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 | | | | Nov30Written by:Rip Rowan
Tuesday, November 30, 1999 6:00 PM  Four Mile Mule had already recorded rhythm tracks for about twenty songs when "Black and White Movie" was written. We all felt strongly that it was the catchiest song in their catalog and decided to record it and package ten other songs with it as a demo CD.
With only 8 inputs into my recorder, we would cut drums and bass at the same time, then go back and add acoustic and electric guitars and vocals. We made the artistic decision to NOT use a metronome or click track for the rhythm tracks. We wanted to hear the natural ebb and flow of the tempo that you get when a band will "push" and "pull" the energy of the song. Therefore, even though we were only recording the bass and drums, the entire band would set up so that the rhythm tracks would be cut with the live feel.
The band wanted the CD to have a nice, polished sound, so I wanted to get a pure drum sound on tape. Setting the entire band up in the tracking room would create too much bleed on the drum mics, so the drummer set up in my tracking room, while the rest of the band set up in the control room. In this way, everybody could hear each other really well, but the drum mics would be getting only the drum sound.
Bass Guitar
We took the bass direct for this album. The bass player plays a 5-string Fender over a GK head and a Hartke 4x10 cab. I am NOT a fan of transistor guitar amps or Hartke cabs, at least not for this kind of music. We needed to get a warm, round, fat bass sound with a little "hair" on it. The GK / Hartke combo - a solid live rig - proved to be too bright and pointy in the studio. After capturing the direct sound of the bass, we would run the recorded signal back through a low-wattage tube amp to add a little "cardboard" to the sound.
For the song "Black and White Movie" we actually wanted a distorted bass sound. To get the sound we were going for we ran the recorded bass tracks through a Fender Pro Junior amp cranked up nice and loud in my large tracking room. The mix of the compressed direct bass sound and the Fender amp turned out to be the fuzzy edge that the song needed. Take a listen to a brief clip of the bass guitar to get the idea.
You may be surprised at how distorted the bass actually is. It's not the bass sound I'd usually record... but it's the sound we decided to get for this song. See, once you place a distorted bass track into a mix with even one distorted guitar, the ear begins to hear all the distortion as coming from the guitar. In listening to the complete mix, you probably can't tell that the bass is distorted. The trick in this case is that the bass was played with slightly more movement than the guitar. The distortion added an extra layer of thickness to the song without actually adding another part. The result is that the mix is heavier and thicker, but still retains the simplicity of a four-piece arrangement.
Snare Drum
The drummer plays a typical 4 piece kit: kick, snare, two toms, hats, ride, and two crash cymbals. I like to work with drummers who play relatively simple kits. There are precious few drummers in the world who can truly make use of more than two or three toms, and very little music that requires a double-bass. Great drum parts are usually the result of expressiveness and groove, not any specific number of drums. Less is more.
On snare, of course we used an SM57. When I use a 57 on snare I usually line it up pointing directly away from the hi hats. This cuts down on the bleed from the hats, and is usually out of the drummer's way. I point the mic at the snare at about a 20-degree angle down, about ½" away from the head, and 1-2" inside the rim. The mic should be pointing roughly at the center of the drum.
The key to getting a good snare sound is: have a good sounding drum. This should be a no-brainer, but you'd be surprised how many snare drums just don't stand up when recorded. And price is not the issue. I've seen some really crappy little chrome snares produce a great sound and some high-dollar snares that were really terrible. The key is the selection and tuning of the heads and snares.
Depending on the kind of music and drummer I will sometimes use a "ring-off" on the snare. You've seen these in the music stores hanging by the drum heads. It's a ring that sits on the top of the head right inside the rim. I've also known drummers who will damp the snare by placing their wallet on the snare.
Why are these good ways to mute the snare's ring? Why not use a bunch of duct tape? Here's the deal. Tape, or anything that adheres to the drum head, will change the tuning and harmonics of the head. Usually this screws up the attack, making the snare sound really dead. But a damping ring - or even a wallet - does not adhere to the head. When the drummer hits the snare, for a split-second the ring is lifted up, giving you the entire attack and briefly allowing the full sound of the snare to develop. Then, the damping ring makes contact with the head, cutting the ring.
In the case of Four Mile Mule we wanted a natural, open snare sound, so we did not use a damping ring of any kind. Instead we used gating and EQ to control the snare's ring.
A snare's ring is composed of a fundamental and several harmonics. The specific frequencies depend entirely on the drum, but are typically in the range of 200-800 Hz with the fundamental in the 200-300 Hz range and the harmonics at multiples of the fundamental. Be aware that sometimes the first harmonic can seem louder than the fundamental.
In adding EQ and gate to a snare drum most engineers seem to use gating before EQ. I think this is a result of the fact that on most consoles the insert is placed before the EQ. I usually place the EQ before the gate. This way the gate is not "hearing" so much overtone and seems to react more evenly. Either way will work. For best results use a fully parametric EQ with adjustable frequency and bandwidth (Q). If these terms are meaningless to you, read Lionel's articles on EQ for more help with EQ.
Crank up the gain on a given frequency and set the Q (width) as high (narrow) as possible. Now slowly sweep the EQ around until you hear the snare ring loud and clear. It should ping like a submarine. Now cut that frequency. You'll want to only cut as much as needed to get rid of that part of the ring. You shouldn't need to do a full-cut. Repeat for each offending frequency.
I used the Waves Q6 EQ for the snare. Below you can see the EQ settings I used. We wanted a bright, crisp sound, thus the serious high-shelf EQ used. I usually apply a low-cut to the snare to keep it from being too dark. This totally depends on the application and the snare. Remember, you want to leave some ring. Otherwise the snare will sound dead.
 EQ settings for the snare. Some of the higher notches are probably overkill.
Next comes the gate. The gate is a downward expander which will attenuate the signal as it falls below the threshold. If these terms are meaningless to you, read my article on Dynamics Processing for more help with gates and compressors. For a snare I usually use an expander with a very fast attack, a medium fast release, and a 2:1 or 3:1 ratio. The threshold needs to be set according to the volume of the snare track. Below you can check out the Waves C1 Gate that I used on this snare track.
 Downward expander used on the snare (and the kick)
Finally comes compression. I like to really compress the snare hard and usually limit it as well. Serious compression adds to the "crack" as well as the "meat" of the snare. For snare compression I use a fast attack, medium release 4:1 compressor. I then crank up the output until I'm hitting the limiter section hard enough to just start to bite off the tops of the attack. This makes the drum fuller and thicker sounding. Below is a shot of the Waves Renaissance Compressor used on this track.
 Renaissance Compressor for the snare (pretty much the same for the kick, too)
When recording snare I like to use a tube mic preamp. The snare drum is probably the single most dynamic instrument on God's Green Earth, and there's no way to record it at a decent level and not clip the transient. A little tube preamplification can add some depth and bite to the snare's attack and help get more tone to tape. Sometimes, for a tougher sound, it's good to even drive the preamp into moderate distortion.
The trick to getting a good snare sound is to work interactively with the instrument and to not be afraid to really jack around with the sound. It's not reasonable to think that by placing a mic ½" from the head of a drum that you will capture the full sound of the instrument. Instead you need to work with the sound as it is coming out of the speakers to get it sounding good. If you will closely listen to most snare sounds on the music you like, you'll probably realize that they're all a little "ugly". Each snare has it's own character. Don't kill the character with too much gating, EQ, and damping. In fact one of my biggest problems with Black Hat Country Music is the sterile, overprocessed, "perfect" snare drum sounds that are prevalent in Nashville these days. Boooorrrrrr-ing.
You can listen to the dry snare sound and the effected snare sound to get an idea of what we're doing here with EQ, gating and compression. You'll notice that the processed snare drum is much brighter (maybe too bright), with lots of snare sound and a crisp attack.
Kick Drum
Next comes the kick drum. Like the snare, the trick to a good kick sound is a good sounding kick. Fortunately, kick drums are pretty easy to get right. In rock, country, and jazz, the kick is usually damped with a pillow or some kind of material to cut down on the boominess. The right amount of damping depends on the drum and the drummer, but it ought to be somewhere between "whap" (no tonality) and "boooooom" (all tonality). If it's at either extreme, adjust the damping material to get a balance between the attack ("whap") and the decay ("boooooom").
Now, I'm a drummer, and sometimes it's cool to play with an undamped kick drum with a full front head on the drum. As with most instruments in rock music, though, what sounds good in rehearsal or on stage may not be the sound that best translates to tape. Undamped kick drums usually fall in this category. Unless you're looking for an unusual kick sound, don't record an undamped kick drum.
We used an AT-Pro25 kick drum mic. I am not a fan of the ubiquitous AKG D112, which to me is too heavy sounding. The D112 is good if you want a really big, thuddy kick sound… a sound that personally bores me. I like mics like the AT Pro-25, EV RE20, Sennheiser MD412, or even a Shure SM57 for kick. These mics offer more attack and personality, and create a tighter kick sound than a D112.
With kick, I like to use a little downward expansion to reduce the amount of noise bleed from other drums. I use pretty much the same setup that I use for snare: fast attack, medium release, and about a 2:1 or 3:1 ratio. To me it's important to set the threshold and release so that I'm not cutting off the decay of the drum. If you cut off the decay with a gate you run the risk of taking the "butt" off the kick sound. It'll get small-sounding. Just be sure to leave enough decay in the kick that it has its full size in the mix. If you think that the kick sounds too small, yet there's clearly a lot of bass content (demonstrated by your popping woofers) chances are that there's not enough decay. Adjust the gate or the damping of the drum.
Next comes EQ. Each kick needs its own EQ depending on the sound of the kick. An important thing to note is that while a kick drum does produce a lot of really deep bass (down to 20 Hz and below), the part of the kick that thumps you in the chest is the octave from 100 to 200 Hz. These are the same frequencies, however, that are usually over-present in a muddy mix. The right balance of deep bass and midbass is paramount when EQing a kick drum.
Some engineers like to pull out all the mids and boost the treble on a kick. This creates a kick sound reminiscent of metal bands with a bid "thud" combined with a treble "tick". I do not care for this sound, nor is it appropriate for Four Mile Mule. For this kick we used a little low-cut @ 35 Hz (to control the deepest bass), a nice, round bass boost @ 90 Hz, midbass cut @ about 160 Hz, and a high-shelf cut of a few dBs.
Finally comes compression. I like to use heavy compression on the kick drum. Pretty much the same settings as I use for the snare: fast attack, medium release, and about a 4:1 ratio. For both kick and snare I like to drive the compressor into about 6 or so dBs of gain reduction, and then use the Renaissance Compressor's output limiter to take off a little of the attack and add a little meat.
The Rest of the Kit
For hi hats we used a Shure SM81. I like to mic the hats on the far side of the cymbal from where the drummer hits it with the stick. This cuts down on the attack and gets more of the cymbal sound. It also lets me point the mic slightly away from the rest of the kit, resulting in more hats and less kit. Here the signal chain is easy: I use a serious low-cut EQ @ about 100 Hz combined with a hi-shelf boost @ about 8 KHz. For the Mules I used a lot of overheads, so there's plenty of hi-hats in the overhead mics. The hi-hat mic is just there to add a little sizzle and sparkle.
For overheads we used a pair of Crown CM700s. For this application I placed the mics up and over the drummer's shoulders spaced a few feet apart. Spaced pairs and X-Y configurations work well for drum overheads. If you intend on creating a large, more spread-out image, use a spaced pair. For a more focused, mono sound, use an X-Y configuration. The main thing to be concerned about is to make sure that the mics will not line up on edge with any of the cymbals, otherwise the cymbals will take on a strange, underwater sound. It's good to keep the mics sufficiently far enough away from the cymbals that they will hear the whole sound the cymbals are producing. The signal chain here was also easy: we used a low-cut at about 300 Hz to reduce the drone of the entire kit and to promote the cymbals.
Finally, the toms were miked with a pair of AT4050s. Shure SM57s are also great mics to use on toms, as are Sennheiser MD421s. Unless the drummer is playing a lot of fills, I prefer to manually edit the silence out of the tom tracks rather than using a gate to isolate the toms. It improves the DAWs efficiency, and I can usually make the edits in about as much time as it would take to patch in and set up the gates.
As with the other drums, to get a good tom sound, start with a good sounding tom. If your drummer can't tune the damn drums, fire him and get a drummer with a clue.
Once the toms are in tune, all that needs to be done is to set up the EQ. I usually don't compress the toms unless they're integral to the groove or not sitting in the mix well. To make the tom sound richer, just start boosting the bass frequencies around the fundamental, and cutting the mids about 2-4 octaves above the fundamental. For example we used the following EQ on the floor tom in this track: +6 dBs @ 90 Hz, -4 dBs @ 450 Hz. Instant roundness.
Finally, unless you're recording in a large live room, you're going to want a little reverb on the drums. Tastes vary widely here and depend largely on the format of the music. In our case, we wanted a fairly dry drum sound, but a little extra "space" on the snare and kick, so only the kick and snare were fed into the reverb. The rest of the kit was dry.
For reverb we used the Cakewalk FX3 Sound Stage Designer. This is a good reverb unit for lifelike room and hall sounds. It has a nice combination of "slap" (natural-sounding early reflections) and "space" (decay) that works well on snare drums.
Unless you're running a DSP-loaded DAW, by the time you've gated, EQed, compressed, and added reverb to the drums, you're probably approaching the limits of the real-time processing power of your system. Therefore, after dialing in the drum mix, I like to print a stereo track of submixed drums and "off-line" the drum tracks. With older 16-bit DAWs you're losing a lot of signal by submixing, but not with 24 bit tracks. They retain pretty much all the relevant sonic information in the mix, so I submix 24 bit tracks all I need to keep the computer running nice and fast.
When submixing drums I like to add compression to the drum submix. I can always re-print the submixed track later if I added too much or not enough compression. For drum submixing I use the Waves Renaissance compressor with a gentle 1.5:1 ratio, medium attack and medium release. I set up the compressor to just ride the track with about 1 dB of gain reduction, then start turning up the output and driving the peak limiter until the drums get to the right fatness. Here is a sample of the submixed drums.
A little bit goes a long way. As you get more and more peak limiting, you'll start to lose the attack of the drums and increase the reverb and ring. A little bit of compression and limiting gives the drums are thicker, denser, fuller sound. Listen to the submixed drum clip. I think you'll agree that it has good energy.
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