Recording Drums - What will I need? (Listed a few things I think I need)

[Shreedhan]

Hi,

I want to record drums on my Alu iMac (3gb, 2.4Ghz). I am a student so I can't spend lots so I'm probably going to use 2 overhead mics for the drums.

Check out the vid I will be following - http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=IiFOD1EeKhQ

I'm thinking I'll use two of these mics for overheads and I'll need something like this microphone mixer to connect to my iMac?

Is this about right? I am unsure of how to connect the mixer to my computer, would I just use a Mic Lead -> Headphone (3.5mm) jack?

My drum videos are at http://youtube.com/Shreedhan if you are interested.

 

[zimv20]

you're really scraping the bottom of the barrel here, equipment-wise. i don't know where your expectation levels are for the result, but i wouldn't keep them too high.

so it looks to me that the mixer goes to mono. at least try to find something that does stereo. also, if you can swing 3 mics, google for techniques using 3 mics on drums; there are several techniques.

and find the best-sounding room you can.

 

[originalcliche]

Well if you do over heads on the drums, then you will get a roomy sound and the drums wont sound up front unless thats what your going for. Your going to want to mic the snare drum and the kick drum seperatly as well as toms and the hats. If you want close sounding drums , get a nice large diaphram dynamic mic for the kick drum and an Shure SM 57 for the snare.

 

[zimv20]

Well if you do over heads on the drums, then you will get a roomy sound and the drums wont sound up front

can't say i agree with that -- when's the last time you heard a song w/ drums w/o any room sound (whether real or artificial)?

the OP has 2 mics; i asked if he could stretch it to 3, but it doesn't sound to me that he has the budget to mic each piece in the kit. you're right in that a big challenge to him will be the room sound, but imho using an army of $10 mics up close isn't the solution.

 

[Killyp]

You're not gonna get anywhere with that kit you've linked to, you'd seriously be better off using the microphone built into your iMac.

Your best bet though, would be to get an Alesis MultiMix Firewire - I just cannot recommend these enough. I have a 16 channel one, although you don't need this many channels. DON'T get a USB one, they don't work in the same way at all.

Get two good overheads, condensers. I've used Behringer C-2s as overheads (they mount on a single mic stand) and they work great. I actually find they sound best facing 'away' from each other, kind like this:

except closer together on their special single-stand adapter.

As for the kick drum, there are lots of options. The standard mic is the AKG D112, although this may be out of your price range. You'll have to have a look round here, but make sure it's a 'proper' mic you get here, preferably with a large diaphragm.

As for the snare, you don't necessarily have to mic that up, but if you do later decide to, a Shure SM57 is the industry standard, and works very very well...



BY FAR the most important part of recording drums is making sure that they're correctly tuned. Most snares tend to sound very 'wooden' and I had an experience of this recently. I was using great mics all round, and the acoustics where I were recording were good, but the end recordings were pretty poor because the drummer insisted on using his own snare drum which was really 'flat' and wooden. The recordings sounded very vague, and there's not much I can do.

Another important factor is the acoustics. I use some old clothes rails, with quite thick blankets draped over them around the drums, and I get exactly the sound I want...

 

[drewdrewjohan]

I've made drum covers successfully in the past with imovie but lately ive been experiencing LOTS of trouble trying to get the song im playing to in sync with my drums. it sounds in time with each other at first but then as the video goes on it slowly falls out of time with the song. i know its not my drum playing thats off because ive played to a metronome perfectly. could it be a mistake in the program or something im doing thats causing my playing to slowly fall out of sync while the video goes on? or maybe im just doing this whole drum cover process wrong. if anyone knows a consistant easy way of making a drumcover to songs please let me know as well....HEeEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLPPPPPPPP!!!!

MacBook (black) Mac OS X (10.4.11) None