Did some Redneck Recording last night.

[Swampy]

I accumulated some more recording gear the past few weeks and decided to put it to the test last night. Picked up another interface (8 XLR/8 line in’s), a power conditioner, a headphone amp and a 4u Gator Case. What a difference it makes isolating everything from the drums, had no bleed thru. The bassist and I were in with the drummer, our amps in 2 other bedrooms, and we had the singer in the bathroom. We still need to do some tweaking to our setup, but I’m pretty happy with the results.

Below is our second time doing Fairies, but if you’ve heard the take in the other thread, I’d say this s a lot better sound. Playing can still get better though.....lol. As you’ll hear, not all the vocals were sung. We’re planning on recording the vocals separate. I’ll try to get an original posted soon.

[Swampy]

Re: Did some Redneck Recording last night.

A couple originals.

[Chistopher]

Re: Did some Redneck Recording last night.

Darn, I thought this post was gonna be about voyerism in the styx.

[Swampy]

Re: Did some Redneck Recording last night.

Darn, I thought this post was gonna be about voyerism in the styx.

“Mud-honey’s are better-er”

[TwilightOdyssey]

Re: Did some Redneck Recording last night.

I don't know what you mean by 'redneck'; looks like a perfectly acceptable way to record to me! The only thing with tracking drums in a small room is that it's really hard to not get it to sound like it's in a small room; there are a couple of tricks you can do to create the illusion of a bigger space.

Were the originals you posted done in this way? Are you using a mic on the hi hat? Because 99% of the time you do not need to use the hihat mic; it tends to dominate the whole mix.

[Swampy]

Re: Did some Redneck Recording last night.

Would love to know how I can get a bigger drum sound. I like tricks.

No mic on the hi-hat other than two pencil condenser overheads.

IDK, Maybe the vocal mic in the crapper made me think Redneck.

[TwilightOdyssey]

Re: Did some Redneck Recording last night.

What mic scheme did you use for the overheads?

[Swampy]

Re: Did some Redneck Recording last night.

Three sticks from the top of the kick, and maybe 4’ distance between the two. Roughly pointing towards the kick. Realized after, I probably should’ve had them pointing more downwards instead of in. Maybe one pointed between the snare and the hi hat, and the other towards the toms.

I’m thinking of trying a mono condenser mic next time. Placed above the drummer.

[TwilightOdyssey]

Re: Did some Redneck Recording last night.

Yeah, they are picking up a lot of energy from the cymbals and hihat. In a small room SDCs are not your friend. You have to be really careful with placement. There’s a reason a commercial studio will spend 1-4 days getting a drum sound. You can try using an aggressive shelf at 5k to tame that.

I’ve have a lot of success using the Glynn Johns mic scheme. If you have two LDCs you can try it. I’ve also had great success using two SM57s in an XY about 3ft over the snare. Really nice stereo image from that. Add a spot mic for the kick and a room mic and you are done.

Typically, if you are using a mono mic on a kit, a large ribbon mic is used.

The problem with using condenser mics on a drum kit is all that high frequency information makes it overly bright and harsh, which is why most drum mic kits use dynamic mics. Their overall insensitivity and rolled off high freqs make them ideal for drums.

[Swampy]

Re: Did some Redneck Recording last night.

Thanks for the tips!

I may try the X/Y’d 57’s with a kick. When we track only drums, maybe I’ll throw a room mic in, but for this kind of live recording, the bass player and I are in the room with the drummer. I’m afraid it would pick up a lot of our string noise.

[TwilightOdyssey]

Re: Did some Redneck Recording last night.

No problem; have fun!

If you put the tracks on something like WeShare or Dropbox, I can do a pass at a song and shoot a screencap video explaining some tricks I've picked up over the years. You can do whatever you want with the mix once it's done.