Having played the drums for years, I was super excited to record myself when I finally bought some decent microphones. All of the music I had listened to with these huge sounding, hard-hitting drums sounded supernatural, and consistently inspired me to pick up my sticks and practice. Ready to record, I plugged in my microphones, fired up my recording software, and hit play. After a few takes, I excitedly listened back to the recording, and heard an underwhelming capture.
So what did I do wrong? To be honest, it wasn’t so much as things done incorrectly, but an unrealistic expectation of the recording. Since punk, hard rock, and metal were my genres of choice, I had come to expect loud, bombastic, punch-you-in-your-face sounds coming from the drums, without understanding the methods behind how this was accomplished. With a mixture of both intrigue and confusion, I set out to find the missing links to get this massive drum sound. After a while, I found that adding some more heavy-handed processing was the missing link. I really wish that someone could have helped me out with this information sooner!
The “secret,” if it really can be called that, is that what you hear on a final rock recording isn’t really an accurate representation of an acoustic drum set; it’s heavily augmented. Now, granted, I was only using four microphones positioned close to the drums, but here’s the thing: nobody listens to a drum two inches from the top of the head. They listen from in front of the kit, where each drum is heard along the others, the cymbals filling in the spaces in between, and the sound of the room gluing it all together. As such, you have to think of all the elements that create the final sound.
The first eye-opener then, I suppose is adding in the “room sound” of the drum set, either through room microphones or reverb. It’s easy to add too much reverb to the snare or the whole set and make things sound cavernous, but the right amount can go a long way in creating a cohesive sound.
For example, listen to the just the direct microphones, and then with a bit of room sound added to it:
Sounds bigger and better, right? The snare occupies a more natural sounding acoustic space, and sounds like what you would hear if a drum set was being played in front of you.
This was a large step forward in my recording process, but to me it was still missing some aggression. Going down the next rabbit hole and coming out the other side, I found that healthy amounts of EQ and compression added this aggression into the mix.
Just like reverb, too much EQ or compression can ruin a recording, but I found that a fairly significant amount really brought my drums to life. All the things I had learned in school and read about online and in print stressed a conservative approach to the recording and mixing process. It’s certainly not a bad starting point, but we’re talking about metal, rock, and punk here; does “conservative” come to mind when describing any of those genres?
It really wasn’t until I watched a video on the mixing process behind one of my favorite bands, that this really sunk in. The kick and snare sounded so good, and there were huge boosts in the high and low end; around 6-9dB! By adding some treble in the right places, I was able to bring the stick attack out in my snare, and the click of the beater hitting my kick drum. Adding in a little bit more bass didn’t hurt either!
Finally, compressing the drums brought up the intensity of the hits on each drum, and really brought the sound forward - more in-your-face. Compression evens out the loud and quiet parts of the audio by turning down the loud parts, and turning up the quiet parts. Do this too much and it will sound like a jumbled mess, but a decent amount (not the minuscule amounts recommended for a conservative recording) can make the drums sound like they were hit with a purpose.
Although these three tips are fairly basic and broad, they can really help in making your drums sound more suitable for rock. Adding some room sound/reverb, making larger EQ moves, and leaning more on compression are just a few of the things you can do to start making your drums sound heavier.
I’ll be going into more detail in upcoming posts, and talking about the things that I wish someone had told me sooner regarding the recording of heavy drums, so check back in soon for some more tips and tricks!
