Sae Mem 111 PDF

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Drums in the studio

by Lode De Feyter, AEPS 904 2006
Final thesis, presented to obtain the audio engineer diploma at the SAE-Institute in Brussels, Belgium
SAE Institute Bruxelles
10, rue Gachard 1050 Ixelles
- Drums in the studio -
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INSTITUTE
Drums in the studio

by Lode De Feyter, AEPS 904
2006
Final thesis, presented to obtain the audio engineer diploma at the SAE-Institute in Brussels, Belgium
SAE Institute Bruxelles 10, rue Ga chard 1050 Ixelles
TABLE OF CONTENTS
TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................................................................. 2 PREFACE ..................................................................................................................... 5 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................ 6 PART 1 : GOOD SOUNDING DRUMS .................................................................... 7
1.
INTRODUCTION .. .............. . .... . . ... . . .. .. . .. ........ ..................... . .... . .............. .. .. ... ......... ... . 7 DRUM CONSTRUCTION AND HEAD PROPERTIES .... ... .. .. .. .......... .. .......... . ... ........ .. .... .. .
2.
8 2.1. Head Construction and Concepts .. ... ........... ... ..... .. ...... .... ...... ....... ............. ..... . 8 2.1.1. Drumhead types ............................................ .......... .... ... ........ .. ... ........... ... 8 2.1.2. Batter- and resonant heads- general concepts ............... ..... ....... ... ........... 9 2.1.3. Tom head configurations ...... ..................................... ..................... ..... ... 10 The batter head .... ....... .. .. ... .. ...... ... .... ... ..... .. ..................... .. ........... ... .. ..... 10 The resonant head ................................................................................... 11 Standard tom head combinations ...... .... .. .. .. .. .. ...... .. ..... .... ................ ... .... 12 2.1.4. Bass drum configurations .......................................... ..... .. ...................... 13 Batter si de .......... ........................................... ........... .................. ............. 13 Resonant side ................. .................................................... ..................... 13 Pairing of Bass drumheads ..................................................................... 14 2.1.5. Snare drum configurations ..................................................................... 14 Batter heads ....... ..... .. ....... ... .................. .. ...................... .. .... .. ... ............... 14 Bottom heads ....... ..................................................... ... .. ......................... 15 2. 2. Shell Construction .... .......... ............... .............. ................ ........ ... ..... .... ... ....... 16 2.2.1. Woods and construction ......................................................................... 16 2.2.2. Thickness off the shell. .................. .......................... ............................... 17 2.2.3. Snare drum materials ...................... .......................... .............................. 18 Materials: ................................................................................................ 18 Construction: .......................................................................................... 18 2.2.4. Bearing edges ......................................................................................... 19 2.2.5. Internai surfaces .................. .......................................................... ......... . 19 2.2.6. External surfaces .................................................................................... 20 2.2.7. Hoops ... ..... .... ... ............... ........ .... .. .... .. ......... .... ..... ...... .. ... ....................... 20 2.2.8. Amount of lugs .... ... .... .... .. ..................... .. ..................................... .......... 21 2.2.9. Suspension mounts .......................... ................................. ...................... 21 2.2.1 O. Sizes .................................... ..... .. ... .... ... ......................... ................. ....... 22
TUNING THE DRUMSET ...........................................................................................
3.
23 3.1. Drum tuning in general ................................................................................. 23 3.2. Fine Tuning ... ................... ..... .......... ....... ....... ... ... ..... ..................................... 26 3.2.1. Matching batter- and resonant head ....................................................... 27 3.3. Quick Tips ........................................................... .. .......................... ............... 28 3. 4. Tuning the snare drum ... ....... .. ..... .. ......... .... ... ................................................ 29 3.4.1. The tuning process ................ .... ......... .............................................. ....... 29 3. 5. Tuning the bass drum ............................................................. ... .. .. ................ 31 3.5.1. The tuning process .................................................................................. 31 3.5.2. Muffling .................................................................................................. 31 3.5.3. Bass drum batter head protection ......................... .................................. 32 3.5.4. Bass drum beater .................................................................................... 32 3. 6. The drum set as one instrument ................. ........................... .... ..................... 33 - Drums in the studio 2
PART 2: RECORDING THE DRUMS ................................................................... 34

1. INTRODUCTION .. .............. .... ....... ........................ ... ............................................. ... 34
2. THE SECRETS OF MIC PLACEM ENT ...... ........................... ... ........... ... ... ... ........ .......... 35
3. MIKING THE DRUM KIT ..... .. .... ..... ..... ...... ........ .... ........................ ... ... ..... ......... ..... .. 36
3.1. Miking the drum kit as a single instrument ..... ... ........................ .. ... ... ... ....... . 36 3.1.1. Single mie technique .... ..... ...... ....... ............... .... .......... ..... .... .......... ........ 36 3.1.2. Two mie technique ................................................................................. 37 3.1.3. Three mie technique ........................ ..... .. ........... ... ....... .... ........ .. ..... ........ 37 3.1.4. Four mie technique ............................................... ......... ............... ... .. ..... 38 3.2. Close miking the drumset .. .................. ..... .... ... ..... .. ........... ....... .......... ........... 39 3.2.1. The bass drum: .... ............. ................... ..... ...... ........................................ 39 General considerations: ............................ .......... .................................... 39 Microphone placement: ............... ...... ... .... .................... .. ... .... ... ........... ... 39 3.2.2. The snare drum: ............................................... .... ................................... 41 General considerations: .......... ........... ....... ... ... ..... ... .. ..... .. .......... ... .......... 41 Microphone placement: .. ....... .................. ... ............... .. .......... .... ... ....... ... 41 3.2.3. The Hi-Hat: ....... ................................. ....... ... ... ...... ... .. ... .... ............ ... ... .. .. 42 General considerations: ... ... .. ....... ... ...... .. .... ........ ... ............ ........... ....... ... 42 Microphone placement: ..... ........... .... .. .. .... .. ............................................ 42 3.2.4. The Toms: ........................................ .. ....................... ... .. ....... .. ........ ...... .. 42 General considerations: ................................................ .... ...................... 42 Microphone placement: .. .. ......... ... ........ .................................................. 43 3.2.5. The Overheads: ...... ......................... ... .. ....... ... ............. ......... ....... ... .. ... ... . 43 General considerations: ...... .. ......... ....... ...... ............................................ 43 Microphone placement: ............ ...... .. .... .. ... .. ......... .. .................. .. ... .. ....... 44 3.2.6. Room Mies: .......... ..... ..... ... ..... ...... ... ..... ..... ..... .. ... ............ .......... .... ......... 45 General considerations: ....... ............ ................................ ....................... 45 Microphone placement: ........ ........ .. ..... .. ... ... .. ....... .. .. .. ........ .. .. ........... ..... 45 PART 3 : MIXING THE DRUMS ............................................................................ 46
1. INTRODUCTION ............ .... ................................ .. ..... ................ ....... .. ....... .... ....... .... 46 2. MIXING STYLES: NEW YORK, LA AND LONDON ... .............. ..... .. ...... ...... .. ... .. .. .. .... 47 2.1. The New York Style ........................................................................................ 47 2.2. The LA Style ......... .. ..... ..... ......... ..... ...... .......................................................... 47 2.3. The London Style ... .... .......... ... ........ .......... .. ...... .. .......... .... ........................... .. 47 3. MIXING IT DOWN ............................... ...... .... ...................... ...... .. .. .. ....... ... ... ... ....... . 49 3.1. Making the balance .......................... .. .............. ............. ...... .. ............... ... ... ... 50 3.2. Panorama ... ........ ... ...... .... .... ........ .. ..... ..... .. .. ............... .. .. .. ... ... ... .. .. .. ..... ......... 51 3.3. Phase check ... .... .. .... .......... .... ............ ... ... ...... .... ...... ... .......... ........... ....... ... .... 52 3.4. Dynamics .... .. ... ................. .... .. ..... .. ....... ......................................................... 53 3.4.1. Compression .... ....... ... ...... ... ... ... .... .... .................. .. .. ... .. .. ......... ... .......... ... 53 Kick and snare ........................................................................................ 54 Overheads .................... .... ..... ... ....... .. ... ... .............. ..... .. .. ... ........ ... .... ... ... . 54 Rooms ........... .................... ...... ....... ............................. .. ............... ....... .... 54 Bussing ............ ........ .. ........................ .. .. ..... ............ ................. ........... .... 54 3.4.2. Noise Gates .... ...... ........... ............................ .... ... .... .... .. ... ...... ............... .. . 55 Kick ............ ................................. ...... ..................................................... 55 Snare ... .................... ... ... ... ............. .. .. ... ...... ................................ .. .. ......... 55 Toms ..... .... ............... ......... .. .......... .... .. ... ..... ... ....... ........ ...... .............. ...... 55 - Drums in the studio 3
3.4.3. Limitors ..... .... ... ........ ............... ............. .. .. .......... .... .... ... ...... .... .. .... ...... ... 56 3.5. Equalizing .................... ....... .... ............................................ ........ ............... .... 57 3.5.1. Kick ......... .. ...... ....................... ....... ....... ...... ....... ...... .......... ........... .. ........ 57 3.5.2. Snare ...... ..... ...... ....... ....... .... .... ... .. .... .. ............. ......... ......... ....... .... .. .. ....... 58 3.5.3. Hi-Hats ................................................................................................... 58 3.5.4. The toms .... ..................... ...... ... ... .................... .. ... .... ...... .. .... ....... ... ...... ... 58 3.5.5. Overheads .......... ..... ....... .................. .. ................... ... ... ... .. ....... ... .... .... ... .. 59 3.5.6. Rooms ..................................................................................................... 59 3. 6. Adding effects ..... .. ....... ..... .. ......................... ......... .... ..... ... ..... ......... ... .......... .. 60 PART 4 : INTERVIEWS WITH PROFESSIONALS ............................................ 62
J EAN-PHILIPPE KOMAC ............. ..... ..... ... ........ .. ... ....... .......... ....... .... .. .......... .......... .. ..
62 Presentation. ..................................................................................................... .... 62 The Interview ............................. ... ..................... ...... .......... ... ................ ................ 63 The Shells ......................................................................................................... 63 Heads .. ..... .......... ........ ............................. .. ....... ............ ...... .. ... .. .. ..... .. ... ......... ... 64 Tuning .. ..... .......... ....... ..... ......... ................ ... ....... ........... ............. ........ ........ ...... 65 Hoops ........ .. ...... ..... .............. .................... .. .... ........ .. .... ............. ......... ........ ... .... 66 Recording .... ........ .............. .......... .... .... ....................... ... ... ........ .. ......... .... .. ....... 66 67 Presentation. ............................................................................................. ...... .... .. 67 The interview .... ...... .. ... ... ..... ...... .. ... ........ ...... ............ .. .. ..... ................... ................ 68 Microphones ...... .......... ......... .................. .... ....... ............ .... ..... .... .. ........ .. .. ..... ... 68 Mix .... ..... ..... .. ..... .. ..... .... ..... ... ... ...... .... ... ... .... ... .............. .......... .. .. .......... .. .... ..... 69 Presentation. .. ........ ....... ....... ....... ...... .. .... .. .. .. ... ... ....... .. ............ ..... ..... .... ............. .. 70 The interview ....... ....... ....... ..................... ....................... ... .... ..... ......................... .. 71 The drumsound ..... .... ...... .. ... .... ........ ..... .... .... ................... ........... ........... ........... 71 Heads .. .... ...... ...... ...... ....... ... ... .. .. ....... ................. ............... .. ....... ... .. .. ...... 71 Tuning .............. ......... ....... ... ... ....... ...................... ...... ... ..... ....... .............. . 71 Microphones ..................................................................................................... 72 Room .............. ............. ................. .. .... .................. ... ....... ... ............ ......... 72 Snare .... ................. ....... ... ............. ............ ...... .... ...... ... ............ .. .. ....... ... .. 72 Toms ....................................................................................................... 72 Kick ........................................... ..... ... ....... ................ ........ .... .......... .. ...... 72 Overheads .. ......... ..... ....... ... ... ....... .. .............................. .. .... .. .................. . 72 Mix .. ... ............................................................ .. ... .. ....... ..... ..... ......... .. ... ... .. .... ... 72
CHRISTOPHE ALBERTIJN ........ ................................... ...... .. ............ ..... .... ....... ... ..........
DIRK .......................................................................................................................... 70
CONCLUSION ........................................................................................................... 74 BIBLIOGRAPHY ...................................................................................................... 75 APPENDIX ................................................................................................................. 76
PREFACE
This document considers the thesis I wrote in an attempt to achieve the audio engineer diploma at the SAE-Institute in Brussels, Belgium. Special thanks goes out to the following people for their help and support in writing this paper: Jean-Philippe Komac, Flanders' drum-guru, for the interesting and cosy chat we had, and for providing me with sorne really useful documentation. Christophe Albertijn, sound engineer at MotorMusic-studios in Koningshooikt, for willing to sacrifice his precious time for the interview we did. Dirk, from "De Studio" in Asse, for his readiness to tell me his little recording- and mixing-secrets. Peter Ploegaerts, my drum teacher, who taught me percussion classes for 11 years at the music academy in Lier, and made me graduate with 93% this year. Gerben Andries, a good friend and drummer in the amazing band "4 Play", for helping me with English translations. Mathias Meersmans, another good friend and brilliant drummer in the progressive metal band "in progress", for the linguistic corrections he did. My girlfriend Anneleen, for her constant support and patience while writing this paper. Arne Heylen, just for being a cool class-mate and for the awesome recordings we did together. My parents, for providing me with food when 1 needed it. The whole staff at the SAE-college in Brussels for their support and for giving me the opportunity to make this study.
INTRODUCTION
it 's the drum kit. Drums are the heartbeat of virtually al! modern music. Wimpy sounding drums can make for a wimpy record regardless of how well everything else is recorded." - Bobby Owsinski in his "Recording Engineer' s Handbook"
"If the re is one instrument that engineers seem to obsess over,
This paper is about drums in the studio, in ali of its aspects. It describes the effects of the different drum-parts on the overall sound of the drums, such as the various types of heads that can be used, different woods, shell-constructions, mounting-systems and so on. Further on, you can find a detailed description of how to tune every drum in the set to make them sound like they should. Next, an extensive summary of different types of microphones and their possible placements around the drum kit is given. 1 will terminate by saying how to mix everything to achieve the "big time" sound heard on the radio. 1 chose this subject because this way 1 could combine my two big passions: playing the drums and recording music. As a drummer, it has always fascinated me how those drums on my favourite cd's could ever sound so big and fat. lt kind of frustrated me that 1 never succeeded in making my TAMA-Rockstar drumset sound the way my idols could. This was because 1 didn't have a clue how to tune my kit or which heads to use to get the sound 1 was searching for. Later on, when 1 started studying at the SAE-Institute and 1 began recording drum sets, 1 ran into sorne other problems: how on earth did we have to place the microphones, and how for God' s sake did we have to use those compressors, EQ's and reverbs when mixing it all? We had a little workshop on this subject, but that was way too short and it left me with even more questions than 1 had before. We experimented a lot, but we were never able to really obtain th sound we were looking for. There was a big need to make sorne profound researches into this subject, which is what 1 did. 1 bought a couple of books and started surfing on the world wide web on a quest for information. 1 fought my way through the jungle of resources and gathered a lot of interesting articles, but at the same time 1 bumped against even more useless nonsense, written by unexperienced people, who didn't have a clue about what they were talking. Furthermore, 1 e-mailed sorne studio' s and professional session drummers and asked them if they were willing to tell me their secrets about the way they tune, record and/or mix their drum sets. Sorne did not answer, others were very kind and willing to talk. The people I spoke to were extremely forthcoming, answering just about any question and offering explicit information as to why and how they work. What 1 did next was separating chaff from wheat and hundling it into one coherent who le, which is what you are about to read. lt is the intention of this paper to cover the whole story considering the recording of drums, from tuning over recording to mixing. The reader shall not need to consult other resources when it cornes to recording and mixing drums, as in my opinion, every useful aspect is included. The reader should always remember that every thing written here is a guide only and may or may not work with your specifie kit. If you understand the effect that will take place as you move the tension rods, microphones or sound-processor-knobs, you will eventually get the results you seek.
PART 1 GOOD SOUNDING DRUMS

1. Introduction
A drum kit will only sound good under a set of microphones when the kit itself sounds good acoustically. It's wrong to expect from the engineer he can make your shitty cardboard boxes sound like the drum kit of your biggest hero simply by turning sorne little buttons. A bad sounding drum set will always sound bad, even when you put the best mies on it in the most expensive studio ever with the best sounding acoustics and the greatest hardware deviees and the world most famous sound engineer .. Most drummers' kits simply don' t record well, these can have many reasons: Maybe it's because of a bad choice of drurnheads, old heads, bad tuning, uneven shells, uneven bearing edges or bad hardware. Drums that might be adequate or even great sounding live kits, don' t always make the eut when put under the scrutiny of the recording studio. There is another essential ingredient of getting a great sound out of the drumset and that's the need for a good and weil talented drummer. It is far more important to play a basic but steady groove than it is to play as much notes as possible and still sounding bad. Good drummers know how to hit the drums consistently on the right spot so their sound is true . Y ou can tell a good drummer by loo king at the skins. If they are worn in a small circle in the middle - they are good - whereas if there are stickrnarks all over the shop they're not consistent. Another thing to mention is that you don't necessarily need an expensive professional drumset to get that professional sound. Usually it is possible to get a cheap starterset sound good under the microphones as long as y ou take the time to tune it with a fresh set of head s. Less expensive does not mean inferior, in sorne cases, it may be far superior to achieve the desired end-result. It's important to make the drums sound their best before you even turn a mie on. This chapter goes into great detail about the drum, its construction as weil as its tuning in an attempt to teach those who really want to understand what an entire drum set can do, how to go about figuring that out and put it into practice. It requires time, patience, thinking and work.
J've ne ver heard a good drummer sound bad, and 1 've never heard a bad drummer sound particularly good. ft 's one of those instruments where the technique of the player re ally matters, like most acoustic instruments. - Mark Linett - American sound engineer
2. Drum construction and head properties

There are many variables that make up the overall sound of a drum: the type of shell material; the depth, diameter and thickness of the shell; the number of lugs; type of hoop ; type of head; the finish; the degree of bearing edge; and the way the drum is mounted. I would like to give you sorne background information about ali of these before I attack the tuning techniques.
2.1. Head Construction and Concepts
Although many components contribute to the sound of a drum, the heads are its primary source of resonance. Drurnheads come in many different sizes, thicknesses, textures, and in sorne cases, colours. Due to their greater mass, thick heads require more force to be moved, and vibrate more slowly than thin heads. They will be mellower and less sensitive than that of the exact same thinner counterpart. For example, a REMO Diplomat Clear will be brighter and more sensitive than a REMO Ambassador Clear, the Ambassador being thicker than the Diplomat and both being single ply. Although there are few variants, typically they are made of polyester or Mylar. Mylar is a registered trade name of DuPont Teijin Films. These films are tough, general purpose films that are transparent in 48 through 92 gauges and translucent in heavier gauges. They have balanced tensile properties and excellent resistance to moisture and most chemicals. They can withstand temperature extremes from -70C to 150C. Mylar does not become brittle with age under normal conditions because it contains no plasticizers. In general, drumhead performance can be put into three main categories: sound: tone (dark - bright), color (warm - aggressive), pitch (low - high), sustain (short- long) feel: response, sensitivity presence: durability, tuning range
2.1.1. Drumhead types Coated heads will be warmer and minimize high frequency tones . The stick slap bas a very bright element to it, much like sandpaper rubbing together, but the main element is darker in tone. Coatings vary depending upon manufacturer. Sorne manufacturers have created heads which give then a very unique sound and wear characteristic. Coated heads are best known as batter and resonant heads warming up the sound of tom-toms and bass drums. Coated is probably required if doing brushwork. Clear heads are bright and open with overtones, the stick slap does not have bright sandpaper like characteristics as found on coated heads, but the overall presence of the slap is very bright in the upper register and carries through the mix very well. Clear heads are best known as batter and resonant heads opening up the sound of tomtoms and bass drums. Ebony walks that balance of properties between coated and clear and the stick slap does not have bright sandpaper like characteristics as found on coated heads. It produces a less of a high frequency overtone resonance ("darker" tone ). 2-ply: These aid in durability and can also limit high pitched overtones. Often referred to as "muted" in tone, when they do not have a control ring adhered to them do - Drums in the studio 8
produce lingering resonance and bright overtones the higher they are tuned. These come in multiple film weights depending upon the manufacturer. 2-ply heads have quick decay, making them ideal heads for the "fat" sounds of Pop, Rock and R&B and for those who want a low pitched sound with moderate attack and response characteristics. Or, something like this:
WAtM 1 0Atl( Figure 1: Visual sumrnary of drurnhead types and their characteristics
2.1.2. Batter- and resonant heads - general concepts Batter Head: The batter head controls the feel of the hit, initial pitch, the sound of the stick slap or attack and the initial element of the drum sound or overtones. When the drum is hit, the ear hears mostly the attack and the fundamental pitch of the drum. Overtones emitted by the batter head are washed out at a distance, but aid in the overall projection. Resonant Head: Often underestimated for its contribution to the tone, it is mostly responsible for the pitch, lingering tone and pitch of that created as a result of striking the batter head and resonance of the shell. The resonant head produces "resonance" and aids in sustain, it has a major effect in the overtones and enhances the timbre of the drum. Generally you do not use anything other than single ply on the bottom, but there are exceptions.
The most resonance is heard by placing a head of identical specifications on both the batter and resonant side because polymers of equal thickness vibrate reasonably equal to each other when the tension is equal. lt is a common misconception that if you have a heavily muffled head on the batter side and place a thinner head on the resonant side, that the resulting sound will be more warm, or bass heavy and more resonant. Actually, the thinner resonant head makes the high frequency tone, that most seek to eliminate come back out of the drum and the bass frequency produced lasts for less of a duration (a good combination for tho se who like the single ply sound but hit really hard). On the contrary, thicker heads, such as coated heads or thin two ply heads have more mass, and mass once set in motion is harder to stop than a thin head with less mass. For this reason, the thicker resonant head is actually more resonant in the lower frequencies whereas the thinner heads produce the more hollow or upper midrange resonance for less of a duration. High carbon content is required to make the ebony heads. This too adds mass while making the head just a hair more brittle. The resulting sound is a little more focused and slightly void of higher pitched overtones. Pure white, rather than coated white, goes the same direction as ebony heads.
2.1.3. Tom head configurations

The batter head
Categorized in 5 different categories, within each are subtle to very subtle tonal differences and can be used interchangeably with a similar end result for sound. For example, in Category 1 a REMO Ambassador coated will sound very similar to an Evan's G 1TM or Aquarian Satin Finish. However, between categories there are major sound differences.
Category 1 - Sensitive, good stick feel, open sound with good sustain and resonance. Single ply, not muffled medium weight such as
REMO Ambassador- Classic open stock drumhead sound REMO Renaissance- A bit more presence than Ambassador REMO FiberSkyn FA- Warmer than the above. Aquarian Satin Finish- Classic open stock drumhead sound Aquarian Classic Clear Series TM - Brighter than above Evans G 1TM series - Classic open stock drumhead sound
Category 2 - A more mellow tone compared to single ply with overtones becoming less prevalent on the initial attack, stick feel and sustain are reduced slightly. Comprised of either single and 2-ply muffled or heavy weight heads, these can help warm up or round out the tone, yet retain an element of sustain with minimal high-pitched overtones. This would include heads such as the

REMO Emperor (2-7mil plies) REMO PowerStroke3- Single ply feel - minimized overtones REMO FiberSkyn Fl - Warm and open- minimal overtones Evans G2 - Slightly muted over Evans G 1TM, open sound tuned high. Aquarian Studio-X Series- Warm overtones, single head feel Aquarian Double Thin - slightly more responsive and open than Response 2 Aquarian Response 2 - F ocused sus tain strong attack
Category 3 - Muffled and suitable for heavy wear concerns. These all take the Category 2 style heads and add a bit darker tone to them by have a section of the head adhered together like the REMO PinStripe, or add thickness to the film like the Aquarian Performance II. They also encompass almost anything with a "Power dot" on it. These produce a very short initial attack coupled with a very short sustain add bring out the low frequencies by minimizing upper register response.

REMO PinStripe- Excellent for that classic fat deep tone Aquarian Response 2 - (yes bridges both Categories) Focused sustain strong attack REMO Control Sound - thick attack and wear resistant w/high-pitched overtones Aquarian Signature Carmine Appice - Strong attack, warm fundamental tone.
Category 4 - Very dry heavy muffled, classic 70's sound. There isn't much competition in this category. These heads are as void of overtones as they come, y et still produce a dark sound that enhances the depth of sound and a very focused attack.
Evan' s Hydraulic Glass- Classic oil filled 2-ply. REMO PowerStroke4- Like a REMO Emperor w!Underlay at outer edge.
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Category 5- Light touch, very sensitive. Thin Single ply, not muffled and thin in weight. These are usually only suitable for an orchestral setting or Jazz type situation where feel and sensitivity are of the utmost importance.
REMO Diplomat weighted heads - Very resonant/sensitive used in various REMO lines Evan' s Strata 1000- Warm and simulates the fee! and tone ofcalkskin Aquarian Hi-Frequency - Much like the above, a Jazz favorite Aquarian American Vintage Series - Available in thin weight to simulate calfskin heads
The resonant head
Note, you can obviously use any head , but it is generally accepted to use a single ply head. However, the following will explain what to expect for popular style heads:
Thin resonant heads: These accentuate the higher registered overtones of the drum and shell that thicker or 2-ply head take away from the sound. So if you want a bright attack and less law end resonance, these are good choices.
REMO Diplomat weight heads REMO FiberSkyn 3 FT/FD Aquarian Hi-Frequency Evan' s Genera Resonant Evans Glass Resonant
Medium or Standard Weigh Heads: These will have Jess high frequency sustain than the thin counterparts such as the REMO Diplomat or Evans Glass. They are thicker and as such stay in motion a bit longer and add warmth or depth to the tone. They are ideal where you want a great attack yet decent law end depth.
REMO Arnbassador REMO Arnbassador Ebony REMO FiberSkyn FA Aquarian Classic Clear Aquarian Satin Finish Evans GJTM
Heavy Muffled or 2-ply: Comprised of either single and 2-ply muffled or heavy weight heads, these can help warm up or round out the tone, yet retain an element of sustain with minimal high-pitched overtones.
REMO Emperor (2-7mil plies) - general warm sound, less high overtones REMO PowerStroke3- Further minimized high overtones REMO FiberSkyn F1 - Warm and open- minimal overtones Evans G2- Same as REMO Emperor. Aquarian Studio-X Series- Warm overtones, longer resonance than above Aquarian Double Thin- Same as REMO Emperor Aquarian Response 2- Focused warm sustain w/strong attack
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Standard tom head combinations Category 1 Batter paired with Medium Weight Single Ply Resonant of same type: Very resonant, high ring can be very pro minent when clear resonant is used, more so when clear batter is used. Sound goes warm when coated versions are used, very good sustain, excellent stick response. Coated on top w/clear on bottom produces warrn attack w/bright overtones. This is what a large portion of jazz, country and light rock guy's use. Tuning can control ring easily. Popular recording choice. Coated provides a nice sibilance to the stick attack while clear provides predominate midrange attack. Examples are REMO Ambassador Aquarian Satin Finish EVANS GlTM
Category 2 Batter paired with Thin Weight Single Ply Resonant: Resonant but focused, Initial stick attack is not as sharp as with a clear batter head. An element of hi-frequency ring is present in the resonance but overall sustain is less than if a medium weight resonant head were used. Good stick response. A popular recording choice where y ou want a more focused and less open sound, not completely dry. Works very well for close microphone situations. For a little warmer sound and more resonance, use a medium weight coated head on the bottom or Ebony series. Examples are REMO PowerStroke3 with REMO Diplomat - more low-end resonance use Ambassador REMO FiberSkyn FA with REMO Diplomat REMO Emperor with REMO Diplomat Aquarian Studio X with Aquarian Hi-Frequency - Very warrn w/HighPitched Overtones Evans 02 with EVANS Genera Resonant Clear
Category 3 Batter paired with Medium Weight Single Ply Resonant: Resonant Focused Initial stick attack, deep fat sound, sharp edge to tone with clear head top and bottom. Sustain in the lower registers is prominent and deep when tuned low. Tradition deep fat sound. Stick response is moving towards Jess of a bounce. A popular recording choice where you want a very focused muted sound bordering on the dry side. Works very well for close microphone situations and where the terrn punchy or articulate seems to be what you are a:fter. Like the others, for a little warmer sound and lower end resonance, use a medium weight coated head on the bottom or Ebony series. Examples are REMO PinStripe with REMO Ambassador or Suede REMO Control Sound with REMO Ambassador or Suede Aquarian Performance II with Aquarian Classic Clear
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2.1.4. Bass drum configurations Batter side
Most descriptions about coatings and material type are as described for tom batter heads. There are sorne similarities here to that used for a tom, but there are also sorne real differences in heads used, such as the Evan ' s EQ or EMAD and Aquarian Regulator series. Single Ply -No muffling: Any head on par with the likes of REMO Ambassador, Ebony series, FiberSkyn 3 FA, Aquarian Classic, Aquarian Signature Series Jack DeJohnette, Evans EQ 1, EQ4, etc. Muffled head, 1-ply: Any head on par with the likes of REMO Ambassador, Ebony series, FiberSkyn 3 FA, Aquarian Classic, Aquarian Signature Series Carmine or Vinny Appice, Studio X, Impact I, SuperKick I, Evans EQl, EQ4, etc. Muffled head, 2-ply: Any head on par with the likes of REMO Pinstripe, Evan' s EQ2, EQ3 or hydraulic, Aquarian SuperKick II Evans EMAD series: The EMAD (Externally Mounted Adjustable Damping) is a 1Omil single-ply with two interchangeable damping rings, each of which affects the head's sound and pedal response. This externat system not only maximizes natural attack characteristics and offers tremendous dynamic range (even at low dynamic levels where other damping systems fall short), it also allows quick, easy adjustments without having to remove the head from the drum. This unique feature is extremely valuable, especially during recording sessions. Resonant side
Resonant heads for bass drums are one-ply, sorne variations have a built-in dampening -system. Single Ply - No muffling: Any head on par with the likes of REMO Ambassador, Ebony series, FiberSkyn 3 FA, Aquarian Classic, Ported Bass Drum Head, Evans EQ1 , UNO 58 1000, etc. Single Ply - With muffling: Any head on par with the likes of REMO PowerStroke 3, Aquarian Regulator, Evans EQ2, EQ3 , etc. Note that most of these come with a choice of a 4-112", 5", 7'' or no hole. The Evans EMAD Resonant has the same interchangeable rubber foam damping rings that fits around the edge of the 5" ho le. Resonant heads are also available with a pre-eut hole for the insertion of a microphone. This hole also helps to alleviate beater bounce-back, which occurs when air inside the drum cannat escape. Here are the basic concepts: Any hole larger than 7" is like having no head at all on the drum. A 7" hole creates the feel of a one-headed kick drum, feeds more beater attack direct to an audience and pro vides sorne of the tone of the resonant head. Further, it' s easy to position a mie and change internai muffling deviees, if used. A 4-112" or 5" hole, or even 2 such holes, offset, allows sorne relief for rebound control of the kick beater, contains more of the drums resonance so that the resonant head is more pronounced in the tuning of the drum. A 4-1 /2" ho le is difficult to get large mic ' s positioned within (but can be done) and/or internai muffling altered.
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No hole, very resonant, creates more bounce or rebound from the kick beater. It can become difficult to get the "slap" of the beater and resonance of the drum both when miced with one microphone. The muffling remains inside. The resonant head is very predominant in the overall sound. Pairing of Bass drurnheads
Note ali tone and muffling characteristics from the following heads can be altered by the use of pillows/pads or the use of a ho le in the drum head. Coatings and material type are as described in the section about tom drurnheads on the batter side. There are sorne similarities here to that which is used for a tom. But there are also sorne real differences such as the Evan's EQ and EMAD and Aquarian Regulator series.
Single ply unmuffled Batter and Resonant: Open tone, bouncy feeling, highly resonant, ringy sustain. Single ply muffled Batter, Single ply unmuffled Resonant: Attack of the beater pops out, open tone, highly resonant, overtones diminished a bit on the initial attack but linger on the sustain Single ply muffled Batter and Resonant: Attack of the beater is heard more, a dense but not quite a focused sound, overtones controlled but still there. Typical combination is the REMO PowerStroke3 batter and resonant, or for a bit more low end try Evans EQ4 Batter paired with REMO PowerStroke3 , Evans EQ2 or Aquarian Regulator Resonant. Single ply muffled Batter and 2-ply muffled Resonant: Attack of the beater pops out, wide focused sound, overtones controlled. Typical combination is the REMO PowerStroke3 batter with Pinstripe, Evans EQ3 or Aquarian SuperKickii Resonant. 2- ply muffled Batter and 2-ply muffled Resonant: Very focused and punchy attack, narrow focused sound, overtones very controlled (may need no pillows/pads). Typical combination on both the batter and resonant would be REMO Pinstripe, or Evans EQ3 or Aquarian SuperKickii/Regulator.
2.1.5. Snare drum configurations
Batter heads
Snare drum batter heads are often the same as those used for toms, but sorne manufacturers offer specifie heads for snare drums exclusively. A few examples include: single-ply, either white coated with a dot undemeath, or clear with a dot on top. The dot adds slight muffling to a single-ply head, as weil as tonal foc us and durability. The dot is placed undemeath the coated head so that it doesn't inhibit brush playing. REMO Controlled Sound - clear, coated or smooth white Evans PowerCenter - dot on top Evans PowerCenter Reverse Dot - dot undemeath Aquarian Texture Coated with Power Dot - coated with dot Aquarian New Orleans Special - clear with thin dot Aquarian Hi-Energy- clear with extremely thin dot
Single-ply white coated with vent holes near the edge to make the sound more dry. The sound has a sharper, quicker attack and is almost void of overtones. This head
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generally will make the midrange tone of the shell material standout while limiting the low frequencies of the drum. Ail Evans ' Dry -series
Another type uses a loose muffling ring around the underside perimeter, which aids in decreasing sustain of the head. The sound here goes more mellow compared to single ply with overtones becoming Jess prevalent on the initial attack.
Evans Genera -series - coated, single ply with overtone control ring Evans HD (Heavy Duty)- coated, 2-ply with overtone control ring
REMO Powerstroke 3 - single ply with underlay
REMO Powerstroke 4 - 2-ply with underlay
Aquarian Studio-X - single ply with muffle ring

Aquarian Focus-X- single ply with vented muffle ring
Sorne snare batters are made of other materials - such as Kevlar - for added strength and durability: Aquarian Power-House- single ply ofKevlar - wide open resonant sound and good snare response
Heavily muffled with an oil barrier such as the Evans hydraulic. These heads are the most inherently "boxy" or "dull" of any. Almost void of any inherent sustain on their own. Bottom heads
Snare Side Heads (or bottom snare drum head) are specifically designed to be thinner than any batter head and should be the only style head used on the snare side of the snare drum. These heads are thin so that they form around the snare beds, which allows the snares to vibrate against the snare side head - which gives it the actual snare drurn sound. Thin heads enhance sensitivity and are brighter whereas thick heads are exactly opposite. If you use any head other than a "Snare Side" Head, it will be the equivalent of using a "Heavy" weight or thicker head and the result will be the lack of or absence of snare sound, buzzing, no sensitivity or all of the above. Thin resonant heads: Heads like REMO Diplomat Snare Side and Evan's Genera Hazy 200. These heads are great to increase snare response, sensitivity and crack while allowing ghost notes and rolls to become more articulate. Medium weight heads: Heads such as REMO Ambassador, Renaissance, Aquarian Classic Clear Snare Side or Evan' s Hazy 300. These will have Jess sustain than the thinner counterparts such as the REMO Diplomat or Evans 200, the sound becomes more focused and not as bright and articulate. The Evan's Genera 300 and Genera Glass 300 go drier in tone yet retain very good snare response while the Renaissance goes warmer. Heavy Weight resonant heads: REMO Emperor, Evan's 500 Hazy are both very dry heads and not real articulate. Clear/glass versions of these heads are a bit drier yet. Aquarian Hi-Performance Snare Side is built to counteract wear yet give response characteristics of the medium weight heads.
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2.2. Shell Construction
2.2.1. Woods and construction Drum shells are more complex than y ou may think. They can be made of wood, metal , acrylic plastic, carbon fiber, and other materials. Less commonly, drum shells can be formed from plastic or fibreglass. However, wood has been the main choice by builders and drummers alike for many years. Wh y? Likely due to the nice tone, the natural beauty, and the crafting experience gained throughout history. The high-end drum shells of today are made out of many different types of wood with maple and birch still the most popular. The best way to relate to the sound of wood is through comparing it to another: Maple compared to African mahogany (not Philippine mahogany); Mahogany will have an approximate 20% increase in low frequency resonance over the Maple drum. The mid and high frequencies will be about the same. Maple compared to birch; Birch will have about a 10% loss in reproduction of low end and about a 20% increase in the high end, with the mid range remaining about the same. Birch will be a "harder/brighter" sounding kit. Beech is in between Maple and Birch. Mahogany has earned an undeserved bad reputation due to the use of inferior grades such as Luann on low cost drums for appearance reasons. But Mahogany is a very rich sounding and warm tone. Oak is a very bright cutting sound and stick attack and presence are very pronounced. This is how shells can be constructed: Plywood: Thin pieces of wood called "laminates" or "veneers" (which are shaved from a solid piece) are stacked with alternating grain patterns. Making shells from many plies, instead of one thick piece of wood, adds strength and stability to the shell. By alternating the grain of each ply, a thinner shell can be made that ends up being stronger than a thicker, solid piece of wood. It also will resist warping, as each ply has a different direction to the grain. These plies of various woods are held together with fillers and glue. Heat and compression moulding techniques are used to produce these "plywood" cylinders. Sorne manufacturers mix different types of wood within the plies of the shell, such as basswood, Philippine mahogany, poplar, etc. These are to !essen cost and typically drums made of these woods lean more towards the tone of Birch of Beech than Maple or US/ African mahogany. Stave drum shells are made in a method similar to constructing a barrel, where sections of wood are joined by either spine or butting methods which is held by glue. This technique provides phenomenal strength and rigidity while maintaining the tone and response of a solid wood shell. A wonderful characteristic of a solid wood stave shell is the extremely low "glue to wood" ratio. We all know that glue is a dead component, it makes no sound at all.
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Solid wood allows us to lower the amount of glue used to build a drum shell and raise the wood content resulting in a truer, richer, and more melodie sounding drum. Segments: The shell walls on these drums are built from stacked rings of wood segments. This type of construction creates a sturdy shell once it is glued together and turned into a cylinder on a lathe. This method improves the quality of contact with the drum head as there are few glue joints touching it. That said, since each shell is built from a number of these segmented rings (essentially stacked staves ), the re is still a considerable amount of glue content. Steambent: Sorne of the finest acoustic snare drums offered today are built in a 'steam bent' or 'single-ply' manner. Sorne manufacturers incorrectly refer to them as 'sol id'. The shell walls on these drums are built from a single plank of lumber, bent into a circle over time with steam and bending jigs. Sorne of the finest acoustic snare drums offered today are built in a 'steam bent' or 'single-ply' manner. Sorne manufacturers incorrectly refer to them as 'solid'. The shell walls on these drums are built from a single plank of lumber, bent into a circle over time with steam and bending jigs. This method greatly improves the quality of contact with the drum head as there is only one glue joint touching it. This shell type is one of the most resonant, truly musical construction methods available. Solid: Of the drum shell types discussed here, the "solid" shell shown to the le:ft is the only one that is of ONE piece of wood with no support or glue. Many in the drum industry use the generic term 'solid' to describe ali manner of segmented, stave and steam-bent single ply drums. Sol id is truly a seamless shell lathed from a round of kiln dried, relaxed wood. In other words, a hollowed out tree trunk. No other construction method allows the wood to freely offer it's contribution to the sound of y our drum the way a true sol id does.
2.2.2. Thickness off the shell Don't get caught up in plies. You can't always judge a shell's thickness by how many plies it has. Sorne companies eut their plies thinner or thicker than others. The density of the wood also determines how thin a ply can be eut. Lauan plies will be much thicker than Birch, for example, because Birch is stronger and can be eut thinner. Or one company's 9 ply shell could be thinner than another company's 6 ply shell. There are many variables.
Thin Thick
!Volume
t
1
lQ
Figure 2: Comparing characteristics of thin with thick shells Thin shells (4 ply, 5mm) enable relatively easy energy transfer from the heads to the shells thus causing the shells to vibrate. This vibration imparts a very rich "wood" tone to the overall sound that can be most appreciated in ne ar-field applications and especially in recording.
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A thicker shell tends to sound focused, shallower and less full , and is more reliant on the heads to give the drum its tone. The purpose of the shell, more or less, is to support the head s. Thicker shelled drums were popular in the '80s, and drums manufacturers, through advertising, made it almost seem more prestigious to have them. But then the trend began to lead toward thinner shells. Sorne drum manufacturers even offer high-end snare drums built out of one thick, single ply of maple, which vibrates more freely than shells made out of many thinner plies put together. Sorne drum shells include a reinforcement ring at each end of the shell. This is a second layer of plies at the top and bottom 3/4" - 1"of the shell usually angled to match the bearing edge eut, with the central vertical area of the shell remaining at the 'proper' shell thickness. Primarily these are used for maintaining roundness and tune . lt also adds mass to the shell, which raises the shell's natural pitch and gives a more defined attack to the sound.
2.2.3. Snare drum materials To be complete, we will take a brief look at the most comrnon materials used for a snare drum as well as sorne construction properties. Materials: Brass: A very sharp edge to the sound and very rich with mellow overtones. Steel: A step more towards bright with a very pronounced ring, allot of body and longer decay than brass. Aluminium: Clear, open sounds with bright, crisp overtones and is capable of incredibly loud rimshots. Bronze: A close cousin to brass with the overall character of woods, can be loud, a good ali around drum. Copper: A close cousin to the Aluminium drum only slightly warmer. Wood: see the "Woods and construction"-section, they apply here too . Construction: Hammered: Same overall characteristics as the parent material, only slightly less resonance to varying degrees. Metal Thickness: The 1mm shells are not as low to mid range resonant as thicker shells such as 3mrn plus. Metal Cast Drums: Very Loud and Resonant due to special cymbal alloys used in the casting process. Small Diameter: Means higher pitch. Longer Length: Means more power and shell resonance, longer decay. Shallow Depth: Means more articulate, less power due to decreased shell area. Snare Bed: A slight depression in the resonant side bearing edge to allow the snare to ride cl oser to the head. Bearing Edges: Less than 45 are not inferior, they simply make for a different sound, usually less resonant and darker in character the less the angle, 35 is popular on Birch Drums. Drums get brighter if the crown of the bearing edge is a tighter radius (sharper) than if the radius is flatter (may be desired on the toms and kick). - Drums in the studio 18
2.2.4. Bearing edges The bearing edge is the only part of the shell that the head touches. The top of the shell is eut so that it cornes to a point part way between the outer edge and the inner edge, with drum kits, most drum builders eut this angle to between 30 and 45 degrees and have this offset towards the outside of the shell. Sorne contemporary builders eut this to a double 45 degree angle and/or towards the centre of the shell body. The sharpness of this edge is an important determinant to the overall sound of the drum, a sharper 'point' will give a very accurate representation of the state of tuning of the drum and will make the resonance within the head greater, it also will allow more of the vibration to be passed to the hoop which will give it more contribution to the overall drum sound. A more rounded edge will be slightly less 'bright' in tone and a more 'woody' sound as more of the vibration is able to be absorbed into the drum, there will also be less of the hoop effect in the sound. The condition of the bearing edges should be checked every time you change heads. These edges are fragile and any dips or divots, bar very minor damage, will show up in the overall tonality of the drum. If a drum's bearing edge becomes more significantly damaged it will be difficult to tune properly and the only remedy is to repair or re-eut the edge. Recutting bearing edges is a highly specialised woodworking activity and should only be undertaken by someone who knows exactly what they are doing. In the next figure a cross section of three bearing edge designs is given. The outside shell is on the left. From left to right you see: single 45 , single 45 with slight round over and double 45 .
Figure 3: single 45 , single 45 with slight round over and double 45 bearing edges
2.2.5. Internai surfaces The interior surface finish of a drum will also have an effect on the overall sound of the drum, sorne drums are manufactured with the same glossy lacquer inside as out and this will give a more reflected sound, very clean and crisp and because of the reduced absorption into the shell will be Iess woody. A drum with a satin finish, i.e. not a high gioss Iacquer, will start to deliver more of the woody sound and a drum with no interior finishing will have a porous surface and will de li ver even more of the wood sound into the drum. Sorne high end custom drum builders carve intricate designs into the internai shell to dissipate the internai harmonies. These can be pretty subtle differences!
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2.2.6. External surfaces
The exterior is mostly appearance related, although anything that can add mass and dampen vibration will again influence sound (i.e. tom mounts). An easy thing to target here is the hardware and most drummers notice when toms are mounted to the shell. This is an easy target for illustrating the effect of something that can dampen shell vibration and influence sound. What we don't always focus on is the exterior layer of the shell itself.
Laminate materials being essentially heat set resins, do not have much in the way of attractive sound characteristics. They do offer extremely durable finishes that widen the choice of appearances possible. They are heavy materials from a bulk density viewpoint, and will inhibit the transmission of sound around the circumference of the drum, but aid in the transmission of sound at 90 degrees to the head s. This may exact!y what you want if y ou are a high volume player.
In subtle ways, sorne designers believe that the application of high-gloss lacq uer and various other finishes influence the tone as weil. This has merit when you consider that as you add resins to bond plies, you are also filling pores within the wood and also inhibit its ability to vibrate at different frequencies . How much this influences sound will depend upon how many plies and finish treatments. The same happens when finishes are applied. Sorne believe the application of wood oils are better, others believe its their so-called "vintage" finish. Others don' t think it matters at ail.
2.2.7. Hoops
By far the most common type of hoop is the flanged hoop (normally triple flanged) which is rolled into shape from a single strip of metal, made circular and welded. Equally spaced ho les made to accept the tension rods are punched into the rim. This type of hoop has two main advantages, firstly it is cheap and secondly it has a degree of flexibility which allows it to provide good contact aU around with both head and shell, particularly where a drum is not exactly round or where sorne lateral torsion is evident. Generally this type of hoop is found on toms and when playing gives a 'soft' strike and increased rebound. Flanged hoops are available made out of metals of differing thicknesses, a thicker hoop will act more like a die-cast hoop (see below). The second type of hoop is die-cast. As the name suggests this is cast from molten metal into a mou id (die) which is the exact shape and size of the finished rim. This is a very sol id piece of hardware and it resonates a unit which gives greater attack and a sharper more 'brittle' sound to the drum There is limited flex within the hoop and it is more inclined to show up any inconsistencies in the bearing edge, head and your tuning than you would find with a flanged hoop . When the drum is struck, lateral vibrations move across the head and hit the hoop, as it is constructed from a solid piece of metal the sound is not absorbed and is reflected back in towards the centre of the drum again, giving increased overtones and clarity. Die-cast hoops are a love hate thing, many drummers love the extra ring and bite that it gives them, it certainly facilitates high tuners who want that high more ringy sound, others find them too cutting, it is very much a matter of persona! taste. The other point to consider is that Die-casts will have Jess of a rebound than a flanged hoop, the head will fee! 'harder' requiring increased control by the player. lt is most common to see Die-cast hoops on snare drums as they !end themselves to this type of sound more than rack toms, however sorne manufacturers use die-casts all around the kit.
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The third main type is wooden hoops. These are constructed from plies of laminate and are about 3/4" thick. If you think of a very shallow but very thick-shelled laminate drum shell you get the idea. The plies give the hoop strength to withstand the battering they will take and they are much more durable than you would imagine. They are the opposite of the die-cast hoops, as they impart a 'warmer' torre into the drum by absorbing vibration instead of purely reflecting and by vibrating themselves and imparting that vibration in a manner not dissimilar to how a shell does. These are the most expensive type of hoop available with the exception of gold plated hoops. The hoops sit horizontally across the drum and along the edge of the hoop is a number of evenly spaced holes that co-ncide with the number of tuning points of the drum, typically the number of points will vary from 6 for a smaller tom up to 10-12 for snare drums and bass drums. generally the larger the drum the more tuning points it will have, the more tuning points a drum has the easier it is to tune and the better it maintains tune.
2.2.8. Amount of lugs
The number of lugs on a drum has an effect on how the drum tunes and sounds. To eut costs, beginner drum sets will use fewer lugs. But many high-end snare drums, which normally use as many as ten lugs, may use as few as six to create a different sound. The fewer lugs there are, the coarser the tuning, and the more complex the overtones - due to the lengthened distance between the lugs. The resulting sound, when fewer lugs are used, can be described as darker, as there are Jess high frequencies. Over recent years as players become more demanding and the understanding of how drums operate is becoming increasingly applied, manufacturers have been seeking to reduce the arnount of lug contact points and the 'footprint' of each lug contact point. This is working towards permitting the drum shell to resonate more freely and put more of the sound of the wood into the drum. Many manufacturers have developed 'low-mass' lugs expressly for this purpose.
2.2.9. Suspension mounts
Prior to the '80s, tom mount brackets were always attached directly to the shell. Sorne even had a ho le eut in the shell and had a suspension arm entering the body of the drum itself as weil as having a mounting bracket on the shell. You may already know that the more mass attached to the shell, the less freely it will vibrate; and certainly, a hole in the shell can't be good for sustain, either. So, you will want the drums to resonate as freely as possible. For rack toms there are essentially two variations that do this, both are based on the same principle. RIMS are suspension mounts that fit to half of the drum's tension rods, under the hoop so that there is no contact with the shell. The second type is the ISS mount that fits to the hoop itself, it is smaller and more easily changed (with RIMS you are obliged to de-tune the drum and remove the tension rods to take the mount off). Floor toms should also be freely mounted instead of having leg mounts attached to the shell, RIMS mounts again do this, but this time they fit to the bottom of the drum between the hoop and the lugs and floor tom legs fit to the rim.
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2.2.10. Sizes
Shell diameter is more responsible for pitch than any other element. We all know that the bigger the diameter of a drum, the deeper it will sound. For example: a 16 inch floor tom sounds much lower than a 12 inch tom. When pairing different toms together as a group, it's important to have enough difference in pitch between each tom, which means enough difference in between the diameters of the toms. The shell depth while having a small impact on the warmth or resonance of the drum has a greater impact on volume and articulation. A deeper drum will be louder and therefore project more. The deeper the shell, the more likely they are to produce a deeper or warmer sound because of resonance ability , but this should not be confused with a low tuning. A shallow drum won't project as well, but it will have better resonance and a purer tone. Less distance between heads means the opposite head (i.e. Resonant head) reacts quicker, or gets excited faster when striking the batter head, it responds better to softer playing. This is why "power toms" (deep toms) became so popular in the 70's, for rock music: projection and low end thud. This is also why smaller drums are so popular with jazz music: cleaner, fundamental tones.
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3. Tuning the drumset

Now that we know ali the components that determine the sound and range that your drum is capable of producing, it is time to explain how to tune y our drums, to make it sound the way you like it. Drum set tuning has been a frustrating process for many drummers over years. There are about as many different tuning techniques as there are drummers. Tuning becomes very persona! and gives drummers their particular sound and style. Drum tuning is much more difficult than tuning an electric guitar, which you can simply plug into a tuner and make adjustments while referencing the pitch on the readout, it is much more difficult and challenging. There are many overtones associated with the overall pitch of a drum. Tuning a drum is all about recognizing there differences in pitch. Drums use anywhere from five to ten tension rods to tune one head- and most drums use two heads .. Drum tuning is very subjective and it ultimately cornes down to persona! taste. The best way to get better at tuning is to practice - a lot! lt requires time, patience, thinking and work.
3.1. Drum tuning in general This procedure works on ali drums, toms, snare and kick. In the following, the normal top head is referred to as the " batter" whereas the normal bottom is referred to as "resonant" :
1. Remove both old heads.
When removing a drumhead, do not start by removing one tension rod completely while leaving all the others under tension. This may cause the drums' hoop to distort and warp, possibly irreparably. This is Jess of a problem on drums with strong diecast hoops or large tom-toms which are usually tuned lower with much Jess tension than a snare drum or small high pitched tom-tom, but it is still always a good idea to start by loosening all the tension rods about 1/2 to 1 turn at a time alternately around a drum until they gradually become loose and can be removed. 2. Checking the bearing edge and counter-hoops. A drum's bearing edge must be as close to a perfect circle as possible and on as close to a perfect "plane" as possible. While there is little that the average drummer can do to correct a drum which is "out of round" or has a warped bearing edge, it may at !east help alleviate sorne of the frustration that arises when it seems impossible to get a drum to "tune-up" weil if it is obvious that the drum has problems. Take your drum shell and lay it down on a very flat surface such as a piece of granite. Have a light over the top of the shell. Get down at where the edge of the drum hits the granite. If you see light at any point, then you have a low spot. If so, your drums' bearing edge is either imperfect, has been damaged or the shell has warped. A way to reduce friction at the head and shell is to wax the bearing edge with beeswax or a candie (don' t melt it). Rub iton sparingly, and run your finger over it to smooth it into the edge. To check your hoops, lay them down on a flat surface to see if they are bent or warped. If they "rock" back and forth at ali then they are warped. A slight amount of warpage in a regular "stamped" metal hoop can usually be compensated for when - Drums in the studio 23
tuning the drum, but a large amount will usually make it almost impossible to get a drumhead "clear" (tuned to the same pitch at every tension rod location). Warpage in a stiff "die-cast" hoop is harder to compensate for. 3. Set the drum on an absorbent surface, su ch as carpet or blanket. 4. With batter side down, resonant side facing up, put the resonant head on. Spin it to make sure it doesn' t bind in any way on the shell. If it does, your shell may be slightly out of round, or the head may be defective. If the head binds in a certain spot, spin it until you find a place where it doesn' t, and leave it there. Now, being careful not to move the head, align the hoop on the head. Try to get the drumhead "centered" over the drums' bearing edge and the counterhoop "centered" over the drumhead with the tension rod holes positioned directly above the threaded inserts in the tension casings. 5. Finger-tighten all lugs just to the point where contact is made with the washer or rim. Once contact is made with the washer/rim, back-off 114 turn. 6. Using your drum key, tighten each tension rod one half turn increments. Use the lug order shown below. With 6 lugs:
2
With 8 lugs:
2
With 5 lugs:
3
4
Figure 4: Order to tighten lugs on shells with 6, 8 or 5 lugs Repeat this un til you've put 2 complete turns on ail rods of the drum. The musical note is not important. 7. Lift the drurn up a few inches, hit the head once and see if it is a distortion free sound. If not give each lug another 1/4 of one full turn. Repeat until the drum is distortion free. Do not be afraid to really tighten the head above a normal playing pitch, it is essential that the head produce a clear undistorted tone before proceeding. 8. Place the drum back down on the carpet with the side you are tuning facing up. 9. To make sure the head is seated or crack the glue joint in the case of heads with glued collars, push down the head. Put the palm of your hand in the middle of the head, place your other hand on top, and as though you were giving "CPR", use your weight to press firmly into the middle of the head (you can apply a fair amount of pressure but don't get carried away since thinner heads may break). Seating the head is where you create that ail-important bond between the bearing edge of the drurn and the film and cause the head collar to become tight to the hoop. Seating is often also referred to as putting more that normal tension on the head. This seating
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process, whereby you put the head under heavy tension to form it to the beming edge is not required to get a good tuning. However, the pre-stretch that occurs during the high tension event can aid in minimizing the need to tune back up to pitch more often. 1O. With the drum off the floor or on its stand/mount we need to detention the head just to the point of no resonance and where the head buzzes. Loosen as you tightened with 1 14 (90) turn increments hitting the head between each turn of a 1ug. Now or 2 keys in 1 put 1/8th of a full turn on each and every lug and hit the head once between each hit until you get a distortion free and clear tone. 11 . Turn the drum over and place the batter side on and place the drum batter side up on a carpet or absorbent surface. Repeat the above Steps 4-1 0 on the batter si de using the head of y our choice. Once complete, proceed to the section "Fine Tuning" below.
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3.2. Fine Tuning Here's where you dial the drum in. Note: If you have the time let the drum sit a few hours to overnight to stabilize the head. This is not a requirement by any means, but will help in sorne cases and make the tuning process easier.
1. Working with the resonant side facing you, place the drum up on its stand or hold by the rim. Hit once and see if you still have a low, resonant and clear tone. If so go to Step 2 below. If not, begin tightening evenly and successively on each lug in extremely small increments of no more than 1116th of a turn per lug. Slow is the key here. Go around once, even out the tone as in step 11 above by tapping and then strike once in the center. You want to tune just un til y ou get a low and clear tone.
2. Turn the drum over, batter side towards you. Hit once and see if you still have a 1ow, resonant and clear tone. If so go to Step 3 below. If not, like above tighten even1y and successively on each lug in extremely small increments of no more than l/16th of a turn per lug. Go around once, even out by tapping and then strike once in the center. You want to again tune just until y ou get a low and clear tone. 3. Like it or not, this is the lowest pitch this drum will ever go. Note: If you've gone around severa! times moving up in pitch but the tone is distorted, you may have one or more of a bad head, bearing edge problem, shell problem, lug casing issue or the head didn't seat. Before replacement, leave the head under tension for 24 hours and try again. Sometimes the problem goes away many times overnight. lfyou can't wait, try another head or try taking the pitch way up. 4. Now it's time to proceed up through the tuning zones to get the most out of the drum. Focusing on the batter or top head, slowly begin to tension up each lug, proceed and tune, never go in larger increments than 1/16th of a full turn on the way up. Again, slow small movements of the lug are important until you grasp the concepts. Always bit the drum between each twist of a lug. With every few full rounds of 1ug tightening, stop and listen to the overall pitch of the drum. You will go through phases where the drum sounds good then sounds bad for a couple of turns and then suddenly the sound opens up again. You can usually do this for 2 zones and then the top head will go dead and have a high overtone/ring. While pitch may continue to change, the drum continues to have no real !ife to it. At this point you've gone too far with the top head, back off 114 to 112 turn or go back to the point where the drum sounds even, focused and open (sounds good). 5. When you reach the zone you were searching for, you will need to fine-tune each lug. Tap with the drum key, lightly and with even force about 1.5" (40mm) from the edge. Always tap with equal force and in the same place at each lug. Listen to an element of resonance of the tap. There will be severa! tones. You need to focus on the lug with the most pleasing tone and pitch that you desire, and compare the other lugs to it. Start with the lowest sounding lugs and bring them up to your reference lug. Do never tune down to a note, tune up. If a lug is too high detune below what you are trying to achieve and then bring it back up to pitch. As you begin to match the other lugs to your reference lug, realize that all of the changes you make will slightly affect your reference lug, too. As you get closer to reaching evenness in the head, you may find that you'll end up choosing a different reference lug. - Drums in the studio -
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6. If you want a pitch higher than this pitch you achieved, go to the bottom head and tighten each lug 1/8 to 1/4 of a full turn on each lug. Again, always hit the drum between each twist of a lug and with every few full rounds of lug tightening, stop and make sure the head is in tune with itself. Once you reach that point where the drum again has no life, after this y ou can increase the pitch of the top head again for another 1-2 steps. When tuning in this manner, you'll experience certain phases in the tuning where when struck will the drum will have a descending pitch. Sorne like this sound and stop here. As you move up out of that phase of the zone, you'll reach a point where the drum evens out, the Doppler is gone and the drum becomes open and even in sound with a clear and long sustain. This is the point where both heads are or are close to being identical in pitch. 7. Beyond this point, the drum will go dead again and you have to repeat with the 1/16, 1/8 raise the pitch of or 1/4 turns on the opposite head to effectively the drum and move up again to another zone and repeat the procedure.
3.2.1. Matching batter- and resonant head

As you tune the drum with one of either the batter head or resonant head higher or lower in tension and pitch, you go through "zones" producing one of clear pitch, phase cancellation (no !ife) or a "Doppler" sort of effect where the drum descends in pitch, also referred to as "pitch bend". This becomes more pronounced when the resonant head is of a higher pitch than the batter. When you tune the two heads the same, they will move or vibrate together for a longer duration when the batter head is struck. Y ou will get a clear and long sustain. When the heads are tuned quite a bit differently, the heads will more quickly cancel each other out. If the bottom head is slightly higher, you will get more projection and a livelier tone. Do this if y ou want more "punch or attack". By tuning the bottom head more loosely, you'll get less sustain, and a deeper, overall tone - more like a "thud". You will notice pitch bend when tuning the batter and resonant heads differently ; this will be most apparent in the lower tuning ranges. If the top and bottom heads are too different in pitch in relation to each other, the low-end sustain will come in late. In other words there is a slight delay between the occurrence of the attack sound and the occurrence of the full ness of the sustain.
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3.3. Quick Tips 1. A simple way to help you hear the pi teh at each lug is to touch the middle of the head with one finger. Do not press hard, or it will raise the pi teh of the head and defeat the purpose. This procedure controls overtones and clarifies the pitch, so you can better focus on each individuallug. 2. You can use or eliminate muffling deviees such as "moon gel" . Moon Gel is effective and cutting unwanted overtones and lessening the duration of the note. Simply apply as much as y ou require for the sound - its that simple. You can a Iso use a " 0 " shaped ring, either purchased or made from old heads that can create a similar effect as using moon gel. If using these "deviees" bothers you, you can intentionally detune or raise pitch slightly on both heads. For example you might lower the batter and raise the resonant (or visa versus) by equal amounts causing a phase shift and become more muted or more open depending upon where you are in the zone. 3. People often will loosen one lug to create a similar affect. Although I find it is better to move all the lugs by a certain amount. This way you don ' t run the risk of destroying the head. 4. Keeping your resonant head to its lowest note and then detuning it ever so slightly may help in achieving a "fat, loose or dark" drum sound. The batter head is then used to alter the pitch. Note that the pitch for a "fat" tuning can be somewhat limited.
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3.4. Tuning the snare drum Now it's time to work on the most signature drum on the kit. lt is audibly the most recognizable drum. Not surprisingly, it happens to be the hardest drum on the set to tune. The snare drum ' s most important, yet overlooked, parts- which create its signature sound - are the bottom head and the actual snares. Snare drums come in so many depths, diameters and shell materials, with different quantities of lugs and types of hoops, that most professional drummers own more than one or even a lot of them. In the studio, it' s good to have as many different snare drums as possible, to find the sound best suited for each song being recorded.
3.4.1. The tuning process Tuning the snare is not different than with any drum, it's just complicated or enhanced by the shell choice (as described earlier) and snare wires. Snare drums are generally tuned higher than toms, and will have a shorter sustain due to the higher tuning, but will produce more of a pitch the higher you tune . So, as with the toms, begin by the resonant side. Remove the snares from the strainer and butt side as well as the snare side head and hoop from the snare drum. Remember that the bearing edge has two lower dips directly across from each other, the so called snare beds. These are where the snares lay across the head . They allow the snares better contact with the head. Place the new head on the drum and bring it up in tension, just as described before. When the snare side head is tighter, the sound will be more focused, and the snares will be more sensitive. Just don't tighten it too much, or you'll choke the drum. Get the lugs as close to being in tune with each other as possible. Now install the snares onto the drum using either snare cord or plastic straps: Place the snares a little off center towards the opposite side of the release side (the butt-side ). Slightly tighten dawn the screws on the butt-side-holder to create a little friction and make any final adjustments before completely tightening tham down. Loosen the snare tension knob to have the maximum amount of adjustment. With the strainer disengaged tighten the screws just enough to crate a little friction. Engage the strainer so the straps or cord will slide into the correct position. Disengage a gain and tighten the screws completely. Check, with the strainer engaged, if the snares are pulling straight and evenly on both sides, and check the individual snares by very lightly strurnming your finger across them to determine if they are tensioned evenly.
Flip the snare drum over and replace the old head by a new one as before. Tighten and fine-tune the head to the desired pitch.
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Then you need to adjust the snare tension to work with the snare side head tension. With the strainer on, start to tighten while hitting batter the head, you'll get to a sweet spot where the buzz of the snare and feel of the drum come together. If you tighten more, the drurn becomes more articulate. The slightest adjustment he re can make hu ge differences. l'rn talking 1116 of a tum or less on the tension adjustment for the strainer. If you are blessed with an adjustment on both si de of the drurn, rnove up equally, very important! Experirnent; at sorne point in the process you'll hear the bottorn or that feeling in your stornach suddenly jump out at you if that's what you want. Don't over tighten; it really doesn't add much other than choking off the tone of the drum and killing stick response.
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3.5. Tuning the bass drum The bass drum is quite important to the overall sound of the drum set. It provides the pulsating thump that makes people tap their feet. It is often the most muffled drum on the kit, unless the more open "jazz" sound of the smaller bass drums is preferred. Because it is hit in the same place every time, it is the most consistent sounding drum.
3.5.1. The tuning process The same tuning procedure works on the kick drum as weil. Simply follow the standard procedure listed above and take into account the following points as weil. High tunings allow the drum to resonate longer, and are sometimes used by jazz drummers on smaller bass drums. For more punch (as in a more defined sound) tune the batter side up in pitch 1-2 notes (even as muchas 4-5 notes on sorne drums) from the resonant side. The resonant side will need to be very close to the wrinkle stage to also have a deep note to the otherwise higher pitched batter head. It's easier to hear a good low resonant tone from the resonant side without a pillow touching that head. Keeping the batter side reallow and loose in pitch, gives more of a plastic "slap" type sound.
3.5.2. Muffling Although most drumhead manufacturers offer bass drum heads with built-in muffling, you may still wish to use sorne additional dampening inside the shell. Examples of additional dampening are pillows, towels, foam, felt strips (for use between the head and bearing edge), insulation, packing peanuts, shredded newspaper, and specially manufactured bass drum pillows. Here are sorne possible muffling set-ups: 15-20% coverage against Batter head only : Beater attack is accentuated, tone and sustain linger. 15-20% coverage against resonant head only : Beater attack will be lessened, tone and sustain develop as a short burst of energy followed by sorne bright overtones. 15-20% coverage against Batter head and Resonant: Beater attack accentuated, overall volume diminished a bit, tone and sustain become focused , overtones diminished. 25-30% coverage against Batter head and 15-20% coverage of Resonant: Beater attack becomes much sharper and accentuated, overall volume does not diminished much more than the above, tone and sustain become even more focused, overtones ali but gone. When used with a single ply muffled batter head, easy to get very sharp sound. Good choice for mie use. 25-30% coverage against Batter and Resonant: A very focused sound, which becomes ideal for close miking of a kick drum. Beater attack becomes as sharp as it gets, overall volume does not diminished much more than the above, tone and sustain become short bursts of energy that when listened to without a mie, seem lifeless. A distinct "punch" sound.
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3.5.3. Bass drum batter head protection Since the bass drum is hit consistently in the same place, you'll want to protect the head from wearing out premature! y. There is quite a range of materials used to make the protective patches or pads. Sorne patches do alter the initial attack, but generally the add longevity to bass drum head. There are pads sized for use with single pedals, and others are offered in a wider version to accornmodate users of double pedals. Sorne patches use a plastic or metal dise to accentuate the attack, or "click", of the hit. The type of patch you use should ultimately be determined by the style of music you play, and the sound you are shooting for. When installing the patch, make sure the beater hits in the centre ofthe patch.
Fig x: A REMO Falam Siam, Double basdrum pad
3.5.4. Bass drum beater In addition to the tone being altered by a patch, the type of bass drum beater you use can also have quite an effect on the sound. A softer, felt beater will sound much warmer and mellower than a wood or plastic beater, which adds more "click" to the sound. Sorne of the beaters available have as many as four different surfaces, which are accessible by just spinning the beater a quarter-turn. Ifyou go to wood or plastic beaters, use a patch.
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3.6. The drum set as one instrument
Now that the entire drum set is tuned completely, it's time to listen to it as a whole. The drums may sound great individually, but how do they sound together? Let the drummer sit down and play for a few minutes. Listen to how the toms sound with the bass drum and snare. Do they fit in with the same genre of music? Do the individual toms sound like they belong together collectively as a group? They should have a similar tone and resonance to them. Do the pitch intervals between the toms sound good? The interval between drums is more important than many real ize and the size of both the diameter and the depth are key to getting even resonance and the desired incrementai notes between drums. Better drummers tend to play each drum at a volume that relates to the other drums, so that the kit sounds consistent and more like one cohesive instrument.
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PART 2: RECORDING THE DRUMS

1. Introduction
Now we have a set of good sounding drums, it will be much easier and comfortable to record and mix them. It's a fallacy to believe that the only way to achieve a big rockin' drum sound is by miking every drum and cymbal, though. In fact, there are many tried and true methods of drum miking that have been the source of hit records for decades that use anywhere from only one to three mies. The only thing you need are good sounding drums played by a skilled drummer and a good sounding room. Placing the right mies at the right position will do the trick, without any EQ or compressor. Whichever method you choose, try looking at the drum kit as just a single instrument. This said, it's important to always remember that mies cannot effectively be placed by sight, which is a mistake that is ali too easy to make. The best position cannot be predicted, it must be found. You should always trust your ears and begin by listening to the musician in y our studio, fi nd a sweet spot, and th en begin y our microphone placement the re. If y ou don 't like the resultant sound, then move the mie or swap it with another. Position the mie and li sten, repeat as much as necessary. EQ is the last thing you should touch!! The only reason for close-miking is to avoid leakage to ather mies so that the engineer can have more flexibility in balancing the ensemble in the mix. If at ali possible, give the mie sorne distance from the source in order to let the sound develop and be captured naturally. Allways start with the concept that "distance makes depth".
The jirst thing to do is to get the session sounding great flat. A change in microphones or position is worth a lot more than Meaking EQ 's. - Frank Filipetti - American sound engmeer.
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2. The secrets of mie placement

It's important to always remember that mies cannot effectively be placed by sight, which is a mistake that is ali too easy to make. The best position cannot be predicted, it must be found. You should always trust your ears and begin by listening to the musician in the studio, find a sweet spot, and then begin your microphone placement there. If you don ' t like the resultant sound, then move the mie or swap it with another. Position the mie and listen, repeat as muchas necessary. EQ is the last thing y ou should touch!! The only reason for close-miking is to avoid leakage to other mies so that the engineer can have more flexibility in balancing the ensemble in the mix. If at ali possible, give the mie sorne distance from the source in order to let the sound develop and be captured naturally. Allways start with the concept that "distance makes depth" . Don' t forget that the proximity effect shows up around 300 Hz. If many directional microphones are being used, they will be subject to proximity effect, and you should expect a build-up of this frequency range in the mix. The chances for a phase problem is great on a drum kit when it has a lot of mies on it. Understand that you will never have ali microphones completely in phase, but sorne problems will be diminished by reversing polarity on sorne of the channels. The only way to determine this is through experimentation and listening. Here is what you should do:
1. Listen to the overheads in stereo, then listen to them in mono. If they sound OK both ways go to the next step. If they sound thin or "swishy," (and you know their polarity is correct,) change their placement.
2. Once you are pleased with overheads, move to the kick. Invert the phase and listen. Choose the position that gives you the fullest sound. 3. Bring up the snare mie. Invert the phase. Does it sound better or not? Set to the fullest sound and li sten in mono to see if it stili sounds better. 4. Keep doing this same thing for each mie on the kit. Listen to it in the mix, in mono, with phase reversed. In each case select the phase switch position that gives you the fullest sound with the most low end. 5. If you have two kick mies, check the phase of the inside kick mie against the overheads and then the outside kick against the inside. Sometimes you might need to move the outside mie because neither position is good. You should do this check with ali mies facing each other. You cannot avoid phase cancellation, y ou can only make sure it sounds as good as possible. Also remember that one position of the phase switch will always sound fuller than the other.
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3. Miking the drum kit

What follows are different possibilities to set up your microphones around a drum set. There are many ways to get the same basic result. There's no right way to mie the kit, but sorne ways are more acceptred than others and therefore become "standard". This is a summary of the most standard miking setups most engineers will use. Going from only one microphone to close miking every drum separately.
3.1. Miking the drum kit as a single instrument This is clone by placing one to four mies around the drum kit. These mies are referred to as basic room mies, because they will capture the overall drum sound as heard in the drum room. The quality of the sound captured with room mies is heavily dependent on the room acoustics and the sound of the drum kit in general. The dimension of the room and the material of walls, ceiling and floor will influence the room's sound greatly. When, for example, the walls and ceiling of the studio are treated with soundproofing to absorb most sound reflections, a wooden floor will add sorne nice overtones to the drum sounds before they get absorbed. Sorne other rooms will, due to their marble floors, glass walls, and tile ceilings, be very reflective. If do ne professionally, reflections will enhance the acoustic quality of the room. The sounds created by reflections are unique and specifie, however; so if you are considering including them in your recording, make sure they are of a desirable color, as they will be almost impossible to remove once captured. In the next pages 1 will give you sorne possible set-ups for a one, two, three and four mie technique.
3.1.1. Single mie technique l. Visualize an equilateral triangle wi th the base of the triangle being the overall width of the kit, then position a large diaphragm condenser (U47, U87, M149) at the apex of the triangle, directly over the snare with the pattern set to hypercardioid. See Figure 5
Figure 5: single mie technique, equilateral triangle
-Drums in the studio-
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2. Position a ribbon mie (R-121, 77DX, 4038) 0,5 to 1 meter in front of the kit about 1 meter high. Y ou will most likely have to move it a few times to get just the right balance of kick/snare/cymbals. 3. Position a stereo mie (Shure VP-88, Neumann USM 69i) on a short tripod stand a bit in front of the toms, loo king between the toms and the cymbals toward the snare. 4. Place a mie (U47, U87, M149) 1,5 meter off the ground and 2,5 meter directly in front of the kit. 5. Place a large diaphragm condenser (U47, U87, M149) over the drummer's head angled at the whole kit in such a way as to get coverage of the toms with not too much cymbals. 6. Place a large diaphragm condenser (U47, U87, M149) on a mie stand over the drummer's right shoulder angled down into the center of the kit.
3.1.2. Two mie technique

1. Looking at the drums, place a large diaphragm condenser (U47) on the ride cymbal side, and a different model large diaphragm condenser (M149) on the hi-hat side about 1,20 to 1,50 meter away. The dissirnilar mies give a really nice character spread from side to side and when placed properly provide the character of both mies in mono. Note that using non-identical room mies on either side of the kit may result in the capturing of unbalanced sounds. 2. Use a matched pair of condensor mies (Audix SCX 25), each about 3 meter away from the drum kit and about 4 meter apart from each other, with the drums in the middle. Place them on a stand about 1,50 to 2 meter in height. The audix mies are a little darker than "usual" overhead mies? This will provide more space, without getting too much cymbal - which could drown out the rest of the drurn sounds. In a "dead" room, placing your pair a little higher will bring out the cymbals a bit more, which could be detrimental to your overall sound. When you are trying to get more overall drum sound without surface reflections, a cardioid-pattem mie will work best. Omnis are great when the room itself has a great acoustic quality, and y ou are searching for sorne ambiance. 3. If your drurn room is just not sufficient for miking at a distance, try placing the matched pair behind the drummer (AKG 251 or 414, KM 184, Audix SCX 25). At about 1 meter behind the drummer and about 2 meter apart, at a hight of about 2 meter. Doing so wiii create a tighter sound, which wiii also remove sorne of the unwanted roomy sounds produced by the kit.
3.1.3. Three mie technique

1. Place the first mie (U47) about 1,50 to 2 meter away and about 0,50 meter off the ground in front of the kick drurn. The object of this mie is usuaiiy to pick up not only a good bass drurn sound but also the bottom of the toms and a bit of snare, as well as sorne of the cymbals. Place the control room monitors in mono and put up a second mie (Royer R-121), which will go anywhere from directly over the snare to over the drummer's right shoulder at a distance of 1,50 to 2 meter. Move until it aligns with the front mie for
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clear snare, foot, and open torn sound. The majority of your hat sound will be here, as weil as the left side crash cymbal (drummers perspective). The key here is to add that mie so you get the snare, hi-hat, top of the toms, and cymbals without the cymbals being out of balance with the rest of the kit. Listen in mono to be sure that it's in phase with the front mie. The third mie (M149) is placed about 1,50 to 2 meter at the right of the drummer from where he actually hits the snare drum, aimed so it's just peeking over the floor torn at the snare. This mie will net you the depth of the foot, a third dimension on the snare, as weil as added depth on the racks .. Please Note: Ali mies are about the same distance away, which makes everything somewhat phase-coherent. If 2 meter distances are too ambient, move ali of the mies closer, but make sure they are ali about the same distance. The early Led Zeppelin stereo recordings used just three mies on the drums in most cases. Two TJ-67s, one over John Bonham's head pointed at the snare and rack torn, and one near the floor torn (to Bonham's right) pointed across the torn at the snare were panned hard left and right. A kick mie was placed in front of the head, often a D20, and mixed into the stereo drum mix. 2. Place the first mie, a large diaphragm condenser (U47), on the snare side of the kit at the apex of an almost equilateral triangle of the mie, the snare, and kick, about 1,50 to 2 me ter off the floor loo king upward. Place a second mie (M149) on the floor torn side, about 0,50 meter behind the drummer, with the drummer's body blocking access to the hats and snare. This mie should be placed just higher than the rim of the floor torn. Place the third mie (AKG 452) looking mostly at the hat and snare, again about 0,50 meter behind the drummer. 3. Place a dynamic mie (D12, D20, D30, D112) anywhere from 0,30 to 1 meter in front of the kick drum. Place a pair of small diaphragm condensers (like AKG C-451 s or KM-184s) in an X/Y array about 4 to 5 feet over the dynamic, aimed at either the outer si de of the rack toms (assuming there are two) or the cymbals. 4. Place a stereo mie, such as a Royer SF-12, about 1,50 to 2 meter over the snare drum, with a large diaphragm condenser (Neumanns) 1,50 to 2 meter out in front.
3.1.4. Four mie technique

1. The first mie (U47, D112) should close mie the kick drum from about 0,50 meter in front. The second mie (414, 251 , U87) should close mie the snare/hat from about 0,50 meter on the side looking in. A third large diaphragm condenser should be added one meter over the rack toms and the fourth should be another condenser about one meter over the floor torn. The mie over the floor torn should be aimed at the floor torn from a foot or so behind the kit. This way you get a good image on the rest of the kit as well.
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3.2. Close miking the drumset The following section discusses how you can close-mie ali drums with individual accent microphones. This will give you more control to geta better general balance within the drum kit. 1' 11 start with sorne general considerations and proceed with sorne wide-used microphone set-ups.
3.2.1. The bass drum: General considerations: If you want to place a microphone inside the bass drum, it should be a dynamic one. If you use a condenser microphone, it would be placed outside the drum. The closer to the inside head the mie is place, the more the attack will increase, and more the low-end will decrease. You will geta tighter, punchier response. Let' s compare a 421 and a D12 with each other, when placed at the same place just inside the front head: The 421 captures a very mid-range-punchy, clear, and bright sound. There is still low-end, but a tight, sharp one. The D12, on the other hand records a softer, duller, and deeper kick sound. The attack is more "rounded" and smooth, with a beefy bottom end. The new D 112 responds with a bit more edge and brightness than the D 12. Placing a condenser microphone, at a little distance from the outside of the front of the kick drum, will make the resulting sound lack attack and definition, but have plenty of tone and sustain. Spent sorne time dampening the drum with sorne soft materials to try to get however much deadness you want out of the drum. lt really makes the difference! Take a down pillow and set it up so that it's sitting inside the drum touching both heads. From there you can experiment, so if you want a deader, drier sound, then you push more pillow against the batter head, and if you want it livelier then you push it against the front head. Microphone placement: 1. Put your hand in front of the bass drum while the drummer hits quarter notes. If there's no ho le in the front head, you will feel a shock wave projecting from the head of the drum. Move your hand until the shock wave almost disappears. Put a large diaphragm condenser at the edge of the shock wave in the center of the drum. 2. Place a Beta 52 half in and half out of the hole in the front head. This distance is variable and you should try to keep the mie pointed exactly at the spot on the rear head where the beater hits. (See Figure 6 below)
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Figure 6: A good starting place for your kick drum mie 3. If the kick has a hole, place the mie just outside at about 3 cm away, angled at 30 to 45 degrees off-axis so the wind doesn't flatten the diaphragm. If there is no hole in the front head, place about half a meter in front of the center of the head. 4. Place a D112 about mid-way into the kick, aiming 7 cm below the beater. This gives it just enough attack without getting too "clicky." For more click, aim closer to the beater. 5. Put a speaker cabinet at 10 cm in front of the kick drum with one speaker lined up with the actual drum and connect the output to a DI. 6. Use either a small lavaliere or a clip-on condenser to mie the beater side of the bass drum. A Crown GLM 100, Shure SM98, or a small dynamic microphone like a Bey er 201 on a little stand will work great for this job. You should combine this mie with one of forgoing mies. The nice thing about having a mie on the batter side as well as the front side is that y ou can get more attack out of the beater if y ou need it by balancing that mie against the front mie without having to screw the sound up with EQ. In order to get it to bite more, you don't have to add more hi-frequency energy, which can also really exaggerate the spillage from the cymbals and stuff. 7. In order to get more isolation for the outside kick microphone, a "tunnel" is sometimes constructed around it. A makeshift tunnel can be constructed using chairs, mie stands, and packing blankets. The outside leakage will be reduced into the outside kick mie. Also, if y ou have a small room where you're getting as much reflected sound from the kick in the overheads and spot mies as direct sound, the tunnel can help.
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3.2.2. The snare drum:

General considerations: Watch out for phase cancellation, which can accur whenever you use two mies on the snare, one on top and one on the bottom. The angle of the microphone effects the isolation of the sound more than anything else. At a 45 degree angle, a microphone captures fewer of the ringing overtones as at a 90 degree angle. Placing the mie more horizontal will decrease brilliance and increase body and attack, resulting in a "warmer" snare-sound. The farther away from the snare, the less attack the mie will pick up and the more bleed from the other drums and Hi-Hat it will capture. You should put it to where the rear of the mie is rejecting the hi-hat as much as possible but isn't in the way of the drummer. The mie usually cornes in somewhere between the hi torn and the hi-hat, but somehow get the rear of the mie toward the hat for the most rejection. Because the rattle of the snare sound has a bright quality, miking the bottom snare will help to add clarity to the entire snare sound, without the need to crank up the top snare mic' s EQ. The "crack" of the snare doesn't necessarily come from the close top mie. For more crack from the snare, use a well placed room mie. If there's too much cymbals and kick on it, key it from the snare track. Microphone placement:
1. Position a mie 10 to 20 cm from the snare and aim it at the shell. Move it cl oser to the
2. 3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
bottom head for more snare sound, closer to the top head for more attack and less buzz. Aim the mie at the port on the side of the drum. Miking the port will give you a good, solid transient with both heads in phase. Along with the top mie, place a mie no more than 3 cm from the bottom head and right under the snares. Remember to flip phase on the bottom and see if it has more low end when blended with the top. Buss to one track and mix the bottom mie in for presence. Cut 50-1OOHz from the bottom mie or use the roll-off on the mie if the kick is leaking into it. Start at the rim of the snare near the hat elevated about 5 cm. Place the mie so that it looks across the head aiming for the far edge. Adjust outward for more shell or inward for more impact. Use a condenser with the pad on and high-pass pass filter switched on. Place it in the room where the snare sounds great and print it to another track, squashed a little. Then, during the mix put a gate on that track with a "key" function triggered by the original snare signal so that it opens up only when the snare hits, and adjust the parameters to taste. For better isolation from the hat, get an empty plastic gallon milk container. Cut the top of the jug off down to the end of the handle. Slip the snare mie backward into the hole, then into the mie clip (an SM57 fits just right). You can jam a Styrofoam eup over the mie as well. Be aware that this may change the sound of the microphone. Take a contact mie like a Barcus Berry and tape it to the snare drum out of the way of the drummer. Connect it to a mie pre and then to the key input of a gate. If you use a Drawmer or other gate with a filter section, you will be able to remove all other frequencies from the key input. The gate will open on every snare hit as or before the
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sound gets to the mie and will be ex tremel y consistent. If for any reason the drummer misses a snare hit, it will be much easier to fly in a sample this way. When brushes are used, do this: Getting a good brush sound cornes from how you mie the entire kit, not just the snare. Close miking the snare doesn't seem to work for this application, so don't think in terms of one mie, but in terms of the sound of the entire kit. The overheads provide the depth. Move the overheads in closer. Place a dynamic mie about an inch from the rim, pointed at the center of the drum but placed so that half of the capsule is below the rim and half above. Mix with the overheads.
3.2.3. The Hi-Hat:
General considerations: Heavy hi-hat cymbals tend to have a lot of low overtones that cause frequency interaction with the other drums when recording. Lighter hats tend to record better as a result. Placement too close to the end of the cymbal might pick up the air noise as well. You should be aware of this windblast that might happen when he pumps it hard. Aiming the microphone more at the center of the Hi-Hat cymbals, will give a warmer sound with softer attack and lots of low-end. Aiming it at the edges will bring up more definition, brightness and stick-attack with no low-end at all.
Microphone placement: 1. Use a condenser mie (452 or KM 184) placed just above the Hi-Hat. Point it at a 45degree angle down toward the side of the hat farthest from the snare. The purpose of this placement is to isolate the hi-hat's sound from the snare's as much as possible, without compromising the hi-hat sound. 2. Position the mie about 10 to 15 cm above the hat and angle it toward the place where the drummer hits the hat. This is where you get the most clarity of the part. If y ou need more air and sizzle, move the mie higher up and aim it straight down toward the cymbal. 3. Move the mie more and more off to the side of the hat to where it's not even over the hat to get that paper thin sort of sound.
3.2.4. The Toms:
General considerations: When it cornes to positioning angles, the same goes here as for the snare drum. The more horizontal you go, the more warmth, body and low-end you will get with a mostly way too muddy sound. The more vertical you go, the more overtones, attack and brilliance you will get. You'll get more of an attack and less of a thump with a small diaphragm condenser than with a dynamic mie.
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Your tom mies are also y our snare mies. If y ou gate them, y ou might des troy y our snare sound. Microphone placement: 1. The classic method is to place the mie (usually a 421) 5 cm off the head above the rim at a 45 -degree angle loo king down at the center of the head. 2. Instead of miking the flour-tom from above, try placing the mie half a meter in front of the set and very close to the floor (being careful to avoid reflections) . 3. You can use little contact mies that were intended to be trigger microphones for triggering sound modules for drums and plug them into the key side of the gates for the toms. This way you have a really solid trigger on the gates, and I don't miss the nuance-type fills. 4. On floor tom, place a dynamic or large diaphragm condense pointing about 45 degrees to the head and about 5 cm off at about the 1:30h dock-position, looking at the drum from behind the kit. If there's not enough bottom end after doing ail possible with heads and tuning, put a U87, a TLM 193, a 414, or any mie with a strong low end under the drum with the phase reversed. This mie will pick up only the low frequency information but will have a noticeable time delay compared to the top mie.
3.2.5. The Overheads:

General considerations: Depending upon the sound you're going for (which is dependent upon the song, artist, and player), the overheads can be used either to capture the sound of the entire kit or as cymbal mies. With rock-kits, most engineers however, will use them to get the sound of the whole kit. lt should keep the reality and the dynamics of the snare and bass drum in particular. For this set-up, you should mie a little further away from direct impact of the cymbals. Generally speaking, with an X/Y configuration the image is better, and there are fewer phasing issues. A wider stereo image is created with spaced-pair placement, but the balance of left to right is not as smooth as with the X/Y pattern. For drum kits with only a few cymbals, use the spaced-pair set-up. The X/Y set-up is best for kits with more cymbals, and for instances when each cymbal serves a specified purpose in a song, so as to pick up ali of the sounds more evenly. Make sure that the distance from the snare to each overhead capsule is identical. When listened to them in mono, the snare should still sound as warm and full. If it sounds thin or "swishy," you don't have equal distances. Doing this will make you hear the snare in the center when you just listen to the overheads. So make those mies identical in distance from the snare as weil as identical in distance from the cymbals that they're miking, so no mie gets a signal prior to the other one. The Royer R-121 is most often mentioned as the ultimate mie for rooms and distant overheads. The drums should sound much more real. And cymbals should sound warm, full and defined.
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Microphone placement:
1. Position an ORTF pair over the drummer's head pointed out into the room at about a
45-degree angle. This provides more distance and a realistic spatial image of the kit. Aim the mies out toward the room for more ambience. For really old school overhead placement, place a single ribbon mie (like an R-121 or 4038) offto the right of the drummer's head. Place an X/Y configuration at !east 30 cm off the ceiling aimed toward the outside of the cymbals. Aim them at the crown of the cymbals for a little fuller tom tone and a little Jess wide stereo separation overall. Place a large diaphragm condenser 5 to 8 cm off the wing nuts of the cymbals. Then place a stereo condenser with lots of compression over the drummer's head. Place a small diaphragm condenser (like a KM84 or similar) 8 to 15 cm under the cymbals. Place an omni overhead on the hi-hat-snare-ride and a cardioid small-diaphragm condenser on the other cymbal and toms angled, slightly out toward the room. 1 put my overheads in the hack near the drummer, looking ahead toward the kit. 1 just found after years of experimentation that's where the best sound for me is. Just above the snare looking out toward the cymbals gives me the depth and the impact that l'rn looking for. Put the overheads in the hack near the drummer, looking ahead toward the kit. Just above the snare looking out toward the cymbals will give the depth and the impact that you are looking for. Not only is it great for the snare and the cymbals, but it's great for the toms as weil. Place the microphones 30 cm above the drummer's head. Sometimes you will have to mie the ride cymbal separately because the ride sometimes needs that little extra "ping" that you can't get from further away. The ride cymbal is used primarily to keep time in lieu of the hi-hat. Because of this the ride should be set at the same leve! as the hi-hat.
2. 3.
4. 5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
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3.2.6. Room Mies:

General considerations: A figure-8 pattern (bi-directional directivity) might work better as a room mie in a small room. This is because the mie picks up the end-to-end resonance, but not the side/side or floor/ceiling resonance. Even if the mike is angled, it will still pick up less combination of these resonances than any other pattern. As a result, where a small room reveals itself unpleasantly when recorded with omnis or cardioids, it may sound perfectly acceptable with a figure-8. Consider what you're trying to achieve by recording the room. If the goal is more ambience, then a single mie painting away from the drums might work well. If the goal is to get a bigger drum sound, then mies placed even with the drums at the point where the kit seems most balanced should work. Generally speaking, the fewer close drum mies that are used, the more effective the room mies will be. The sound of the room and how much metal the drummer plays determines the position. Sorne drummers are splashy cymbal players and others aren't. If there's a lot of cymbal activity and a lot of splashy metal work going on, tendency is to go lower to the floor to get things warmer. Ribbon microphones are the all-time favourite mies for this job. They just sort of bring in the drums as an overall picture, and it really adds a lot of "meat" to them. Again, the Royer R-121 is very popular, but a coles 4038 or one of AEA's big ribbons (R44 (remake of the vintage RCA 44), R84, R88 , R92) will do the job as weil.
Microphone placement: 1. Put a Royer R-121 about 1,20 meter out in front of the snare drum. Not the kick drum but the snare drum. This mie becomes your "meat" or " mid-field" microphone. Then about 3,50 meter away, in front of the drums, put up a pair of 149s. As with all mie placements experiment a lot and listen to the result. 2. Turn the room mies away from the drums if y ou want to pick up more of the slap from the wall. 3. Have the drummer hit only the snare, and find a point in the room where it really takes on the character of the "crack." Mie that place, and then during mixdown, gate that track using the close miked snare to trigger for the gate. Adding compression changes the character of the sound. 4. Keep the room mies down low, in front of the kit, 3 feet off the floor or so, pointed upward. 5. Position an 87 in omni about 3 meter in front of the drums and maybe about 1,80 meter high as a room mie. 6. Velcro a couple of PZMs to the wall that the drums face and use tho se as room mies.
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PART 3: MIXING THE DRUMS

1. Introduction
If everything went well, you now have recorded a good sounding drumset with the right microphones at the right place. The result should be a reasonable full and clear acoustic sound. When you listen to modern music today, drums don' t sound like this, they are more pumping, more blowing-away, more punchy and aggressive than what you have on your tracks. What you need to achieve this kind of sounds is a bunch of big, fat compressors and EQ' s to enhance or alter the original drum sounds. The first step to mixing any song, then, is to familiarize yourself with it. Start by pushing up ali the faders and listening toit over and over. Make the obvious leve! adjustments while you're listening, of course, so that the thing has the general shape of a mix. Most sound engineers, at this point, can hear sorne version of the final product in the ir heads before they even begin to mix. Even if an engineer is brought in specifically to mix, many won ' t even begin until they have an idea of where they ' re going. Always try to have a vision as far as where you are going and what's the perspective when your start. Mostly that vision cornes from existing CDs or other recordings against which you can compare your own practice recordings. When listening to the "reference CDs", pay close attention to the leve! balances of each drum sound in relation to the other drums. You should also listen for the panning of each instrument, and where within the stereo field you hear each one; the quality or tone of each instrument in relation to the brightness or fatness ; attack or punch of each sound; and effects like reverb. In this chapter 1 will describe how sound processors - compression, EQ, gate and reverb- will affect the drum sounds. But 1 will start out with the different mixing styles, used in New York, LA and London.
"Al! y ou need is ears"- Dr. Tom Misner, president and founder of the SAE.
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2. Mixing styles: New York, LA and London

There are three major mixing styles and most recordings fall into one of them. This styles should being used in the whole mix with a lot of instruments and tracks, not just for drums.
2.1. The New York Style

The New York style is perhaps the easiest to identify because it features a lot of compression, which makes the mix very punchy and aggressive. In many cases, the drums are even recompressed severa} times along the way. They send the drums into a couple of busses, send that through sorne compressors, squeeze to taste, then add back a judicious amount of this compressed rhythm section to the mix through a couple of faders. lt is a useful method to make a rhythm section rock. This is how it goes: Buss the drums to a stereo compressor. Hit the compressor fairly hard, at least 10 dB or more if it sounds good. Retum the output of the compressor to a pair of fader inputs on the console. Add a pretty good amount of hifh end (6-10 dB at 10 kHs or so) and low end (6-10 dB at 100 Hz or so) to the compressed siglinal. Now bring the fader levels of the compressor up until it's tuckedjust under the present rhythm section mix to where y ou can just hear it. The drum section will now sound bigger and more controlled without sounding overly compressed. This trick can only be app1ied on analogue equipment! Using a plug-in brings in a delay of2-3 or even more samples, which will result in sorne phasing problems that are really not nice listening to. Using the hardware inserts on a pro-tools or other digital multitracksystem is even worse because the converters (digital to analog and analog to digital) use buffers who bring in a latency of severa} milliseconds. Analogue consoles don 't have this latencies, because everything is connected directly in a electrical way.
2.2. The LA Style

The LA sound is a somewhat more natural sound, it is compressed, but to a less obvious degree than the New York style. There's also a lot less effects layering than the London style. The LA style has always tried to capture a musical event and augment it a little, rather than recreate it.
2.3. The London Style The London sound is a highly layered musical event that borrows sorne from the New York style in that it' s somewhat compressed, but deals with multiple effect layers. This style makes extensive use of what is known as "perspective", which puts each instrument into its own distinct sonic environment. Although musical arrangement is important to any good mix, it's even more of a distinctive characteristic of a London mix. What this means is that many parts appear at
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different times during a mi x; sorne for effect, sorne to change the dynamics of the song. Each new part will be in its own environment and as a result will have a different perspective.
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3. Mixing it down
The drums represent the foundation of the song. Mostly you will start out with the drums and bass when mixing a session. The rest of the song will be built on it like a house. What you are trying when building the house is to make sure that ali the frequencies are properly represented, this is called the "tall" dimension of the mix. Every instrument should take up its own frequency range. A danger of talking about drum mixing as a separate tapie is that the inexperienced might be seduced into thinking that a killer-sounding drum mix is an end in itself. It's not. A great drum mix is still just a part of the total mix; like any of the parts, it must be appropriate for, and supportive of, the song and arrangement. You should leave hales in the drum-track, which should be filled up with the other instruments. It's possible having your drums sound really big and full individually, but, when adding bass, guitars and everything else, having them sound horrible. That is because there was no place left for the others. With room mies, overheads, reverbs and delays, you can create what is called the
"deep" dimension. Whith this tools it's possible to introduce new ambience elements in the
IDIX.
Then there is the panning which you will need to give the mix sorne stereo dimension. This is called the "wide" dimension. A drumset is a big and tall instrument so you should make that audible when mixing. Therefore, think in 3-D terms: tall, deep, and wide for not only the whole mix but also for the drums. A drum kit, after ail, comprises a bunch of parts spread out ali over the place. Reflecting a (believable) sense of that spread-out-ness will deepen the dimensionality of the whole mix.
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3.1. Making the balance Different mixers start from different places when building their mix. The right starting point does not exist, try and see what works best for you. Sorne possible places to build from: Overheads: Put the overheads at - 6 dB , and insert the other drums to taste. Everything up: Get a flat balance and push things up that are missing, or pull things down that are to much present. Kick: Start with the kick, as this gives you the bottom, than build up the other tracks on it as a house. Snare: Same story goes here, start with the snare at about - 6dB and build the rest as a house, leave overheads and rooms till the last to add sorne ambience and fullness. Vocals: The vocal is probably going to be the most important element, so it will take up more frequency space than other supporting instruments. If you have your vocal up, you can be sure not to overwrite its frequency range. Build the drums as described before.
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3.2. Panorama Another important element in mixing is panorama, or the placement of your sound elements in the sound field. Panning lets us select where in the space we place the sound. When panning drums, envision an area on the soundstage where the kit is set up. Note that you can mixas if looking at the drums from behind (drummers-perspective), with Hi-hat to the left and ride to the right; or in front of the kit (spectators perspective), with the ride panned to the left, and Hi-Hat to the right. There's no right or wrong here. What's important is to choose one perspective and stick with it. To that end, make sure the panning of the overhead mies corresponds with the panned positions of the toms (assuming they are individually close-miked). Simply solo the panned overheads (during a tom-fill passage), note which direction the tom fill goes, make a mental note of where each tom hits, and then pan the individual tom tracks accordingly. This will tighten the drum mix and will help clarify the location and punch of each tom in the stereo field. The usual goal when panning is to create an uncluttered soundstage in which each instrument can clearly be heard and its position identified. Assuming you're going for a natural drum perspective (the best place to start, usually), keep the overall "width" of the drum image consistent with the number of instruments on the soundstage. In the case of an 18-piece big band, for example, the drum kit would likely be panned into a small area (between, say, 11 and 12 o'clock), so it won't "step on" the other instruments. A power-trio mix, on the other hand, would allow for wider drum pans. Here are sorne panning-considerations: Toms can be panned around center, like 10 and 2 on the clock. A strong left/right on toms might sound like a cool idea, but really isn't. lt is too distracting. Listening on a set of headphones will show potential distractions in a clearer way, often more revealing then a set of monitors When your did a three-mic recording, you can pan the two side-mics hard left and right without having your set sounding to large. When you used an X/Y stereo-pair for your overheads, you can pan them hard left and right, a smooth balance will be preserved in your stereo-image. When, on the other hand, you used a spaced pair as overheads, you don' t necessarily have them to pan to the extremes, because they will have a wider stereo-image on the drums. Though it's customary to pan kick and snare drums on top of one another, typically dead center, try panning them ever so slightly apart, and listen for a spot where you get a sense of separation (the same as you get when listening to a live drum kit) . By putting a slight bit of space between the two drums, you unmask the signais from one another, which helps clarify each in the mix.
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3.3. Phase check Phase-problems were discussed already in the mie-placement section, but if you are now in the mix-stage, and you discover sorne phase problems, due to bad placement and/or phase inverts in the recording-stage, this is what you should do: Make sure to check the phase relationships between the two overhead-mic signais poor overhead-mic placement can ruin a mix. Sum the overhead tracks to mono and listen closely from top to bottom. If the sound collapses, loses frequency content, or in any way sounds weird, you likely have a phase problem. In that case, there are a couple of solutions. One is to go into a DA W (digital audio workstation) and manually align the stereo sound waves. If that's not feasible, the easy fix is to eliminate (mute) one of the overhead channels. Y ou can always create a faux-stereo image later by panning an effect opposite the mono track, delaying it a bit, and equalizing it differently .
It also pays to check phase relationships between the overhead mies and any closemiked drums. Sometimes the overheads are positioned at such a height above the kit that the sound waves are practically phase-inverted when they reach the mies (in relation to the sound that's captured by the close mies).
In that case, you might find that reversing the polarity (phase-flip) on the overheadmic signais improves the drum sound - for example, by making the kick and snare sound fuller. But before making a decision which way to go , be sure to solo ali the drum-kit tracks and listen close! y, in mono, throughout the song. There are often trade-offs y ou must make when changing phase relationships, and you should take those into account. If you have two kick mies, check the phase of the inside kick mie against the overheads and then the outside kick against the inside. Y ou should do this check with ali mies facing each other. Go back to "the secrets of mie placement" to read more about phase cancellation.
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3.4. Dynamics
1 assume the reader knows what a compressor, gate and limitor is, and knows what threshold, ratio, release, attack, hold, range and make-up gain - controllers are. I will not review the working of compressors, limitors and gates in this essay, because that will bring us to far away from the subject.
3.4.1. Compression
ln today ' s modern music, the manipulation of dynamics plays a major role in the sound. ln fact, just about nothing else can affect your mix as much and in so many ways as compresswn. Compression is mostly used to focus the sound, and make it punchy and in-your-face. The trick to getting the punch out of a compressor is to let the attacks through and play with the release to elongate the sound. Fast attack times are going to reduce the punchiness of a signal, while slow release times are going to make the compressor pump out of time with the
mUSIC.
The idea is to make the compressor "breathe" in time with the song. We speak of the compression settings in terms of the degree of attack and length of release: Slower attack setting: the punchier the sound Faster attack setting: the smoother or softer the sound Shorter release time, the more resonant and bigger the sound Longer release time, the tighter the sound Since the timing of the attack and release is so important, here are a few steps to help set it up. Assuming you have sorne kind of constant meter in the song, you can use the snare drum to set up the attack an release parameters. 1. Start with the slowest attack and fastest release settings on the compressor. 2. Turn the attack faster until the snare begins to dull. Stop at that point. 3. Adjust the release time so that after the snare hit, the volume is back to 90-100 percent normal by the next snare beat. 4. Add the rest of the mix back in and listen. Make any slight adjustments to the attack and release times as needed. When using compression, you will also need to set the ratio , threshold and output controls. Lower ratios require lower thresholds, but are Jess noticeable - like when you just want a little more punch or resonance. Higher ratios are more drastic and better suited for smoothing out sounds, rather than for adding punch. The threshold is to be set by ear, until the desired amount of compression has occurred. The output should be used to balance out any Joss caused by compression. For drums, compression will sustain the drums' sounds, help bring out their resonance, and make them seem larger and more ambient. lt can really make the drums sound bigger.
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Kick and snare
Typically, the most important drums in a mix are kick and snare, so it's wise to reserve your better compressors for those tracks. Unfortunately, most inexpensive compressors don't have what it takes to get awesome kick and snare sounds. This is one of those instances in which the gear can make a big difference. If you're working in a DAW-based studio, you also have the option ofusing one ofthe many plug-in compressors on the market. Though in many cases the sonic character of hardware compressors are preferred, especially when you are going for sounds that are more radical, but there are many engineers who swear by their plug-ins. The Waves Renaissance Compressor is an example of a sonically flexible and relatively inexpensive compressor plugin. It sounds good, is easy to use, runs on Mac and PC in a variety of formats , and can be set to emulate either a VCA-based or optical-controlled compressor. Overheads
For overheads, you can usually get by with a cheaper compressor (again, VCA based). Lower ratios - 1.5: 1 to 3:1 - are good here, and only slight to moderate gain reduction. The goal is to create more sustain on the cymbals as well as a smoother sound that helps blending the overall sound of the kit. Overhead-compression will bring up the low-level stuff enough to make subtleties audible, but without crushing the life out of the performance. Because the crashes are so much louder than the ride, you may want to use compression on the overheads to even them out a bit more. It's important here that you set the threshold higher than the ride level, as you don' t want to compress the ride. Rooms
It is a very comrnon used trick to add a lot of compression to room mies, doing this will make de drums "breath" . The compressor will soften the attacks to better fit the mix of groove. When you did sorne EQ-cutting to the room-track, a compressor will bring up ali the !ost volume on the EQ-cuts.
Bussing
Remember the New York mixing style, discussed sorne pages ago? It can be very useful to make a rhythm section sound huge and extra solid without sounding overly compressed: Try compressing ali (or most) of the drum tracks a second time through a stereo compressor. Either bus the drums to a subgroup with a stereo compressor on the inserts or retum the compressor outputs to a pair of faders, to allow for equalizing. Hit the compressor fairly hard and bring up the compressed channels just beneath the other drum tracks. Mix to taste.
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3.4.2. Noise Gates
Why use a gate? To isolate sorne parts of the kit, it is necessary to Gate/Expand. If you wish to add reverb to the snare, but the mie painting at the snare picked up the rest of the kit as weil, then adding reverb to the snare will effect the rest of the kit as weil. This of course is unwanted. When gating the snare you now have a (sorne what) clean track with snare only, I can add loads of reverb or compression or Eq etc .. . If you plan to compress any part of the kit, you will be bringing up the leve! of leakage. With a gate y ou will be able to do so with out much of a problem. Gating makes the drums punchy, powerful and clean sounding. Remember that when to much gates on every part of the drum are used, the drum will sound like a drum machine, and every acoustic ambiance will disappear. The leakage captured by close mies often adds a nice amount of ambiance to the mix, and is not necessarily disturbing. For drums, use a fast attack, fast release and a long hold. Spent sorne time on adjusting the threshold, making sure every hit will pass. Ifyou're working on an automated console or a DA W (or both), you can eut or reduce noise with automated mutes, this will make sure everything usefull will be in the track and everything else will be discarded, because you did it by hand. Kick
In sorne cases you may want to gate the kick . Sorne like the short, stompier sound in sorne styles, and dislike the "woof' as the sound decays. To each his own. A gated kick (even more so with compression), can stop a train in its tracks! You will get a quiet kick track without the noise from the rest of the kit in-between hits. Snare
By gating the snare you will be able to remove the leakage that is mostly very present in this microphone. But, on the other hand, if your drummer plays with those silent subtleties, called "ghost-notes", those will be eut away along with the leakage when the controls are wrong adjusted. Toms
If the toms are individually miked, sorne form of noise gating is almost essential, because mostly the leakage that will be present in this mies is not usable and has a lot of superfluous resonance of the toms "singing along" with the snare and kick. This is not a rule because sometimes, it can be helpful to bring your tom-mies into play to support the snare-mics.
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3.4.3. Limitors
A limiter increases the volume or density of a track. It removes sorne of the peaks, or transients, that register as clips. The result is that extra headroom is gained, and the overall track becomes louder. Unlike compression, which is used for an audible difference, the limiter' s effect is unnoticeable (when well regulated). A limiter is used for two things: to discretely raise the volume of a track, and to remove the possivility of clipping. Notice that when you lower the threshold too much, limiting will become noticeable.
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3.5. Egualizing Even though an engineer has every intention of making his tracks sound as big and as clear as possible during recording, it often happens that the frequency range of sorne or ali of the tracks is still somewhat limited when it cornes time to mix. As a result, the mixing engineer then must extend the frequency range of tho se tracks. In the quest to make things sound bigger, fatter, brighter and clearer, the equalizer is the chief tool used by most mixers. BUT, perhaps more than any other audio tool , the use of the equalizer requires a skill that separates the average engineer from the master .. There are three primary goals when equalizing: 1. To make an instrument sound clearer and more defined. 2. To make the instrument of mix bigger and larger than !ife. 3. To make al the elements of a mix fit together better by juggling frequencies so that each instrument has its own predominant frequency range.
LISTEN!! When equalizing, open up your ears and listen carefully to ali the nuances ofthe sound. It's ali important. Make sure you' re monitoring at a comfortable leve!, not too loud and not too soft.
When applying corrective EQ , work to strike a balance between boosting and cutting; too much of either will typicaliy make the instrument sound unnatural. The idea is to keep the envelope as linear and consistent as possible. If you must favour one or the other, favour cutting - cutting never adds noise, but boosting often does. As a general tip, use a narrow Q when cutting and use wide Q's when boosting. Bring up the entire rhythm section when dialing-in drum-kit EQ. It's fine to solo here and there from time to ti me in or der to foc us in on a particular instrument. For the most part, though, keep the bass and other rhythm instruments in there with the drums. Remember, the concept of equalization pertains to a relationship among elements. You need to balance the frequency content of the whole foundation - not of just one element. The goal is to strike a musical balance between ali the elements, leaving each more audible in the mix by ensuring that it isn't fighting other elements for the same sonic territory. Here are sorne classic concepts on utilizing the EQ. I say classic because these are textbook moves and will not apply to every kit. It's more important you understand what they do and how they effect y our sound. Then y ou can choose to use them if needed.
3.5.1. Kick
A kick has a lot of low-mid frequencies. This might muddy the sound somewhat. A eut in the 250-500Hz area will help to solve this problem. Most of us like, in a rock style context, a kick with a powerful thump. This can be achieved with a boost in the 7 5-150Hz area. This eut and boost tends to work together nicely but the amount of EQ is dependent on your successful mie placement. If you wish to bring out the strike of the beater then a boost around 3-5kHz will do just that. Boost a 7.5kHz area to add what is called "air" to the sound.
If we surn the result we now have a powerfully thump, not muddy, and with good
definition.
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In terms of juggling frequencies , pay particular attention to how the kick drum and bass guitar work together. Solo the two and listen closely. Which produces the predominantly lower note and which the higher? Try accentuating this low/high relationship: carve out sorne space by equalizing so that like frequencies don't overlap. For example, if you boost the kick at 60 Hz, eut the bass at 60 Hz. If you eut the kick at 400 Hz (usually not a bad idea), try boosting the bass a bit in the same range. Again, the goal is to find a musical balance between the elements.
3.5.2. Snare
To find the "point" on the snare, boost the upper midrange starting at about +5 or 6dB at 2kHz or so. Open up the bandwidth (Q-factor, if that parameter is available) until you get the snare to jump out, then tighten the bandwidth until you get only the part of the snare sound that you want most. Then fine-tune the frequency until you need the least amount of boost in order to make itjump out of the mix. Sorne like to roll off the lows in a snare as they don't contain many lows below 1OOHz. For more body or a fatter sound, boost around 100-300Hz. For Jess hollowness and cardboard-sound, eut around 400Hz. For more or Jess attack, boost or eut 3 - 5 kHz (mostly around 4kHz). Snare-sound can be found around 2,5kHz, this is important when EQ-ing the bottom-mic. Sorne like to boost sometimes the 6 kHz for sorne more air.
3.5.3. Hi-Hats A roll-off at below 200Hz is a wise move. There can be qui te a bit of rumb le in the hi hat mie. To get rid of the excessive snare in my example, eut at 200Hz. From here the choice can be between a thicker sound and a thinner sharper one. A thicker one will benefit from a boost at an area of 300- 600Hz. A thinner one will be a boost at around 6-7kHz. Cut at around 1.5kHz to clean sorne ofthe metal sound and to geta cleaner hi hat. For more sparkle, boost a little around 8-10kHz. However you decide to use a hi-hat track, make sure to check for phasing issues between it and the overheads. If you are working in the digital realm, you may find yourself delaying the hi-hat track so that it aligns with the hi-hat in the overheads, this will eliminate these issues.
3.5.4. The toms Cut around 250-SOOHz to decrease the mostly exaggerated fullness and boost at 46kHz for more harshness and attack. For more stick sound and clarity adda little 12kHz. Sorne people like to roll off below 1OOHz. Others chose to boost 80 Hz to give sorne power. It's a matter of taste. Cut around 1kHz to remove sorne of the tom ' s "liveness", if you have enough " live" sound from the overheads and rooms.
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3.5.5. Overheads The overhead mies can bring the drums back to life by blending them back to a single kit, as well as giving the cymbals life and positioning them in the stereo field correctly. We are not looking for punch here so a roll-offbelow 150Hz is welcomed to remove sorne of the bleed that cornes from the other drums. To eliminate the snare, eut out 300-400Hz. Don' t do this if you use your overheads to support the snare. Sometimes it may be needed to BOOST 80Hz for sorne more deepness in the toms. Boosting 6kHz gives more of a strike to the cymbals. Clarity can be found around 7,5kHz. A classic move is also to boost 15KHz for a nice sheen to the cymbals. A great trick to try before you eq your overheads is to slightly advance the overheads to that the snare hit has no delay between the snare track and the overheads. Y ou would be surprised as to how much more beef this can add to the snare and drum kit in general.
3.5.6. Rooms The ambiance is an important factor for a natural sound it can add a lot of excitement to the kit. But, while they add a nice touch to the overall drum sound, they are tracks that can be somewhat replaced with a good reverb unit, but honestly, a good ribbon microphone can never be replaced by sorne artificial reverb-machinery. This track is more or less the track that can "gel" the drurn sound together in a natural way . It is a nice added luxery ifyou have the tracks to use it. Sometimes cutting mid's and boosting lows and high's is useful to remove muddiness, but in general you should not touch it too much. Just add the ambiance slowly to the kit in order to find the right balance between the whole kit and the added ambiance.
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3.6. Adding effects This section is about dimension, which is the ambient field in which the track or tracks sit. Dimension can be captured while recording but usually has to be crated or enhanced when mixing by adding effects such as reverb or delay or any of the modulated delays such as chorusing or flanging. Dimension might be something as simple as recreating an acoustic environment, but it also could be the process of adding width or depth to a track or trying to spruce up a boring sound. There are four reasons why a mixer would add dimension to a track:
1. To create an aurai space.
2. To add excitement. 3. To make a track sound bigger, wider and/or deeper. 4. To move a track back in the mix (give the impression it's farther away) Quite often just a little bit of reverb can make a difference. You don't even have to hear it but you can sense it when it goes away. It's just not quite as friendly sounding, not qui te as warm. Obviously an effect is an ear catcher or something that can just kind of slap somebody and wake them up a little bit in case they're dozing offthere. By adding reverb to the drums you will create the impression of a " bigger space". With a reverb you can create the kind of room that you would have liked to recorded the drums in, but didn' t have the time or resources. Even if the room itself in which you record is "dead", reverb allows you to overcome that limitation, and even virtually change its settings from song to song. On kick, snare and toms, a small amount of reverb can help to put back sorne 'liveness' that gating has taken out. If the drums were recorded in a good-sounding live room (or at a live gig), then the overheads shouldn't really need much, if any, artificial reverb, but if they were recorded in a small, dry studio, you'll need to simulate the environment of your choice. Plate settings are commonly used on drums, but short ambience settings will serve better if you're after a tighter sound. Here are sorne guidelines when adding reverb: As a general rule of thumb, try to picture the drummer in an acoustic space and then realistically recreate that space around him. The acoustic space need not be a natural one. In fact, as long as it fits the music, the more creative the better. Smaller reverbs make things sound bigger. Reverbs with decays under a second and delays under 100 ms tend to create an acoustic space around a sound, especially if the reverb of is stereo. Long reverb pre-delays or reverb decay push a sound farther away if the leve! of the effect is loud enough. Reverbs work better when timed to the tempo of the track. Trigger the reverbs off of a snare hit and adjust the decay parameter so that the decay just dies by the next snare hit. The idea is to make the decay "breathe" with the track. EQ can be added to reverb in order to help create sorne sonic layering: To make an effect stick out, brighten it up.
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To make an effect blend in, darken it up. (filter out the highs) If the part is busy (like with drums), roll off the low end of the effect to make it fit. You should now be somewhere close to a good drum sound. But, before you forget about the drums, there's probably one final adjustment you'll need to make. Once the whole track is playing, the reverb you added earlier may be unsuitable, either because there's too much or too little, or because it's of the wrong type for the song you're mixing. Listen carefully to make sure the kit has a homogenous sound - it needs to convince you that the drums were ail played together and not recorded as separate layers, unless you decide you deliberately want to create that disjointed effect. After which you can sit back and enjoy the rest of the mix, because the hardest part of the job will hopefully now be behind you!
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PART 4: INTERVIEWS WITH PROFESSIONALS

Jean-Philippe Komac
@ his place in Keerbergen- May 22, 2006
Presentation Jean-Phillippe Komac (JP) is one ofFlanders' best known freelance , ali-round sessiondrummers. He participated in the music-section of the prestigious musical "Jesus Christ Superstar" established by the musical-department of the Royal Ballet ofFlanders. He toured and recorded for five years with Johan Verminnen being his permanent drummer. He lectures Rhythm at "studio Herman Teirlinck" in Antwerp, and teaches drums at the grarnmar school for arts in Brussels. He did a lot of recording-sessions for music, commercials, television and film . He worked with lots of artist. Sorne references: Bart Van den Bossche(+2 cd), Bart Herman, Mozaek, Yasmine, Sunny side up (+cd), Tom Van Landuyt (+cd), Kid Safari, Sofie, Philippe Robrecht, Coco Jr. , W817-Band, Will Tura, The Platters, La Esterella, Sergio, Spark, Dimitri Van Toren, Zjef Vanuytsel, Kris Debruyne, Plane Vanilla, Nieuwe Wereld Orkest, "Jesus Christ Superstar" in Forest National with Robert Mosuse, Paul Michiels, Sofie, Raf Van Brussel, Melissa Errico, Michel Legrand.
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The Interview On a beautiful Sunday-moming 1 went to Keerbergen to have a pleasant and instructive chat with Jean-Phillipe. He has a huge dog that came in sporadically to check whether everything was still under control and his kids were playing somewhere around the house. JP really knows like everything about drums: construction, tuning, recording in the studio, ... Not surprisingly he was able to keep me interested for about three hours chatting about drums, drums and nothing but drums. Below you can find what he told me that Sunday-morning.
The Shells
JP told me about today's tendency to make shells always thinner in order to make it resonate as free as possible. Thinner shells resonate longer and sound a lot clearer, which is an advantage while you are close miking the shell set in a recording session or when doing a live re-enforcement. But that's only one side of the picture. These thin shells make you lose a lot of acoustic power; the sound won't be carried away far. Gretsch, Pearl, Tama, Adams and many other constructors produce shells which are only 3 to 4mm. JP had the opportunity to play severa) drum sets and he tested a lot of different woods. His experiences were quite interesting. First of all he explained me that the difference between a maple or a birch plywoodshell is practical nihil for his ears. Using one of these woods, the glue and the way of manufacturing defi ne the final sound of the drum. (Number of plies, thickness of plies, degree ofbearing edge, mounting.) The difference becomes more audible when using stave drum shells. An oak drumset (like Yamaha's Oak Custom) sounds always very aggressive; it doesn't matter whether you hit them soft or hard. JP considers this as a great advantage: maple shells will have a cold, aggressive sound when you play them hard, but sound warm and full when you play them soft. This way, one drum set can produce two totally different sounds which are not at ali coherent. A walnut shell on the other hand, will have the disadvantage that it's impossible to get it sound loud, no matter how hard you hit the head. This shell has kind of a threshold it will not exceed. The tom will saturate from this point. JP made me aware of another important reality with regard to drum shells: sometimes you just can't get them sound the way they should. You can spend half a day tuning and changing heads, try different microphones on different positions but the toms will produce sorne annoying overtones you can't get rid off or they'll just sound completely dead. This might be a huge (but occurring) problem while you're in a recording-session. The bad sounding of the se shells is mostly due to wom out bearing edges, not 100% round shells, bad gluing of different plies or bad wood quality. It is a rnisunderstanding to think every set of the same brand and type sounds the same. Wood will never sound completely the same! Johan Van de Sijpe from Brugge constructs snaredrums (for instance for Michael Schack) and he tests his triplex-plates by hitting every single square centimetre to find the "dead" spots. If you've bought such a set, you've just been ripped off because there's nothing you can do about it. You can try to muffle the heads in order to shorten a shell' s sustain, but y ou' 11 change timbre too, making the shell really odd in comparison with the other toms.
-Drums in the studio-
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When you ' re willing to buy a new drumset you better test it intensively. Buy the set you' ve tested, not another one because it may sound differently (as mentioned above). Drum Workshop solved this problem because they select every shell on the sound it produces. Like this they make sure that all the shells blend perfectly together. One disadvantage is that you can find DW' s with shells fitting together, but with a less good sound. Another invention of DW is to print the ideal frequency of each shell on the inside. This is the keynote of the bald shell (without hardware, heads, .. . ) When you tune the heads to this frequency the shell will sound its best. Nowadays we have a lot of thin shells, therefore reinforcement rings are often added to omit the shells loosing their roundness while tuning higher. Ayotte uses reinforcement rings of several thickness, depending on diameter and depth of the shell. Unfortunately, reinforcement rings reduce your tuning range so you need to tune close to your key tone.
Heads
JP told me that heads with coating sound darker. They've got a shorter sustain and a softer attack due to the coating which muffles the head a bit. Initially they were produced to be played with brushes because they grate on the head. A clear head (without coating) provides a clearer sound with more attack and longer sustain. He uses the same heads for live performances as well as recording sessions because the heads are always close-miced. On kick, JP doesn' t like the Remo-heads because they are muffled too much by their huge muffle-ring. He certainly prefers Evans heads with on top the EMAD-type (Extemally Mounted Adjustable Damping) which gives you the opportunity to muffle your head with a muffle-ring on the outside. It's a lot better to have the muffle-ring on the outside because this way your head keeps contact with the shell (so the shell ' s quality is important again). With this EMAD you' ll geta great sound with a lot low end and nice attack. Also the EQ 1-heads from Evans are worth trying. They have got small ho les on the edge to geta dry kick-sound. It' s muffle-rings are not broad (4-Scm) but you can add an extra ring when preferred. Thanks to this you keep your subs (which you loose with Remo ' s). Another trick JP leamed me is to eut pads with a Sem diameter from a Remo Fiberskyn3-head glued to the head as a "Fallam slam" pad. This Fiberskyn is strong and stiff which provides a longer life span. Another advantage when using this pad is the extra attack it offers. The original pads (like Remo Fallam slam) are usually too big changing the kick' s sound. You loose your high and sub range and you keep the mid range or they're too soft, making you loose attack and creating an unclear sub.
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Tuning
When JP changes his heads, he always tightens his heads to make them stretch and adapt to the bearing edge. Afterwards he tunes down to get the right key tone. He starts his tuning with one tension rod which sounds the best, he ' ll try to tune ali the other rods to this sound. If he hears another rod sounding better, he ' ll change his aim-sound to the better one. To hear the right sound of the place next to the rod, he places one finger in the middle of the head to reduce ali the overtones. When putting one finger in the middle you can' t push to hard because you ' ll stretch the head and tuning will become impossible.
JP recommends to tune your top and bottom head close together, if you choose to make a difference in pitch, never exaggerate this. When tuning the bottom head a bit higher you get more punch and a clearer tone. Tuning your bottom head lower is only advisable if you really look for that specifie "fall of pitch". The difference between top and bottom may never be more than a tierce.
For resonance-heads, he sometimes uses single ply heads (for instance Remo renaissance) tuned higher than his batt er head, this offers a warmer and fuller sound thanks to the specifie coating. There are two sorts of sustain: full sustain, which you need in your mix because it profiles the character of your tom. Sometimes you secondly may have a quiet sound in the low frequency-zones, you should try to get rid of this one by using a very low threshold on a gate or you can mute it manually. This second quiet sustain is mostly audible when hitting the bassdrum (so this may be the easiest way to adjust the gate's threshold.) His bassdrum-head isn' t at all tuned tightly. He only turns the rods until they aren' t loose anymore. With a good muffle-ring (from Evans EMAD) you get a great, deep kick with lots of attack and sub.
JP told me that he even uses a 13" tom as a floortom. Sorne shells offer all qualities to do so, others shells don' t. Lignum has a 12" tom that perfectly can function as a floortom.
The deeper the tom, the harder it is to tune: The aim of y our bottom head is to resonate with the batterhead making the shell' s sound longer en fuller. This resonating is caused by the trembling of the shell and by the airstream in the tom. If your shell is Jess deep, the distance between top and bottom head is shorter and Jess air has to be moved resulting in a fast reacting bottom head. The air stream in the shell is most important here. If y ou have deeper shells there' s a lot more air to move and air can be pressed together or even escape through the air hole. The bottom head won't be activated by the air stream because it gets muffled earlier. It is the shell which makes the bottom head resonate and so this resonance head will only react when tuned exactly the same as the batter head. Therefore it is important to tune your bottom head very close to the pitch of your batter head to make it resonate as much as possible. When choosing snarewires, JP frequently picks out Sonors because they've got snarewires with an "open zone" between the strands. This offers the bottom head the opportunity to get heard. On the bottom of y our snare drum there' s a small no teh in the edge to place y our snarewire. This provides close contact between wires and bottom head. Unfortunately this
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notch makes it harder to tune the rods next to the snarewire. Its advisable to tighten these four tension rods a bit more to make sure the head has enough contact with the edge. Otherwise you can' t get the right pitch.
Hoops
You can choose between several types of hoops: Wooden hoops: mostly maple. You can choose between soft maple (breaks when you hit hard) or hard rockmaple which is of course a lot stronger.(It's pure physics : the weakest material will break first. So if y ou hit a metal hoop with a hickory stick, y our stick will break. lfyou hit a softer maple hoop with a (harder) hickory stick, your hoop will break first.) Only this rockmaple mentioned above is strong enough to resist hickory sticks. Yamaha and Ayotte even uses these rockmaple hoops on their toms. Wooden hoops make your snaredrum sound warmer and fuller but still offer a quite aggressive rimshot. They do muffle the sound quite a bit, shortening the sustain but making it warmer. Die cast hoops: These hoops are very heavy and strong. They won't fold under high tightening. Soif one tension rod is tuned a bit lower, you won't be able to hear it. Due to their weight they muffle also the toms a bit. Power hoops: This hoops have thicker compressed edges than the normal compressed hoops. They are very strong and are used on toms as well as on snaredrum.
Recording
Sorne small recording-experiences: JP ever recorded his kit with sorne old BECmicrophones as overhead. (Probably Coles 4038, an old ribbon microphone created by BBC in 1954 ). The result was incredible: his set sounded full and warm without using one close microphone. Even the kick was clearly audible and sounded the way it should . He told me another story about a U87, positioned behind his left elbow, aimed to the hi-hat. The result were fat sounding (vintage 60's) hats. Another expierence he had was with the NT4 stereo couple from R0de as overheads. The microphone was placed above his head and the balance was just perfect with full sound, not as warrn as the old BBC-mics, but nevertheless great attack and lots of puch. To record bassdrums, woofers or subwoofers are often used nowadays. They are placed in front of the resonant head at a 10-15cm range and recorded on an extra channel. This woofer offers an extra sub that can be added in the mi x' s bassdrumsound. Yamaha even produced a Subckick: it's a small drum with a woofer in it placed vertically in front of the bassdrum. Placing it closer to your bassdrurnhole, the sound becomes more direct and less woolly.
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Christophe Albertijn
@ MotorMusic in Koningshooikt - May 22, 2006
Presentation Christophe Albertijn is one of the sound-engineers of MotorMusic studios in Koningshooikt. MotorMusic belongs to the largest and most professional studios in Belgiurn. Their main control room houses a SSL 6000, and the racks are stuffed with loads of high-end new and vintage equipment. They made albums for successful Flemish bands and artists, such as ABN, Admirai Freebee, Alana Dante, An Pierl, Axelle Red, Belgian Asociality, Camden, Das Pop, Flatcat, Gorki, Janez Detd, Monza, Noordkaap, Novastar, Ozark Henri, Sioen, Stash, Triggerfinger, Zita Swoon, Zornik, 't Hof van Commerce and many others.
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The interview Monday evening, the day after the long interview with Jean-Phillipe, I anxiously drove to the monstrous studio in Koningshooikt. College boy was about to enter the world of the grown-ups. Inquisitively, I walked up the long and broad entranceway and walked through the first open door that crossed my path. Wow! This just happened to be the main-control-room, where a giant SSL enlightened the who le room and neat closets full of peripheral equipment gave the impression it was ali for free. Astonished and inquiring faces froze me up, but I swallowed the lump in my throat and bravely said I had an appointment with Christophe. An equally stout assistant was sent to show me the way to the overdub-studio where Christophe was recording a synth. After a short wait and a brief explanation of the DDA-M series console, I received a conducted tour of the who le building. In the spacious lounge room I had a fluent chat with a person whose words flowed off his tongue . Unfortunately this busy man !ost one precious hour explaining ali there is to know about recording drumsets.
Microphones
To put it blunty, you' ve got two kinds of drummers: good and bad. A good drummer knows how his set has to sound and how he has to play it. A bad drummer doesn' t. For the latter, you best use a SM 57, which is a bad microphone but which produces the common snare drumsound. A SM 57 sounds just like it's used to and doesn' t bring along ali the delicate noises of the snaredrum. The same counts for the toms, where a SM 57 will make things turn out better than expected. A beta 52 will offer you the same result for the kickdrum. Not a high definition, just a regular bassdrumsound. In the mix things will ali turn out right with a gate, compressor, EQ and reverb. On sets with a nice sound, you have to put better microphones because these sets have a more subtle and full sound. Better microphones will offer you the most truthful image of a better set. When you' d put these better microphones on a crappy set, you geta horrible sound because of ali the surplus sounds and overtones getting through. Christophe sometimes uses a Neumann KM 86 for a snaredrum, which he shifts into a bi-directional characterization, giving him the opportunity to mount it between the hi-hat and the first tom without too much leakage. In other cases, he just uses the Sennheisers' MD 421 or 441 , bec ause they also work out weil for a snaredrum.
For the toms he mostly uses the very same KM 86's, just because they represent the perfect image. He often uses the MD 421 of 441 when the KM 86's can' t provide the sound that you want. Y ou have to listen and just take the microphone that sounds the best for a certain set. For the bottom of the snare he mostly uses an AKG C414. A limitter is needed because the peaks can run up quite high. For the kickdrum he uses a D 112 of D 12, mostly combined with a woofer on DI. He also places a small tentacle-condensor, in his case a DPA, on the batterhead to record the attack. The 112 is often put right in the hole of the bassdrum, which offers the most full and natural sound because the membrane is now equal to the resonancehead.
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Christophe is quite against putting a microphone inside the bassdrum because this latter isn' t made to produce a good sound inside the shell itself. Therefore, you shouldn' t look for good sound inside the shell either. A 30 cm gap between the microphone and the bassdrum, can offer you the sound you' re looking for as well. For overheads, he used a Neumann SM-2, a stereomicrophone, which he uses as an MS-couple. The middle channel has to be compressed to obtain a very broad drum-sound. He puts this couple at eye leve! , one meter in front of the drumset. A Coles 4038, an old BBC ribbon microphone, works perfectly as an overhead as weil, to acquire a beautiful full warm general image of your drumset. Christophe is convinced that you shouldn' t close-mie a cymbal, because it won ' t sound well. A cymbal needs sorne time and space to let its sound evolve. Only from a one meter-distance you'll get a proper cymbal-sound. The consequence of this is of course that the rest of your drumset is recorded by these mies as well. Christophe considers this as a convenient advantage: a drumset has to be recorded as one instrument because it actually is one instrument. The hi-hat on the other hand, is recorded from a very short range with a 414, md 441 , or a shure sm-7.
Mi x The attack of the kick finds itself between 3 and 4 kHz, and especially with rock and sometimes pop, you need to boost this frequency to obtain the regular aggressive bassdrumsound. Christophe is a fan of the dBx 160SL compressor, just because this has such a clear metering-system, which cornes in qui te handy when y ou want to work precise! y. Of course ali other compressors work fine as well. The F ATSO of Empirical Labs and the Manleycompressors for instance, both have a very warm compression. Christophe only compresses on a bus, which means the whole set at a time. The buscompressors of the SSL-console are said to be very good for this kind of job. Adding a guitar-effect to your snare-sound may help you find the more aggressive and cutting snare-sound you ' re looking for when your snare sounds to flat or thin. Experiment with a good distortion, the result is astonishing!
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Dirk
@"De Studio" in Asse- June 7, 2006
Presentation "De Studio" is a rather small but still quite known studio. Several bands went there to record their demo-cd' s or even full-cd' s. Lots of record labels have been in De Studio with bands like 5 Days Off, Circle, Convi ct, The Cornflames, Do Or Die, E for 11 , Flatcat, Funeral Dress, Homer, Janez Dedt, The Paranoiacs, The Scarrots, Sioen, The Setup in arder to burn their music on a single dise.
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The interview When I arrived that Wednesday-evening, I witnessed the last guitar-solo-overdubs of a death metal band from Gent. I had to wait for half an hour (recording is a lot of waiting) until those big, rough boys left and gave me a chance to interview Dirk. Dirk is a friendly man who's passion became his job. He's really proud of his new studio for which he worked years and years. He played me a recording of The Scarrots which he recorded at De Studio but mixed in Motormusic, Koninkshooikt. That was his first time he used a real SSL and it was a great experience. He explained that when he had only sent the tracks to the console, everything sounded a lot better en fuller without touching a single button. (So, that's the secret of good mixing?) After this amusing, introductive sample we went on to our main subject: recording drums.
The drumsound
Dirk is a drummer himself and knows a lot about tuning. I took the opportunity to ask him ail about it. Heads
He explained that remo pinstripes are great heads to use in the studio. The sound may be a bit flat, but is overall good. Also remo ' s ambassador coated or powerstrokes will do fine in a recording session. For the kick, he prefers a powerstroke just because that head never cheated on him, it always sounded the way it should. Tuning
Dirk tunes the tom's resonant-head a quarter tone higher than the batter-head to obtain more warmth and a shorter sustain. He invests lots of ti me in the unity of his toms, they have to sound harmonie with each other in order to create more space for the drum sound in the mi X. When you hit the toms, you should make sure that the snarewire of y our snare drum doesn't vibrate with your toms. Adjusting the tension of the snarewire, tuning the rods next to the wire offers the solution. If y ou still aren 't able to stop the vibrating, use a pie ce of paper tape to muffle it. He always uses paper tape to muffle as weil on tops as on bottoms. The trick is in the sticking: create loose loops! The loops will muffle the sound. It's not always necessary to muffle, everything depends on the style of music. Trashmetal bands for instance only need attack so you can muffle a lot, but slow ballad-music should sound openly and free with long sustain so it's better not to muffle there. When you need to muffle a lot, for instance on a floortom, use a paper tissue .
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Microphones
Room
Dirk explained that 30% of his drumsound was created by a big AEA which he uses as room right behind the drummer. It was an R88, a big and long ribbon microphone. He really likes it's sound and he volts his mix up with it. Snare
To record the snaredrum, Dirk prefers two sm57's. On positioned on top and one on bottom and both with a 20 angle. He argues to have no phase-problems and a lot definition like that. Toms For the toms he picks out the e604's from Sennheiser, simply because they're very handy clip-on's which is very easy in use. Kick
A D112 is the microphone you get in your bassdrum at De Studio. Aimed to the place where the batter hits the head to gather maximum attack. Dirk places it not too deep; only 1/3 of the total length. Often he adds another microphone with big membrane, positioned in front of the bassdrum at a 30cm range, this microphone doesn ' t give away brand or type. Overheads
As overhead-microphones, Dirk chooses 2 TLM-1 03 's, positioned right behind the drummer at about 1,8m height in an X/Y configuration, aimed to the ultimate limits of the set. These microphones are important to give the snaredrum that extra punch. He pans the micro's totally right and left. White recording, he places de drummer in the middle of the studio, faced to both of the isolated cabins in order to communicate with the guitarists.
Mi x
Talking about EQ, he wasn't able to give clear hints because it depends too much from mix to mix. The only interesting thing he told me is to remove the low mids (200-400Hz) because these frequencies make the mix too "boomy". Dirk uses a lot of compression, but he explains the difficulty in handling. It is hard to adjust it the way it should, you can't compress too much because you'll geta pumping sound. A small compression on rooms and overheads will do it normally. For toms and snaredrum, the attack will be adjusted to Sms and the release on about 200ms. As compression or EQ for drums, Dirk only uses the standard plug-ins offered with protools. (Digirack) .
72
He never uses a gate. If you need to eut the toms it is better to do it manually. In this way he can be sure the gate won' t eut the more silent strokes. An expander might be interesting for snare and kick to suppress the leakage a bit. Dirk considers phase-problems as the biggest enemy while recording drums. Too often you get good drums sound bad on tape just because there were phase-problems between the microphones used. It's necessary to invest enough time in it and to check for every microphone whether you should phase-flip it or not.
73
CONCLUSION
That was about it. As for now it is up to you (and me) to experiment with all the information and possibilities represented in this paper and transform them into practice. If there is one big conclusion to make , it will certainly be that you should experiment and use your ears! Tuning, recording and mixing drum kits is a process of trial and error. Something that worked marvellously yesterday can not work at ali today. Do not ever get stuck in "your" little few tricks that always work, keep trying and experimenting ali the time, it is the only way to get yourself familiar with the trade. This text is meant to be a guide through your experimentations. I provided a lot of different approaches of which sorne will work for y ou and others will not. There is no one and only manner to get your sound, because a lot of ways and procedures are possible. What counts is the final product, your final mix. If that sounds the way you, your musicians and producers were looking for, you got what they came for, no matter how you reached it. This research imparted infinite wisdom to me, I hope you will benefit from it as much as I have.
Lode De Feyter, june, 2006
74
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Books
BECK, D., The Musician 's Guide To Recording Drums, Hal Leonard Corporation, Milwaukee (2004) MISNER, T., Practical Studio Techniques, Third Edition, SAE Publishing, Amsterdam (2001) OWSINSKI, B., The Recording Engineer 's Handbook, Thomson Course Technology, Boston (2005) OWSINSKI, B., The Mixing Engineer 's Handbook, Mix Books, Vallejo (1999) SCHROEDL, S., drum tuning - The Ultimate Guide, Hal Leonard Corporation, Milwaukee (2002)
Webpages
AQUARIAN, Aquarion Homepage, Aquarian Drumheads Homepage [http ://www.aq uariandrumheads. corn/] BARRY, R. , Drum Miking Techniques , ProRec.com (2000) [http://www. prorec.com/prorec/articles.nsf/files/drurnmic 1] EVANS, Evans Homepage , Evans Drumheads Homepage [http://www.evansdrumheads.com/] HOWIE, T., Tuning Drums, Tomas Howie Drumming Web [http://www.drummingweb.com/tuning.htm] JOHNSON, S., Drum Tuning Bible, Version 3, Prof. Sound [http ://home.earthlink.netl- prof. sound/] KNAVE, B., Sizzle, Punch and Groove, Electronic Musician (2004) [http://emusician.com/mag/emusic_ sizzle_punch_groove/] MARSHALL, P. , Drum Kit 1 Drumset Mechanics and Construction, Drum Dojo (1999-2000) [http://www.drumdojo.com/kit/equipment.htm] RADCLIFFE, M., Tuning Toms, Drum Dojo (1999) [http://www.drumdojo.com/tech/tuning.htm] REMO, Remo Homepage, Remo Drumheads Homepage [http://www.remo.com/] WHITE, P. , Mixing Multitracked Drums, SoundOnSound (February 2001) [http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/febO 1/articles/drummix.asp] WOHL, M. , Drum Mixingfor Close Micing Techniques , Recording Project [http://www.recordingproject.com/articles/article.php?article=5]
75
APPENDIX
Microphones used in the text
Priees are mostly taken from www.thomann.de or www.musicstore.de, V AT 21%, as it is in Belgium.
Neumann type usage

Kick 1 toms 1 room 1 overhead overheads room in 2 mie setup ln front of the kick in 3 mie setup toms ln front of a kick room
Priee Priee specifications VAT incl. VAT excl.

2199
1 1
u 87
U67 U47
1817
1 1
large diaphragm three directional characteristics Vintage condenser three directional characteristics Vintage condenser Omni and cardioid characteristics Vintage condenser Super-cardioid characteristics tube microphone dual diaphragm 15 directions characteristics Small diaphragm condenser Cardioid characteristic Large diaphragm condenser cardioid characteristic Vintage small diaphragm cardioid characteristic Stereo condenser microphone MS and XY stereophony Adjustable pickup angles Selectable polar patterns per capsule
FET 47 M 149
3999
3305
KM 184 TLM 193 KM 84
X/Y couple in 3 mie setup Hi-Hat Under floor tom to add low end
overheads room
599 1299
1
495 1074
1
USM 69i
4450
3678
Sennheiser type
MD-421 MD-441
usage
Snare 1 Toms 1 in kick Snare 1 toms

345 729 285 602 Cardioid characteristic Dynamic microphone Super cardioid characteristic Dynamic microphone
Shore type
SM 57 VP-88
usage
Snare 1 toms 1 in kick 1 mie setup

95 1245 79 1029 Dynamic picrophone Cardioid characteristic Stereo condenser microphone
76
beta 52 Beta 98 SM?
kick Snare 1 kick batterside Kick 1 toms
198 255 599
164 201 495
MS configuration Mid: cardioid Side: biderectional Oynamic microphone Super-cardioid characteristic Compact condenser clip-microphone Super-cardioid characteristic Oynamic microphone Cardioid characteristic
AKG type
usage
Snare 1 overheads XfY couple in 3 mie setup Behind drummer in 3 mie setup Hi-Hat 1 overheads Kick batterside snare brushes Under floor tom to add low end Overheads 1 hi-hat sn are

379 313
c 4518
C452
c 414 c 28
C60
925
764
Small diaphragm condenser Cardioid characteristic Small diaphragm condenser Cardioid characteristic discontinued Large diaphragm condenser five directional characteristics
sn are
C 12VR
overhead
3699
3057
0 112 012 030 0 20
kick kick kick in 2 mie setup kick in 3 mie setup
175
145
1 1 1
1 1 1
Miniature condenser microphone Cardioid characteristic discontinued Small diaphragm microphone Cardioid characteristic discontinued Tube condenser Nine polar patterns Remake of vintage C 12 Large diaphragm dynamic microphone Cardioid characteristic Vintage dynamic microphone Cardioid characteristic Vintage dynamic microphone Three directional characteristic Vintage dynamic microphone Cardioid characteristic
type
R-121 SF-12 SF-1
usage
Overheads 1 room overhead 1 room Hi-Hat

1399 2799 1447 1156 2211 1196 Ribbon microphone Bi-directional characteristic Stereo Concident Ribbon Microphone Symmetrical figure-S characteristic Ribbon microphone Bi-directional characteristic
77
Audio Technica type

ATM 25 AT 4051 AT 4033
usage
toms snare brushes toms

169 435 389 140 356 321 Dynamic microphone Hypercardioid characteristic Condenser microphone Cardioid characteristic Condenser microphone Cardioid characteristic
RCA
type
77-DX
usage
1 mie setup

1 1
Vintage ribbon microphone Cardioid characteristic
type
4038
usage
1 mie setup overheads

? ?
Ribbon microphone
Beyerdynamic type
M 201 TG M 88TG
usage
Kick batter side 1 snare ln kick

166 309 137 255 Dynamic microphone Hyper-cardioid characteristic Dynamic microphone Hyper-cardioid characteristic
Electro Voice type

RE-20
usage
Kick 1 snare

515 426 Large diaphragm dynamic microphone Hyper-cardioid characteristic
type
C37p
usage
Snare 1 toms
Priee specifications Priee VAT incl. VAT excl.

1 1
Vintage microphone
78
Schoeps type
221b
usage
snare brushes
Priee specifications Priee VAT incl. VAT excl.

1 1
Vintage microphone
Barcus Berry type

2050
usage
as gate-key-in for snare

? ?
Contact microphone
Joe Meek type

JM47
usage
room

143 118 Large diaphragm condenser Cardioid characteristic
Au dix
type
SCX25
usage
matched pair AJB

? ?
Large diaphragm condenser Cardioid characteristic
79

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1

Drums in the studio

SAE Institute Bruxelles

10, rue Gachard 1050 Ixelles

- Drums in the studio -

Drums in the studio

SAE Institute Bruxelles 10, rue Ga chard 1050 Ixelles

- Drums in the studio -

PART 2: RECORDING THE DRUMS ................................................................... 34

- Drums in the studio -

- Drums in the studio -

"If the re is one instrument that engineers seem to obsess over,

- Drums in the studio -

PART 1 GOOD SOUNDING DRUMS

- Drums in the studio -

2. Drum construction and head properties

2.1. Head Construction and Concepts

- Drums in the studio -

2.1.3. Tom head configurations

- Drums in the studio -

The resonant head

- Drums in the studio -

- Drums in the studio -

2.1.4. Bass drum configurations Batter side

- Drums in the studio -

2.1.5. Snare drum configurations

REMO Powerstroke 3 - single ply with underlay

REMO Powerstroke 4 - 2-ply with underlay

Aquarian Studio-X - single ply with muffle ring

- Drums in the studio -

2.2. Shell Construction

- Drums in the studio -

- Drums in the studio -

- Drums in the studio -

2.2.6. External surfaces

2.2.8. Amount of lugs

2.2.9. Suspension mounts

- Drums in the studio -

3. Tuning the drumset

- Drums in the studio -

3.2.1. Matching batter- and resonant head

- Drums in the studio -

- Drums in the studio -

- Drums in the studio -

- Drums in the studio -

- Drums in the studio -

Fig x: A REMO Falam Siam, Double basdrum pad

- Drums in the studio -

3.6. The drum set as one instrument

- Drums in the studio -

PART 2: RECORDING THE DRUMS

- Drums in the studio -

2. The secrets of mie placement

- Drums in the studio -

3. Miking the drum kit

Figure 5: single mie technique, equilateral triangle

-Drums in the studio-

3.1.2. Two mie technique

3.1.3. Three mie technique

- Drums in the studio -

3.1.4. Four mie technique

- Drums in the studio -