Recording Drums and Cymbals Separately

[ItalianAvalanche]

Drummers,

I've been researching the merits of and techniques for recording drums and cymbals separately and I would like to hear your input if you have experience doing this. For this discussion lets assume that we are exclusively interested in acoustic drum recordings with no samples and lets skip comments to the effect of "it's not worth it" or "your drummer is going to hate you if you try to do this" because I am the drummer and also the recording engineer. I'll list my gear and setup at the end. The styles I'm interested in are hardcore punk, metal, thrash, etc. My goal is to create bright, explosive drum sounds by combining close mics, overheads, and room mics while avoiding cymbal bleed and washy sounds rushing through gates.

For this discussion I'd like to focus on snare. So far I've been mixing the snare close mic to have a hard attack and I've been using an expander to draw out the sustain on the twangy overtones above 1khz and that sounds killer. Then I'm duplicating the room mic, band-passing it between like 200hz and 4khz, side-chain gating it to the snare close mic, applying hard compression with slow attack fast release, and applying some overdrive/distortion to create an explosive sound. By mixing these two sounds together I'm getting a hard attack, twangy sustain, and explosive body. For the rest of the kit I'm following convention for rock/metal drum sounds.

The problem I'm having is that the room mics pick up the cymbal noise and you can hear the cymbals come through the gates. Conventional wisdom tells me to LPF the room mics which I have been doing hence the 200-4000hz band pass however this then makes the snare sound more dull. It seems like separate drum and cymbal recording could be a solution here.

Here's what I'm considering: Pick up a set of Evans drum and cymbal mutes. Record each track twice: one with drums muted and one with cymbals muted. This should give me tracks for kick, snare top, snare bottom, rack tom, floor tom, overhead left shells only, overhead right shells only, room shells only, overhead left cymbals only, overhead right cymbals only, room cymbals only. Then in theory I can mix the shell mics as bright and hard as I want without cymbal wash coming through the gates.

So what are your thoughts? Will the Evans mutes be adequate? Is a volume reduction good enough or do I need to completely cover the cymbals in moving blankets? Maybe put some moving blanket between the hats? Swap out for mesh drum heads?

Drums:

Mapex V refinished in fancy green dye and lacquer. I believe it's poplar. I also have a Mapex Mars Pro in maple and mahogany but it only has a 20" kick.

Kick:
22x16
Remo clear Powerstroke 3 batter
Remo coated Powerstroke 3 reso with 4" porthole
Homemade steel impact pad
Wood beaters
Trick Dominator pedals
Pillow

Snare: custom 14x5.5 3mm steel with 3mm hoops
Remo coated Controlled Sound batter
Remo hazy Ambassador snareside
Puresound Blaster wires

Rack tom: 12x10
Remo clear Emperor batter
Remo clear Ambassador reso

Floor tom: 16x16
Remo clear Emperor batter
Remo clear Ambassador reso

Cymbals:

13" AAX X-Celerator hats (these are very harsh and overly bright and I'd like to swap them out for 14" HHX X-Celerator)
18" AAX X-Plosion crash
20" AAX X-Plosion crash
20" AAX Medium china
21" AAX Raw Bell Dry ride

Recording Gear:

Kick: Shure Beta 52
Snare top: Shure Beta 57
Snare bottom: Shure SM57
Toms: Shure SM57
Overheads: Shure PGA181
Room: Shure SM4 or SM7B
Interface: Behringer UMC1820
DAW: Ableton Live 11

Setup:

Room: approx. 24'x24' with a 6'x6' L-shaped chunk out of one corner, 7' ceiling with open 2x8 joists, concrete floor, small rug under drums, concrete walls.
Acoustic treatment: four gobos 6.5' tall, 4' wide, 5.5" deep stuffed two layers thick with Rockwool Safe'n'sound at early reflection points plus Rockwool stuffed two layers thick into the joists above the kit.
Kick mic: placed in porthole with a short stand. Aimed at beater impact point. Porthole is centered left-to-right to keep the sound of the left and right beaters similar.
Snare mic: clamped to hoop with A56D clamp high aimed between center of the head and the hoop about 3" off the head.
Tom mics: clamped to hoop with A56D clamps mounted very high with 3" risers aimed almost perpendicular to the head very close to the hoop about 3" off the head.
Overhead mics: XY pair placed close over my head. I would like to experiment with placing these left and right of the kit at chest height.
Room mic: Last time I recorded I placed a SM7B across the room aimed up the stairs. This time I'd like place a gobo about four feet in front of the kit and place the SM4 on the other side of the gobo facing away from the kit.

[drummer]

I’ve played around with separating drums and cymbals too and honestly it can work if you're tight with your playing and know what you're going for. The control you get in the mix, especially on snare and room mics, is insane. Evans mutes will help reduce bleed but probably won’t be enough for full isolation. You’ll still hear cymbal ring in the drum-only takes unless you go further like covering cymbals with blankets or swapping in mesh heads.. Cymbals are just hard to shut up.

If you’re tracking to a click and can nail consistent takes, it’s definitely worth experimenting. It might feel weird at first, but for aggressive styles where punch and clarity matter, it could be a game-changer.

[ItalianAvalanche]

Thanks for the insight. I'm really excited to try it. Have you tried it with just mutes to see what effect it has? Do they really need to be silent or do you think that a good reduction will meet my needs? I do have a load of moving blankets that I could cut up.

[drummer]

I used towels.