Home Recording Studio Equipment for Drums

mhanon13

Member
Hello guys,

I've been playing drums for so many years now, and I am working on a new band, and about to record some covers and original songs. I got a TAMA Starclassic set, and I play in an excellent room for music/recording.

I want to build a Home Recording Studio so that we start recording our songs, but I am totally lost about this topic, I do not have any idea of how to build a Home Recording Studio (I want to do it Computer based).

I just bought a Samson 7kit mic set. But what else should I buy? A mixer.. etc..
Can you list me the equipment I need to buy to build it. The necesary equipment (the must have) and the complementary (to help recording better for a better sound)

I would so appreciate it, cause I am really motivated with this idea!

thanks guys!
 
Cue a novel from mfb.

Let's see how many members can shy away from the question and refer to duncan before he gets to the thread.
 
youre going to need an 'audio interface'

firewire is best, and youll need at least 7 channels to get all those mics in.

its a box that you plug all the mics into and then you plug into the pc/mac. when you record with the right software it will record each mic on a seperate track and then when you come to mix it youll have a much easier job.

thats pretty much all you need to get started now. i think.
 
An Audio interface is probably the cheapest and best way to go. I recently picked up a Presonus Firestudio Project, which has 8 mic inputs. It comes with some software to record with, CubaseLE. My copy was toast, but a dl'd version seems to do the trick. You'll need a decent computer for recording, the one I've got just barely runs it all, and I think its whats limiting me to only recording 5 tracks at a time. But the whole thing was quick and easy to setup and get going, definately would recommend it.
Check out the recording section of your music store and see what they've got there.
 
Welcome to the 21st century, a time where major label artists have won grammy's and sold multiplatinum records using their home studios. Before we can point you to a specific product, we need to know how much is your budget. Also, if you're going PC based, what are your comp specs?
 
well, you have mics.
do you have stands for the over heads?
if not..

1 - stands.
2 - audio interface. preferably Presonus FireWire. or FirePod.
http://www.music123.com/PreSonus-FP10-10x10-FireWire-Interface--Firepod--242036-i1368483.Music123

FireStudio is a step up from the FirePod, and a better option, but also more expensive.
it all depends what you are planning to do.

if you plan to have more than 8 channels at 1 time, your options are to buy another FirePod, or buy a seperate Mixer.
it all depends.

the FirePod comes with Cubebase. its a good program.
and last you'll need an audio card that can work with the Presonus.

but Duncan will have to help you out with that...lol

i could point you in the right direction, but he'll know what you need..ha

Alex
 
I may spend about $700. (I got microphones and stands already, Samson7kit).
And I got a nice computer.. Specs: HP a6230n (model)
3 GB RAM
AMD Athlon 64x2 Dual Core Processor 5600 + 2.8 Ghz
400 GB Hard Drive.
Graphics supported by an Nvidia Card.
It's a desktop HP.
(I don't know what kind of Audio Card it has,
I dont't know how to find
out about that)

You can google the model and it appear better it specs.
If I need to buy an audio card, how much is it? and a good one based on my budget?

I guess the mics, the audio interface and computer is what I need? I will start first with what I need to start, then, I will be buying more equipment to better my sound. (like a compressor).. but what else should I be buying little by little, after I get what I need.

Who is Dr.Duncan btw?

Thanks!
 
First of all I just want to say that any Doctorate I may have is entirely honourary and only applicable to this forum.

The first thing to establish is the necessities, as you've said. I can't say I'm a huge fan of the Samson Microphone kits, but they will get the job done for certain and will probably last a while if you look after them properly.

You say you want to do it on a computer. This is the easiest, most flexible and cost/effective method so a wise decision there. What you need first of all, as has been said, is an interface of some description. Interfaces convert the mic-level inputs into a FireWire or USB protocol that can be read by the computer, as separate channels. The vast majority of commercially available interfaces have preamps built in, so there is no need for a mixing desk as such (although there are reasons why people use them - which I've been into before on other threads) so the interface and the microphones (as well as the obvious mic stands and leads) are the only bits of hardware you need for input. As for output, you'll need a pair of monitor speakers - I recommend KRK and Yamaha as two excellent brands to look at - although there are plenty of others.

As for the interface, eight channels is a reasonable starting point, seeing as you've got the mic set. I recommend the MOTU 8Pre and Presonus FirePod or FP10 (a slightly newer model) as high-quality but relatively (relatively) inexpensive interfaces. The MOTU runs on a USB connection (if I recall correctly) and the Presonus devices use FireWire. If you're running a desktop PC and are looking at a FireWire interface, make sure you have or purchase a FireWire PCI card in your system - preferably a FireWire 800, although 400 is actually very fast anyway.

As for software, there is plenty of choice and it depends on your preferences and budget. ProTools is an option, but an expensive one that I would not recommend for anything less than £2,000 (your hardware choices are fixed to the software and for under this sort of money, it represents poor value compared to other software packages). Logic Pro 8 is also an option, but only an option if you run an Apple Mac (I'm a Logic guy, I run a slightly older iMac). For PC users, there are plenty of applications available, such as Cubase (some interfaces come with a stripped-down version called Cubase LE which is actually pretty reasonable) Digital Performer, Sonar and a whole host of others. I'm most familiar with Cubase, ProTools and Logic, although I haven't used Cubase in years - so I'm a bit behind on the technology there!

As for recording tips: I'm just going to go ahead and paste what I wrote in another thread...

Me said:
Now, I have no idea what your room is like. So, I'm going to assume it's reasonably good. If that is the case, then you shouldn't have to worry about reflections from walls, but in terms of kit placement, you want to keep it away from walls and preferably under a high ceiling. If you have any walls that directly face each other, and any right angles for that matter, I would recommend throwing some treatment in. I often find a blanket works. Or an old mattress or anything soft and porous - Auralex foam is ideal (and designed for the purpose). If you haven't got access to any of this, a quick solution to prevent dodgy reflections in the overheads is to drape a blanket or duvet over the back of the capsules and drape it between them, so you've effectively covered the back (NOT THE FRONT) of the capsules with a blanket. The bass drum and snare are less critical, because they'll get more direct signal because of their proximity to the sound sources.

When you get the recording into your computer, obviously assign each microphone a different channel. I tend to work overheads, bass, snare, snare. Some work bass, snare, snare, overheads. Do it as you feel is fit, just make sure it makes some sense to you! Pan each of the overheads left and right, and pan the snare into the correct place of the stereo field. If it's slightly to the left of you, pan it, etc. Bass is usually central (there's an historical reason for this as well as the obvious stereo field reason, but it's just a nice factoid. Basically, bass takes up a bigger groove on vinyl, so having it central made sure it took up as little space as possible. Dull fact, I find it interesting).

EQing is a tricky business and you have to think in terms of SUBTRACTIONS as well as additions. Seeing as your overheads are probably going to be used for everything to some extent, it's necessary that their response is relatively even. Listen to the recordings and if anything is ridiculously wayward, first of all play with the mic placement. Getting a good recording in is the most important thing - trying to fix it with EQ is a work-around and doesn't produce as good a results. EQ is there to shape the sound, not to correct it - unless something has gone drastically wrong and there's nothing you can do to re-record.

Without being in person, it's hard to tell you what to do with the EQ, but generally speaking, a cut around 250Hz helps prevent muddiness, and a slight boost at the top end helps add some sibilance to the sound (and makes it sound a little 'airy' if you like). Seeing as tom toms work over the range of sounds, I'd suggest taking a little out just below the top (15Khz) and keeping the rest relatively flat. Obviously, small alterations can be made to the low-mid and high-mid as you feel fit, but it's very much a case of feel rather than giving you specific instructions. I tend to work on subtractions more than additions, because it gives you a greater scope for contrast. If you're only adding EQ, you're effectively just using half of its available range, right?

What also might help (and this is where things get interesting) is a little compression on the overheads, just to take the edge off the peaks. A low ratio is probably good, say 2:1, but be prepared to just drop the level of the overhead channel slightly, as compression can make it 'louder' overall. I say can. It's often misused to do just this... maybe a little reverb too if the sound you're getting is very dry (ie. you have the blankets over the backs of the mics!).

With the bass drum mic, you'll want a peak in the EQ below 100Hz, a dip at 250Hz (I'll explain this in a minute) and you'll probably want a slight rise around 2.5Khz for the attack of the beater. It's quite simple. When I say drop the 250Hz, there is one good reason for this - most instruments tend to have something happening at 250Hz or thereabouts - guitars do, drums do, bass guitars do, cellos do, pianos do. Just go through the list and think of an instrument that doesn't have 250Hz and you'll struggle. Unless we're talking about hammered dulcimers (micing those up is fun!). So, in short, the 250 can get very crowded. When you get a 'muddy' recording, it's usually around that kind of range that gets over-powered, so if you hear any muddiness, drop the 250ish and see what happens.

A little compression is good on the bass drum too. More compression than the cymbals, say 3:1 or more. Just play with it and see what you like - it helps make it more 'punchy'.

The snare is a little trickier. Basically it's EQ to preference as to tuning. Subtract what you don't want as opposed to adding all of what you do want. The top mic will probably sound reasonably ok with a bit of compression, maybe some reverb, but not too much! The relationship with the bottom mic is a tricky one and I would say that if you can get the sound you want out of the top mic, use that. A lot of the snare will be in the overheads too, so you'll want to use some of the overheads for the snare - using the snare mics just as embellishment, effectively. The bottom mic is tricky because first of all the sound it produces can be just 'rattly' and secondly, the phase relationship is tricky. Basically, phase is when the same signal reaches two different microphones at different times and when put together, cancel each other out. If you introduce the bottom snare mic into the mix and the snare starts sounding very weird (like a reduction in volume, or choked) invert the phase of the bottom mic. There's usually a button on the desk to do this, or on your interface - or even on Cubase. That should help. Again, slight EQ to preference, cut the 250. If you don't feel you need the bottom snare mic, don't use it. It just adds a little depth.

Now, when you've all got them sounding good individually (solo each one when you're playing around, forgot to mention that) it's now a job to get them sounding good together. By using subtractive EQ, this is more likely to happen straight away. Basically, the overheads are the bread and butter of your mix and the other mics are just embellishments or 'accent' mics to add a bit extra to what's already there. So, usually a little bias in favour of the overheads is in order. Just work to where you feel the sound is nicely balanced and don't be afraid to play around with the EQ on each individual piece if you feel something is too prominent. Remember as well, the louder you mix, the more the bass will be obvious, so work at a sensible level of volume! It might help at this point to group the drums together so that one slider controls the overall level. Also, sending the drums to a buss (a group send) might be a good idea, then you can add compression, reverb, etc to the overall group. Basically - you can start to treat the drums as two channels (stereo) rather than as a collection of individual instruments.

With the bass and guitar, there are various ways of doing it. You can choose to record directly into the desk using a DI (direct input) box or alternatively you can usually plug the guitar right in using a jack and actually increase the gain there to get a good signal level. I've used that method a few times and it works. Most Bass amps have a DI built into them with an XLR output - you could use that and if it's available, do. All this can go directly into the desk. One of my guitar amps actually has a 'line out' on it - if your guitarists' does, use that - it should provide a decent signal and you might not need any extra gain.

Alternatively, you could mic the individual cabinets. This is slightly trickier, because you're likely to get the drums into the sound if you're all playing together and it's probably simpler just to DI it all, even though it doesn't always sound as good as micing. If you are micing the cabinets, a dynamic mic (Shure SM57, etc) placed about 4 inches from the cabinet and slightly off-centre and below the cone is probably the most standard practice.

With regards to mixing the bass and guitar, it's really a matter of playing around until you get what you want. Don't be afraid to really compress the bass and make it work - but also be careful of muddiness - avoiding reverb helps with this. It might also be a good idea to record the band 'live' and then record the guitar and bass tracks over the live drum recording, taking away the original guitar and bass tracks. This is the method usually used when a Click track isn't being used. If you're recording as a band, you as the drummer ought to have the click in his ear, Cubase produces its own click, so it's simply a case of hooking up some headphones to the outputs on the Aardvark (via the mixer probably, just put the click into a separate channel). Remember my advice on subtractive EQing, it works wonders. It might also be preferable

When you're trying to record into Cubase, select the right input for each sound source according to the channel on the mixer. For instance, channel one on the mixer should be plugged into channel one on the interface and this will be selected as 'Input 1' on Cubase. (Or the equivalent). This will help you organise everything properly!

I'm not going to talk about mastering right now, because I could literally could go on all day about mastering, but suffice to say, when it comes to putting your mix to a stereo output, make sure that it doesn't clip. That is to say, the output is too high. Otherwise it gets bothersome and won't sound good. If necessary, reduce the volumes of each of the other instruments until you get it within reasonable parameters.
You didn't mention if you had vocals or not. If you have, tell me and I'll fill you in on the basics there. Seeing as you didn't mention them, I kept them out deliberately to avoid confusion.

There's other stuff over in that thread regarding microphone choice, but this is fairly irrelevant. Hopefully this might help shed some light on the matter.

EDIT: FireWire PCI cards are not expensive. Probably around $40-$50. The PC you've listed should be more than adequate for your needs. These interfaces are around £300, which will work out to roughly $350 (exchange rate is irrelevant) so in terms of your budget, you're doing fine so far. You can probably pick up a decent set of monitors for around $300 - at least good quality ones (although the professional level ones start at $1,000 a pair) so you budget, considering you already have the microphones and you say your room is good, is pretty much dead on. I would say, expect to spend a little more and if you can afford it, buy the best you can. Keep an eye out for second hand gear as well.
 
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Yay MFB!!

Related question - and this can be complete nonsense that I read - but on any kind of small DAW (like an Alesis Multimix, M-Audio box, etc etc) is there a difference between a USB version and a Firewire one? Somewhere, somebody made a review comment on a device that a USB-type recording interface takes all your inputs and sends them to your recording program as one stereo track versus a Firewire, which can place each input on a separate track??

And let's just say for arguments sake, I would be using an interface with a Macbook Pro running either ProTools LE or GarageBand.
 
Well the DAW is specifically the software, not the interface. Just making that little technical point first off.

Usually interfaces are either USB or FireWire. Very few run both - but either way, they output with as many channels are as available. So, no, I haven't heard of any outputting in only stereo via USB or FireWire, the protocol is irrelevant. A lot of them have analogue stereo outputs for latency-free monitoring, but that isn't transmitted via the connection protocol into the DAW.

The confusion lies with the outputs available. They will all output into the DAW with the stated number of channels/tracks, but some have a different number of analogue outputs from the interface. Often, these are foldback, so the connection protocol is actually inputting AND outputting at the same time.

Hope that hasn't confused you.
 
Hey MFB! thanks so much for ur reply! One question.. How do I know if my computer has a FireWire PCI Card? I know it has a FireWire port with a number (1394) on its bottom. If i need to buy one, where can I buy it? a recommended model?

Also I am very confused about the audio card. Should I buy one? What would you recommend me? In what online store can I buy it?

Thanks so much again.
 
No need to buy an audio card. The interface is all you will need.

If you have a FireWire port, then you don't need to buy the PCI card, as it's already installed. Looks like you're pretty lucky - most PC's don't have FireWire ports. It should look a bit like a USB port, but with a more triangular top and slightly wider.
 
Well the DAW is specifically the software, not the interface. Just making that little technical point first off.

Usually interfaces are either USB or FireWire. Very few run both - but either way, they output with as many channels are as available. So, no, I haven't heard of any outputting in only stereo via USB or FireWire, the protocol is irrelevant. A lot of them have analogue stereo outputs for latency-free monitoring, but that isn't transmitted via the connection protocol into the DAW.

The confusion lies with the outputs available. They will all output into the DAW with the stated number of channels/tracks, but some have a different number of analogue outputs from the interface. Often, these are foldback, so the connection protocol is actually inputting AND outputting at the same time.

Hope that hasn't confused you.

Nope, not at all. Thanks for the clarification.

I had my eyes/research set on maybe an Alesis Multimix USB (the white one) or a Berhinger XENYX 1204FX. Not gonna go balls out crazy at home for now, just 4 mics for now. I think both use USB cables to the PC/Mac.
 
I meant a Sound Card, sorry :S

You don't need to buy a sound card.

Trip - the Alesis looks ok. Personally, not for me - I'd get something with fewer features because I don't like the look of the preamps in that one. When you're buying gear with that sort of specification at that sort of price, then something has to give and it's usually in build quality and the preamps. Of the two, I'd go for the Alesis; but ideally probably neither, personally. See if you can try them out before you buy them!
 
Hey MFB.. you really know your stuff. You are incredible man. :)

Thanks a lot. I really appreciate it! :D

Nothing incredible about it mate. I'm nothing compared to some of the people I've met here at Uni.
 
hey MFB! I got one more question! Sorry about this.. I am already ordering some of the recording stuff. i bought the Presonus Firestudio. but where u plug in the microphones is very weird.. what kind of cable do i actually need to buy? Any recommendation?

Thanks a lot bud!
 
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