What The Pros Know About Drum Recording

I know the stuff already, but just wanna compliment you on this fabulous tutorial you've made! The topic litterally cannot be condensed into a more concise and clear and accessible video. 14 minutes with an hour of info. With such a great player and kit and setup, it's also an awesome demonstration (and reminder) of how great a sound you can get at the source!

Hey Rick, just wanted to tell you that a drummer passed away tonight, Ron bushy from the Iron Butterfly died at 79. He was a good friend of mine I played music with him in the 70s

Great video- one thing I had to learn over time that its not just about flipping phase, often two signals have the same "type" of phase but they are just out of alignment with each other. In fact, the opposite phase phenomenon is usually only encountered when micing bottoms of drums, and behind open back guitar cabinets. 90% of the time, Im zooming in and nudging waveforms to fix phase problems, not flipping the phase. A waveform thats 50% off axis with another will sound just as out of phase when flipped.

This is incredibly helpful. I’m only a few years into mic’ing & mixing live drums and it’s the straightforward detailed videos like yours that are the most helpful to get a grasp on technique. Appreciate ya!

This is pure gold. We are so lucky to have access to this level of detailed knowledge and experience recording drums. Until you’ve spent countless hours trying to get good balanced live drum recordings you don't understand just how valuable this is! You'll recording something and compare to another drummer you admire and wonder how the heck did they get that drum sound. This is how! And it isn't something you can learn from a textbook. Maybe you can figure it out on your own but it will take decades of trial and error. Thank you Rick from the bottom of my heart for making this video!

Thank God somebody addressed the issue of phase relationship, which is the single most critical factor in recording anything, let alone drums. Brilliant presentation, Mr. Beato. As a 50+ year, gold awarded engineer, I can appreciate this a lot. I would like to address the use of the overheads and what I believe to be the best possible placement thereof. For maximum stereo separation with the least amount of phase cancellation, the plane of the mic diaphragms should be exactly perpendicular - 90 degrees to each other. The ORFT method / system called for a separation of about 7 inches and an angle of 120 degrees, supposedly most closely approximating the way human ears receive sound. When overheads are properly placed, the overall drum sound from these mics alone is the purest and most natural.

Rick! I’ve been watching your stuff for years and it always inspires me. Musically speaking, you are the man I’d like to be when I am grown up! (I am 30 but I’ve got time to grow up again.) Your breadth of knowledge on music and the industry is staggering, and you are an inspiration to us all. Thank you for what you do!

Hi, Rick I’m not a musician but your videos, on this and your other channel, have helped me appreciate the technical and performance subtleties that I might have overlooked or not known. Thank you.

People talk about the piece of gear that got away. Looking at the drum set reminds me of mine. When I was 18 years old I played drums, and somehow ended up with a Paiste 22" ride that had been Mick Fleetwood's. I sold it with a whole kit a year later to pay for a trip. It also had a vintage A Ziljian 18" cymbal.

I am a long time drummer, live here in the Atlanta area, and I always find your videos to be informative, with similar techniques (tuning, micing, etc.) that I employ as well. Glad to know I have validation through your experience and teachings!

Jack’s got a great groove to his playing. Some meaty chops too.

Thanks for this Rick! We may not have the same gear as you but at least we can learn and use what we have properly. With your content , I suspect that home demos and recordings are going to be next level!

This is a terrific video that Rick has produced here! I would add, for your consideration, the following: On most drums, the two heads are significantly separated from each other and, as a result, the resonant head will naturally vibrate a fraction of a second later than the batter head, and then some of this sound bounces back re-implicating the batter head. This means that baked into the drum when played are complex phase relationships that also, to some extent, vary by the set of frequencies emanating from the batter head and the shell as sound reaches the resonant head. These phase effects are relatively complex, and are also dependent, as a factor, on the type of heads used, stick type, playing style, how tight the snares are (for a snare drum), shell material, the head tensioning, the type of bearing edges, and if any dampening/muffling is used. My point is that the "natural" sound of a two-headed drum has baked in numerous phases cancellations "and" boostings going on that depend on the factors I've mentioned above. By "boosting" I'm referring to the extent that increases in amplitude occur when phase frequencies become aligned; cancellations happen to the extent that phase frequencies are non-aligned. It can get more technical but that's an overview. The mics (their number, type and location/position) have their work cut out to capture a simulacrum of the drum's sounds! We're all trying to capture an instrument that itself has phase problems or delights, depending on one's perspective.

Great video Rick, I think it would also be helpful to people who are relatively new to mic'ing drums in the studio to emphasis how crucial the room sound is to a good drum recording. A small room with super fast reflections will often kill a drum sound stone dead. I built a few studios back in the day and the first one took me a long time to accept that my live room was just too small to create a useful drum sound. In the end I added a ton of Rockwool panels in mesh liners and it changed the drums, ( especially the toms) out of all recognition. One of my most successful Metal albums was done with the kit in a VoiceOver booth completely covered in acoustic tiles ( I only accepted the session on condition the booth stayed put due to other commitments and it was a beast to dismantle!) I added a great studio reverb and it absolutely killed.. no one was more surprised than me.

Thanks, Rick. Love the behind the scenes workings of how you capture the best sounds.❤️

As an audio engineer I must admit ,that this is a good entry into drum recording knowledge...Within the years , you will get more and more wisdom but in the end , always trust your ears and dont get lost in the technical jungle ...

Rick, you are the best! Love the way you get into it - every second is useful and informative. Thanks so much!

Thank You for taking your time on this video.

Very cool. Thanks for showing us the behind-the-scenes stuff. Great drum performances too!

I don’t even record music, I just like hearing Rick talk about it.