I am having problems recording drums in a home studio. Please help!

[JaneBass1]

I am doing demos for a band for very cheap, as I am still learning.

I have to say that I am good at it, thanks to reading these forums and reading articles on the web.

I am having problems tracking the drums. My current process is:
- Track guitar
- Track vocals
- Track bass
- Track drums

Now the drummer is always messing up, coming in early or late into the song. He said because the bassist give him some cues when the song changes.

I heard the guitard tells him he needs to practice the song by himself.

Now it's more work for me cause I have to go deep into the edit window and spend a lot of time fixing the track

On one of my previous postings, someone said that you record drums first with all the band playing, to track the drums.

But I don't know how this is possible, unless I have a room that has a window into another room. So the drums can see the others on the other room without having the guitar and bass leak into the drums mics.

Please let me know what would be the best way to approach this problem.

 

[funkmuffin]

I'm currently tracking an album piece by piece. Here's what seems to work best for us: (disclaimer: our drummer is incredible -- and that helps alot!)

We track drums first. But that doesn't mean he's got to play by himself.

1. Figure out the tempo, set the click appropriately.
2. Record a guide track on either or both guitar and bass, along to the click. NOTE: these don't have to sound good, or even be mistake free. They are simply there so that the drummer can hear the instruments while tracking. I don't spend ANY time on these, just need the music to be there, and in time.
3. Track the drums. What the drummer hears: the click, and then whatever else he needs from the guide tracks.
4. Record everything else to the actual drum tracks.

I can't imagine doing drums last -- how are the drums and bass going to sound locked in?

One thing that can help everyone is to record the guide tracks with the drummer playing along, but only record the guitar/bass. That way, the guide track gets done, and the drummer gets a few passes of practice. You'll get better guide tracks this way, too, just make sure everything is in sync with the click.

 

[locolobo85]

IMO, you have to start with the drums.

It's next to impossible to fit them in after the fact.

Time to get out the headphones. Record the drums with the band playing through headphones. Guitar/Bass and vocals running in the headphones only.

Look into a headphone amp and consider your options for giving the drummer the basics for pulling off his parts along with what's being heard in the headphone mix.

Getting the rest will be a breeze.

 

[tZer]

I think that recording the drums first is much easier and you are much more likely to get a more solid groove than if you try to make the drummer conform to existing, drum-free stuff.

Here's how I go about it:
1) Put a mic in the room and have the entire band play the song all together.
2) Use that recording as the reference track for your drummer to sync with.
3) Mic up the drums, give the drummer headphones, cue up the reference track and let him lay his part along while listening to that.

Not only will he have an easier hearing and grooving with that, you'll get a much more "natural" feel since it will be essentially just like him playing with the live band.

 

[JaneBass1]

I have some comments and some questions:

Click:
- I always try and use this as always is the best tool for being on time
- The bad thing as I have seen it, is that (at least these musicians) they have a hard time following it. And start saying it's a 3/4, when in fact it's a 4/4. And then is too fast or too slow. And I end up spending a lot of time until they feel comfortable or decide is a pain and don't use it.

Reference:
- Well this is why I track first guitar, bass and vocals. Which actually doesn't take me a long time. That way the drummer can use headphone and hear this mix. I also give him a click to hear

Recording the whole band and use it as a reference is a good idea, but then
- Will the drummer start complaining that he hear himself twice and he gets confused?
- I have seen them rehearse once and the drummer made almost zero mistakes, during the recording he is messing up when the song changes, for example from a verse to a chorus. As I said I guess he is looking all the time at the guitard to give him cues. Unless I just I tell him dude, practice your parts by yourself.

Speaking of hardware:
- I have an mbox, therefore I only have 2 analog inputs and 2 digital inputs. The digital inputs require some other box (which I dont have), to use them as analogs
- My box only has 1 input for headphones

What else can you recommend?

 

[kalle74]

if the drummer just isn´t capable, forget the click, or send him learning (could take months, though...).

IMO, your best option is to get the band playing together, live. isolate the instruments with gobos, or better yet, walls. bass can be recorded with d.i.box only, and re-amped later. make the guitards keep their volume in check. correct mic placing, and angles will defend against bleed, too...

only downside to this is that you need a lot of inputs in your recording system... you could consider upgrading to, say, 003...

 

[megadan]

As mentioned, you need to start with the drums. You have it basically backwords.

Recording the drums, and maybe the Bass player via DI as well (assuming you don't have iso rooms). Then add the guitars on top of that, much easier. If you have spare inputs you can also run the guitars through DIs and amp sim plugins as scratch tracks for the drummer. Be sure to rerecord them later if you want to have any semblance of a good recording at all.

 

[tZer]

Click:
- I always try and use this as always is the best tool for being on time
- The bad thing as I have seen it, is that (at least these musicians) they have a hard time following it. And start saying it's a 3/4, when in fact it's a 4/4. And then is too fast or too slow. And I end up spending a lot of time until they feel comfortable or decide is a pain and don't use it.

Reference:
- Well this is why I track first guitar, bass and vocals. Which actually doesn't take me a long time. That way the drummer can use headphone and hear this mix. I also give him a click to hear

This is very common. Unless people live by the click, they tend to find it to be distracting and annoying. They'll frequently complain that it sounds like the click is speeding up and slowing down. Unless you can convert the rest of your group into click-savvy players (ones who practice with it a LOT and are totally comfortable with it) you won't get them to come around to your way of doing it.

In my experience, it's even harder for a drummer who does not practice with a click a LOT.

Furthermore the results you'll get, IF they are all actually able to do it, will more than likely be very stiff and unnatural sounding since all participants will be gritting their teeth and breaking their brains just trying to stick to the click. Not a formula for a good, human sounding performance. You want everyone to be playing as close to how they play in a live situation as you can in order to capture their best performances.

Recording the whole band and use it as a reference is a good idea, but then
- Will the drummer start complaining that he hear himself twice and he gets confused?

I can't say whether he'll be confused or not, but in my experience, it's far easier for a drummer to jam along with a full band track than a kit alone or a click track. Even a "stomp, snare" click track will start sounding like it's speeding up and slowing down after a few measures.

BUT - the time you are going to inevitably spend trying to force fit the rest of the band into the click-track scenario is going to far exceed the time you'll spend running the song once as a group, then tracking each part using that reference track as your guide.

Unless your band's ability to hold tempo is really, REALLY bad, the fact that it's not "click-track perfect" will be inconsequential.

Speaking of hardware:
- I have an mbox, therefore I only have 2 analog inputs and 2 digital inputs. The digital inputs require some other box (which I dont have), to use them as analogs
- My box only has 1 input for headphones

What else can you recommend?

You may have to invest in a small mixer or multi-headphone amp in order to provide more than one headphone mix.

A good mixer with a lot of output busses would be a big plus.

All in all, unless you have an entire group who is 100% cool with recording using a click track, trying to force that issue will only hurt the recording. The recording is the important thing - not how you get there. Don't get bogged down in this click track thing.

Focus on making the group really comfy, happy and relaxed to ensure capturing their best performance.

 

[locolobo85]

Headphones and the headphone amp are a crucial part of any studio. Couple that with a decent mixer and you're set. Bass, guitars, keys, vocals direct through the board with no amplification. Let the group perform their material and send the monitor mix to everyone while you record only the drum track. Be sure to include a click track to get it started and layering up from that point should move along quite easily.

It's also nice that it keeps everyone involved on the front end and may help them to relax.

Just my 2 cents.

If you don't have the equipment, just use the reference track suggestion.

 

[BassieMike]

+1 to drums first! Better yet if it's to a click track. The click keeps everyone honest about who is on time and who's not. If your recording is not based on a click track it will be difficult to go back and copy and paste edit.
There have been some good suggestions about how to come up with a scratch track for the drummer to play to. One thing I didn't see mentioned that gave me trouble was monitoring the recording in the same room as the performance. You need isolation or you won't be able to tell anything about how it sounds until you play it back.

best wishes,
-mike

 

[tZer]

+1 to drums first! Better yet if it's to a click track. The click keeps everyone honest about who is on time and who's not. If your recording is not based on a click track it will be difficult to go back and copy and paste edit.

Let me first say that I am a fan of recording with a click track when I am doing my own work and if I am with a group where at least the drummer and I are OK with a click - then using one for a full-band recording as well.

I think one thing that should be clarified is the purpose of the recording. If you are recording specifically so you can get loopable clips and plan to do boatloads of cut and paste compositing, then a click (or some other exact timing control) is a very important thing.

If the purpose is to produce a recording that accurately captures the spirit and energy of your band's music, then force-fitting a click based on the idea that you'll be better able to cut and paste is putting the cut and paste before the recording - cart before the horse.

If you do it without a click and are all working from the same reference track, cutting and pasting here and there shouldn't be that big a deal. I've been able to so that very effectively and no clicks were used in our sessions at all.

But designing your recording sessions based on the possibility to cut and paste IF you MIGHT need to cut and paste is a little backwards to me. I'd focus much more on getting your performance tightened up so you capture what you want without the need to cut and paste.

There have been some good suggestions about how to come up with a scratch track for the drummer to play to. One thing I didn't see mentioned that gave me trouble was monitoring the recording in the same room as the performance. You need isolation or you won't be able to tell anything about how it sounds until you play it back.

best wishes,
-mike

On monitoring - The first run through to capture the reference track does not require any monitoring. The band is playing like they normally would, so monitoring is moot.

After that, it's each player by themselves using headphones to monitor the playback. There's not an absolute need for the whole band to monitor (not that they shouldn't or couldn't) but when it comes down to it, the only person who NEEDS to monitor anything is the one laying tracks at the time.

But again - providing more than one monitor mix is not hard with a headphone amp or a mixer.

 

[kraigo]

if the drummer just isn´t capable, forget the click, or send him learning (could take months, though...).

That's unnecessarily harsh, even though you probably weren't intending to be.

In my case it took me a while to get used to the fact that I needed the click mixed _VERY_ loudly in my cans and not really that much guide track.

I generally put ear plugs under the headphones so I don't have the loud clank killing me - it attenuates the live drums, the guide track and the click before they actually get to me.

Of course you should be using full ear headphones, not earbuds or anything silly. That should go without saying.

Be patient. I can't speak for other drummers, but it takes me a lot of takes to get one that I'm really happy with all the way through. In my case, I kill a take as soon as I think it's not the one. Most people like to play all the way through no matter what, but what's the point of that?

As soon as you get one you like, do another. With the pressure off the next one is often better.

I like to have three "keepers" to cut and paste between when I'm done and I find that none of them were perfect.

Good luck.

KO

 

[bassbrad]

When we record it is the entire band together but the only "live" instrument in the room is drums, everyone else is direct and we monitor thru head phones. The vocalist is set up behind a plexi gobo to avoid bleed in the drum mics. Usually the only tracks that are keepers are the drums and bass, everything else gets re-recorded.
Unless you have a seriously talented drummer it is almost impossible for drummers to overdub on an existing song.

 

[daffy]

+1000 on recording drums first.

If you can't do the whole band as a scratch track, then try it just with the bass player.

DI the bass into a headphone amp with two sets of headphones, mic the drums, and get the drums and bass to play together. Bass goes through the headphones only, drums goes through recorder and phones.

Then the drummer gets his cues from the bass and you still get a clean drum track.

Personally, we mic up/DI the whole band and record everyone live until we get a good drum take.If the bass/guitars are good on that same take then we use them too, otherwise we re-record them. We then do overdubs, vocals etc as separate takes. Works well for us and we get a great live feel to the songs.

 

[Guest043]

I am doing demos for a band for very cheap, as I am still learning.

I have to say that I am good at it, thanks to reading these forums and reading articles on the web.

I am having problems tracking the drums. My current process is:
- Track guitar
- Track vocals
- Track bass
- Track drums

Now the drummer is always messing up, coming in early or late into the song. He said because the bassist give him some cues when the song changes.

I heard the guitard tells him he needs to practice the song by himself.

Now it's more work for me cause I have to go deep into the edit window and spend a lot of time fixing the track

On one of my previous postings, someone said that you record drums first with all the band playing, to track the drums.

But I don't know how this is possible, unless I have a room that has a window into another room. So the drums can see the others on the other room without having the guitar and bass leak into the drums mics.

Please let me know what would be the best way to approach this problem.

drums first! always. nothing will leak into the mics if you do it correctly..wich is to both play through a DI, without amps. it doesent matter that the guitar will be clean, its just to play through it once. everything then gets overdubed over the drums...

thats atleast the process ive always used. i usually keep the bass track from the original run through with the drums (sometimes vocal tracks get kept too, if your using a vocal booth.) but if your not into a DI sound, then you do what the guitarist does. wear headphones and overdub.

this process isint a rule, its just what works best with my experiences.

 

[JaneBass1]

thanks all,

please excuse my ignorance in advanced. i think all of you guys are way above my current knowledge.

i think the idea of recording drums first is growing on me, i just need a little bit more of info.

let's say that i go to one of their rehearsals, and i placed 1 overhead mic, and record all the songs. later at home i cut the songs and upload them to an mp3 player.

I meetup with the drummer, i give him the mp3 player so he can listen to the rehearsal. Mic the drums and record the drums part.

(Remember that right now I only have 2 inputs for instruments or mics, 1 headphone output, 1 monitor output)

- I would assume he should be able to pickup the drums easily with the recorded track
- How would I go about recording the rest, guitars, bass and vocals? Let's say that I record 1 by 1. What do I give the guitar to listen to? The drum track I recorded before? or the whole song I recorded at rehearsal? or both?

The headphone, headphone amp still fuzzy. Could you please be more specific on what do I need to get. Any websites with diagrams or pictures would be much appreciated. I just cannot picture in my head how to setup this stuff.

 

[funkmuffin]

- How would I go about recording the rest, guitars, bass and vocals? Let's say that I record 1 by 1. What do I give the guitar to listen to? The drum track I recorded before? or the whole song I recorded at rehearsal? or both?

The headphone, headphone amp still fuzzy. Could you please be more specific on what do I need to get. Any websites with diagrams or pictures would be much appreciated. I just cannot picture in my head how to setup this stuff.

Once you have the real drums track recorded, the process becomes additive, you add parts to the existing "real" tracks. I wouldn't use the rehearsal guide track after the drummer is done for real. So, given two inputs, you could either:

1. Play back the drums track through the headphone jack, and record just the bass, or guitar, using both inputs for the single instrument. This gives you more options for sound design -- 2 mics on the guitar amp, and/or a direct bass recording (full, "rounder") and a mic in front of the bass amp (bite, color, etc.).

2. Play back the drums through the headphone jack, and record both bass and guitar using the 2 inputs you have available. This only allows one track each, but saves time. Note that if you record to separate tracks in the software, if the bassist plays a perfect take, and the guitard screws up left and right, only the guitarist needs to do the next take.

Each time you complete a track, it gets added to what the next guy hears when recording his tracks, until the vox, when the singer hears the whole mix to sing over.

As to the headphone amp: They are devices that (at the simplest form) take the headphone feed from the MBox and amplify it 2,3,4 times over for individual sets of phones. That's how the Bass and Guitar players would hear themselves, eachother, and the drum track all at the same time. Headphone amps get fancier to take advantage of more separate pieces of the mix, but we'll save those for later.

You mat be wondering "Why don't I just split the headphone mix using a $3 splitter?" Actually, there's nothing wrong with that, as long as you don't put too many pairs of phones down the chain. Each one added will drain more of the signal until nobody hears anything, and the headphone output burns up. I never go past 2 pairs on any one feed.

 

[locolobo85]

I'm relatively new to this stuff but here's my 2 cents to either confuse you completely or maybe help you out a little.

There have been 2 ideas of how to go about this presented in the thread.

The first is the reference track idea. That's what you're getting at if you record the band all playing together and then have the drummer play over that while you record. This can be done with minimal gear. Once you capture the drums you start to layer up from that single track with one member at a time. A count-in at the beginning will help everyone else know when to start. This can get tricky if the drums ease into a song after some type of instrumental opening. Click tracks can be very handy also even if it's only at the beginning to give everyone a reference point to start.

The other idea was to record the drums while the band was playing. Albeit with no room amplification for the bass, guitar and vocals (headphones only). That's when a mixer and headphone amp become necessary, as well as, isolation for the vocalist. This has been accomplished many ways by the home engineer. We've done this with the drummer in one bedroom; mixer, headphone amp and computer in the hall; bass, guitar and vocals in anther bedroom (wires running everywhere). We've also done it in one room while the singer silently mouths the lyrics.

While there are other ways to capture the drums alone out of group performance, and maybe easier, this is sort of how I've gone about it.

Assume you're using a 8 channel mixer with 8 inputs and 2 Aux Outs. Put 4 mics on the drums in Ch1-Ch4. Bass directly into Ch5. Guitar directly into Ch6. Vocals into Ch7 (and maybe Ch8 if you need 2).

Hook Aux 1 Out to a recorder. Mix the drums on Ch1-4 by adjusting the Aux 1 Sends on each channel strip. Nothing else gets sent to Aux 1 but the drums. This is what you are going to record.

Hook Aux 2 Out to a headphone amp. Mix all channels by adjusting the Aux 2 Sends on each channel strip. This is your monitor mix that everyone will hear through their headphones. The headphone amp will split the signal and send it to as many sets of headphones as it can handle.

That way the band plays together through the headphones allowing you to record only the drum tracks.

Clear as mud? That's just a simple example. You could easily add more drum mics using another mixer or a larger console.

Anyway the problem becomes $$$ if you don't have a mixer and headphone amp.

Here are some headphone amps.......
http://www.sweetwater.com/c413--Headphone_Amps_and_Distribution

The problem is the mixer because you would need something with 8 inputs. Here's one such board that would do the job flawlessly.......
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/MFX8/

 

[DocBop]

It takes a really great drummer to lay down a track by themselves for a whole song, with all the breaks and dynamics in right place and in time. I would say lay down a click first. I use a drum sequencer so the One has a different sound than the other beats so no excuse to lose track of one. If the drummer can't lay down a solid track to a click, then hopefully the bass or guitar can lay down a straight-eight rhythm work track.

Drummers have to know how to work with a click these days so much live music is using sequenced background tracks along with the band. Drummers are being fed the click to keep the band in-sync with the background tracks.

 

[BassXgirl]

I think it would be difficult for most people to track drums last.
It would be a serious challenge for any drummer to record last and still sound spontanious and natural.

I've always tracked drums first with bass and sometimes vocals (for cues) playing through the drummers headphones. You can record scratch tracks if he's comfortable playing to those. If the bass and drums are pretty tight, it can work out great recording drums and bass together. I actually prefer recording this way when it's me being recorded on bass. I think it makes it easier to relax, lock in, and just vibe off eachother better.

Learning to play to a click is often something that has to be practiced in order to be very useful. Being that the band doesn't seem too comfortable yet with the click, your sessions could probably become a lot more productive by doing it the 'old regular' way and just tracking drums first and building layers upon that.

A typical tracking order would be drums, bass, guitar, and vocals last.

Good luck!