Recording drum exercises

[wildawg]

Hey drumchat,
My band are going into the studio tomorrow to start recording on our new EP.
I'm just wondering what exercises you have found helpful before recording to get the best sound out of your playing?

[Redeye]

Hey drumchat,
My band are going into the studio tomorrow to start recording on our new EP.
I'm just wondering what exercises you have found helpful before recording to get the best sound out of your playing?

I think it's critical to immediately listen back to anything recorded to make sure the drums sound good to you and the band. There is nothing worse than doing an entire session, playing well, then hating the drum sound later. This happened to me last year, because I blindly trusted the engineer to know what he was doing. I recommend playing through a handful of beats you use on your songs, record only the drums, and listen back before getting into the actual tunes. Also keep in mind that you may have to tune or muffle your kit in a way that sounds "off" live, but works for the recording (especially snare drums).

Good luck bro!

[Russ]

Depends on the equipment you're gonna be using. I use a fairly large mixer or sometimes a recording interface for my recordings, and to be honest it can be very intimidating to see all the buttons, knobs, switches at once like that. What I do is one mic at a time, ignoring everything else until that one is set up the way I want. It's easier for me to isolate and focus on one part of the kit without conflicting sounds from all the mics at once. What I do then, is turn off that mic and move onto the next one. When i'm happy with that one, I repeat the process. The only mics I choose to mix together are the overheads, because it's very important to me to make them work together smoothly as one. Not saying this is how you should do it, but this is what has worked for me. Also try and familiarize yourself with what the different knobs on the board do to your kit- it will benefit you when you decide how you want your kit to sound. Assuming you've walked around the room and struck a rack tom to find the kit's sweet spot, that's all I would do.