Roots Archives Forum

greetings, i am working on a recording project and am experiencing difficulty with recording the drums.
first let me say that we are working with a tascam 4track analog tape recorder, we get awsome tones with the piano,keys,bass,and guitars but the drums seem to be the most difficult to dial in. i need advise on how to get the best possible sound out of two cheap dynamic mics, any advise would be greatly appreciated.

Greg,

I used to record drums this way on a fourtrack!

Get a cheap mic (radio shack will do) and put it directly in the kick drum. Sometimes you can experiment with resting it on a towel or t-shirt in the drum.

My friend bought four of the above and stringed the mics over cymbal stands, mic stands and the like.

You need not go all out and buy a Shure mic just to record drums on the 4 track.

Then again, it's all about the sound you desire.

This gave our recordings a very gritty lo-fi sound. "dirty" if you will.

so you are saying i can use a radioshack mic for the kick drum? and then just hang the other mics over the drums by the hihat and cymbals? what we were doing was just putting two mics up in two corners of the room. its a small room but it still didnt sound clear enough. i know im not gonna get the best quality in the world from cheap equipment but i know i can make it listenable.

Yeah. Just experiment until you get your desired sound. We used a Tascam 4 track, but lined in a old 8 channel technics mixing desk/board/with pre-amp to it. This technics board was old, as it had punch buttons and dials. It worked though.

Experimenting is the fun part of it all. You'll be amazed what kind of sound you can get out of the equipment that is at your disposal.

If you really want to get some weird sounds, mess around with some effects pedals lined between the mics and the 4 track/mixing board etc.!

Have fun.