:
Oh my word - I'm doing Drive My Car with my new soft band and the mix on the original is horrible.
Drums in the left side and vocals in the right side.
However, it worked at the time.
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It's been my frustration since I was 15 ... :(

Although in The Beatles case I did enjoy all the albums again listening full pan right then full pan left
 
SexyGreyFox said:
Off out with my new band in a minute so a quick reply from the first minute.

Right at the start you hear a bass drum that sounds good but is then missing from the mix.
The snare sounds weak, mess with the tone and different reverbs.
Actually after a third listen it doesn't sound too bad but still do the above, it can be better.
The vocal needs rounding with a bit of reverb/delay.

Just listened through my DAC and Fidue A83 earphones and it does sound very good but the above still need addressing especially the bass drum.
The thing is I've spent months in the past mixing just one song down because you're always hearing faults so try not to get into that trap.
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I spent the weekend on this and ended up making it sound worse. Argh, the frustration.

I'm just going to make those tiny tweaks (instead of remixing) and be done with it. Haha.
 
Lowe said:
Easyrider - did you get the Sontronics STC's in the end as well?
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No mate.. Been playing with the Shure Kit set and 2 x PZMs....The PZM's were ok but I don't think I have the best room for them...

Considering this set...Seems amazing both in value and sound quality judging by reviews...

GGmniST.jpg

Oktava MK-012-20 MSP8

http://www.oktava-shop.com/category-5/Oktava-MK-012-20-MSP8.html

Comes in at £572 and offers 4 mics in one... Should offer me some more options when recording more than just drums.

MK-012 small diaphragm - cardioid, hyper cardioid, Omni-directional; MK-102 large diaphragm - cardioid

I've made some changes to my drum setup. I'll post some pics later tonight when I have finished...
 
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