recording and Mixing acoustic drums at home

Recording and mixing acoustic drums can be an overwhelming task - especially on a shoestring budget. When I first started, I was under the impression that ‘big’ drum sounds could only be accomplished with a professional drum mic set up - usually in commercial studios you’ll find 2 overhead mics, a few room mics, hi-hat, snare top and bottom, kick in and out, toms, ride, etc. While this might be preferable in most situations, chances are it’s overkill for your needs and might just be overcomplicating things.

The solution: we’re going to try using 1 microphone for the whole drum set. Strangely enough, this can help create a much larger sound due to complexities of recording in a small room and phase issues between multiple microphones. The technique is correctly called a ‘crotch mic’. Set up your favorite microphone (most people use a dynamic, but I prefer a darker condenser microphone), directly over the center of the kick drum. Place higher for a brighter sound and lower for a darker sound.

Before we get into the recording process, there’s a few things I’d recommending checking:

1. Turn on the microphone’s pad if using a condenser - this will prevent transients from clipping during recording.

2. In your DAW, turn down the fader of the input track (and make sure it’s post processing as to not effect the record-in level).

3. Make sure the input level on your interface is high enough to get a signal peaking at around -6dB.

4. Turn up your headphone volume so you can hear it clearly over the sound of the acoustic drums in the room (if done correctly, you should be hearing the song through your headphones, but not the recorded drums).

5. If you generally have trouble staying on time recording to a click track (even with the level changes we just made), I’d highly recommend creating a guide track in your DAW. Search through apple loops, Splice, sounds.com for a drum part at the same tempo that works with the groove. Consider using that as a tempo guide instead of the click.

With that all out of the way it’s time to record! This is where options really open up.

For a clean, modern sound, I’d try recording each drum separately. While annoying and time consuming, it will create a lot of mixing options down the line and eliminate all bleed between parts. If you’re a fan of looped drum parts (common in hip hop, some R&B, etc.) this is generally the best option.

If that’s not an option or you prefer a more natural feel, recording as you play works just as well. I find this works well for a lot of alternative/rock applications.

Before we hit the daw for mixing there’s one more thing we need to do. Record one shots of each and every drum and cymbal. I’d restart the song, and do this while playing through (really make an effort to listen, and get a sound out of each instrument that feels congruent with the emotion).

Once we have all the takes in the computer, listen carefully to how the groove sounds. We want something that sounds smooth and sucks you into the song - anything choppy or weird sounding we’ll need to edit. Generally it’s good idea to use the tab-to-transient / TCE technique (I’ll write about this in another article). If all else fails, try manually moving around your drum hits to the matching hits in the guide track. This is all about trial and error to get the groove to ‘feel’ right.

Next, layer the recorded kick and snare one-shots underneath the original takes. Start by matching them up perfectly. Listen for phase shifts (i.e. with the one-shots in, the low end of the kick disappears or is overwhelming), and nudge according to get the sound you’re looking for. If the one-shots sound strange, It’s always fun to mess around with plugins like Wave’s SmackAttack, which allows you to change the attack and sustain sound of the drum. Avid’s LoFi distortion setting can also help add some harmonics and weight to the sound. If it’s not working, I’d search the internet for kick/snare one-shots that work with the song and use those instead. It also might be worth trying cymbal one-shots (the hi-hat/ride stuff usually doesn’t work for me, but sometimes crashes can be fun for the down beat of a chorus).

Once we’re happy with the timing, and general sound of the drums, it’s time to get into mixing. Bus all the drum tracks to an aux - we’ll call this ‘Drum Bus’. From there we can bus out to a variety of FX. Here’s some ideas:

1. Try sending the whole drum bus to another aux with your favorite 1176 type compressor, set to slowest attack and fastest release, all buttons in. Mix this overly compressed version into the mix for added excitement. This is referred to as parallel compression or NY style compression.

2. Try using your cymbal track (if you have one), or a Hi-passed version of the drums and running it through room reverb, and maybe even some chorusing effects.

3. Slightly limit the drum bus to tame transients.

4. Add a plate to just the snare sample, maybe even some tape delay.

5. Go crazy! Try every combination, and if all else fails you can always try to rerecord.

Recording acoustic drums is an arduous process that takes a lot of trial an error and what sounds good can vary from song to song. If this all seems a little much, or you have questions, feel free to reach us at booking@perchstudiosmusic.com, or visit our services page for more information.