Drummer Recording Problem.

[Obese Chess]

Long story short, because our drummer is so jazz and improv-based, we need to play along with him when he's drumming. So how would we record this without recording everyone live? We don't have the technology to record everyone at once. So is there a way to set everything up so that the amps' sound won't bleed too much into the drum mics?

Does this even make sense?

Thanks!

 

[ThunderSix66]

have him play with headphones as a monitor, so he can hear you guys playing but it won't screw with the recording of the drums

 

[Dbassmon]

Lay the bass and piano/rythm guitar down to a click or drum machine. Have the drummer play to the rythm track you just recorded through head phones.

That works if the drummer can play to a click.

 

[Obese Chess]

D, that's what I was thinking...and Thunder, how do we get two amps into one pair of headphones?

 

[daffy]

We just did similar for our EP. We set the band up as follows:
- drummer all miked up in the main room (about 10 mics including a couple of ambients)
- I had my Bass POD so I just DI'ed into the mixer while sitting in the main room
- slide guitar DI'ed as well and sat in the room
- guitarist/vocals sat in the main room with a mic, but with his amp mic'ed up in a booth off to the side and long leads to his guitar.

We all wore phones and listened to the mix from the monitor.

We all played and the vocalist laid down a guide track - we listened back and there was some vocal bleed into the ambient bass drum mic, so we put up a screen and tried again and it was fine, otherwise we would have moved him to the booth with his amp, or to the one next door.

We then did takes on songs till we were happy with the drums (but I was also happy with 3 out of 4 of my bass lines as well, and the guitarist was happy with his guitar tracks). I re-tracked one song and the slide player re-tracked two and we were done with the core audio tracks. Guide vox made a big diff here - we essentially got the guitar/vox to talk through the song form as we went and call the changes while vaguely singing the melody.

We then overdubbed violin, organ, tambo, harp. Then we did the vocal tracks and harmonies.

This was all done in 2 x 4 hour sessions, and was very smooth.

 

[bassbrad]

D, that's what I was thinking...and Thunder, how do we get two amps into one pair of headphones?

For the purpose of the recording use a mixer for you and the guitar player, just plug in leave your amps off. Record the gtr/bass track as a scratch along with the drum tracks. ReRecord the other parts with your amps playing along with the drum tracks.

 

[tZer]

We are playing with this scenario too...

I record all of our rehearsals. So now I am using the best rehearsal recordings of particular songs as scratch tracks for all of us to track our own part over.

This works really well because we all have these recordings and some of us have our own home recording setups - so some of us can track our own parts at will.

Also - since I don't have to contend with bleed issues, I can get away with much fewer mics on the drums.

I used a large diaphragm mic out in front of the kick about 3' and up level with the top of the kick - 1 condenser mic about 6' over the drummer's head looking at the hi-hat and snare - and 2 condensor's out in the room about 6' in front of and to either side of the kit.

Ted's kit sounds really good and natural - punchy too.

It has it's pros and cons.

Pros

• No bleed issues
• Only need on member at a time present, so scheduling is a breeze
• Drummer is "technically" playing with the band - since we are using real, live band recordings - so the feel is pretty good overall

Cons - Well, con...
Because we are all using the recording, there is a "feel deficit" that occurs. When everyone plays together and can see each other, the feeling is much more tight - so even though we are playing along with the recording, there is a noticible "feel drop" in the individual parts.

But I don't mind post-production monkeying so I am confident I can tweak the subtle "feel issues" into shape.

Also, the reason we are recording is to "pretend" like we are in the studio and get a feel for what we would like to do tracking-wise, production-wise, etc... So the product we are shooting for is not necessarily a "finished product" - more like a really, really good rough draft.