multi-tracking drums

[onedogdan]

Okay, so I want to record my friend playing drums... I want to mic each drum separately, and send them each to separate tracks in REASON so I can fiddle with them however I want. I have a Mackie 1220 mixer, and I found this thing on ebay... would this achieve what I want to do? I'm kind of a noob at live recording, so I'm not sure... big thanks to anyone who can help! http://www.mackie.com/products/400f/

 

 

[Theo.M]

Okay, so I want to record my friend playing drums... I want to mic each drum separately, and send them each to separate tracks in REASON so I can fiddle with them however I want. I have a Mackie 1220 mixer, and I found this thing on ebay... would this achieve what I want to do? I'm kind of a noob at live recording, so I'm not sure... big thanks to anyone who can help! http://www.mackie.com/products/400f/

 

 

Ok, what you are wanting to do here is record each drum onto a separate track. There are direct outs on every channel of the 1220 and the interface you are looking at has balanced ins so make sure to buy balanced cables for best quality and low noise.

It's simply a case, if you are dead set on using the mackie mixing desk, of sending those channels into the onyx interface you have chosen. So he will be playing his drums into the various mikes going into the mackie which is then using each individual drum outputs each going to an interface input and have Reason recording all this simultaneously.

But.. why that interface? There are better multi input interfaces on the market, especially regarding low latency drivers..Mackie are just not know for their drivers or reliability when it comes to audio interfaces mate.. and i'd even suggest depending on your budget, that if you get a really good one to bypass the mixer altogether and record straight into the interface.... Something like an RME with one of their multiface analog input boxes would be ideal..But if you really want to use the desk, why bother buying an interface at all? You can also buy a firewire interface option for your mixer to stream the audio directly to reason by the way, so the mixer itself is the interface, no extra one needed.

BUT, to answer your question directly though, yes that Onyx interface will work. I presume you are on windows right? I really don't like firewire on windows.. heck, i'm going OT again. OK, that interface has 8 inputs .. so that number of inputs is fine, i presume at minimum you will be using 4 mics but 8 is plenty if you want some more control (people are known to go to 15, i have even seen 30 which is extreme, but you say you are new to this, so let's start off simple, snare, kick and 2 overheads).

The real problem here is time aligning them in Reason.. I hate to say it but i don't know if i'd enjoy multi tracking drums in reason. You will have phase issues to deal with, and don't have access to any of the amazing plugins that can analyse the delay between mics and automatically align everything perfectly to overcome the "dull" frequencies you will experience recording from multiple mics. You will have to be doing it all by ear in the comp editor using the recording offset which is as fine as reason's nudging goes.

Have you considered recording just the drums in something else that has multi track phase locking quantise? Reason just doesn't have this - yet ( props really did the quantise only half way by excluding this possibility).. Personally if i was ever to record live drums again, i'd use logic, use melda auto align to fix phase then use phase locked multi track drum quantise.. SO much easier than the work you will have to do in Reason. If you are on windows, you have sonar, cubase, and other options.

I'm not the best person to speak more on this though as the last time i recorded a drum kit at a real studio was exactly 15 years ago and then shortly after my hearing loss manifested from my tumor, and i never did it since, just too hard for me. But the stuff I told you is correct so far.

So.. yes the interface will work.. but you can buy the same firewire streaming from mackie to plug into your desk as an addon and use that with the same drivers as the separate interface you would buy. Yes you can record multi tracks into reason at once, but you can't multi track quantise with phase locking and there aren't any RE's to phase align the tracks by fixing the delays anyway.. and finally, i'd buy an interface and use that directly, one with rock solid low latency drivers.

[Theo.M]

Is this the mixer you have or a previous gen 1220? I may be wrong about the firewire add on card if yours is an older desk, so keep that in mind. Then you will need an interface for sure, but you still don't HAVE to use the desk.. and i still wouldn't recommend a mackie firewire audio interface.

http://www.mackie.com/products/onyx1220i/

EDIT: I also meant to say, when i suggested another program to record the drums, that if you do this, quantise them and correct phase to your liking, you can then just bounce the files and then import them into reason (first set the transport of reason to the same tempo you bounced them at to make it all ready to go if you change reason's tempo later, without you needing to do any other work), and they will be imported with everything already perfectly done for you
 

[onedogdan]

Holy crap, that was amazing.  Thank you for your in-depth reply.  Yes, I've seen the Firewire card, but I can't find one at the moment, so I thought maybe I could use the thing I linked to instead.  I'm on an iMac.  I'm not rich, and I'm not looking for world-class sound, just something that is pretty good.  It sounds like this phase locking is a pretty serious issue?  I don't own any other recording programs, and probably can't afford one, so I guess I will have to take what I can get?  Or just bag multi-tracking altogether and maybe just record separate hits, or just record the whole kit at once onto one track.  Anyhow, thanks so much for your reply, I will have to re-read a few times, and then do some more research, I guess.  

[Theo.M]

Holy crap, that was amazing.  Thank you for your in-depth reply.  Yes, I've seen the Firewire card, but I can't find one at the moment, so I thought maybe I could use the thing I linked to instead.  I'm on an iMac.  I'm not rich, and I'm not looking for world-class sound, just something that is pretty good.  It sounds like this phase locking is a pretty serious issue?  I don't own any other recording programs, and probably can't afford one, so I guess I will have to take what I can get?  Or just bag multi-tracking altogether and maybe just record separate hits, or just record the whole kit at once onto one track.  Anyhow, thanks so much for your reply, I will have to re-read a few times, and then do some more research, I guess.  

well you are on mac, so i am going to recommend logic whether you can afford it right now or now.. just keep it in mind for 199, it is *made* for multitracking drums.. it is soooo easy...

in the meantime if you can't find the firewire extension for your mixer, then you will need an interface. The onyx driver is 5 years old and only supports up to 10.7.2.. surely you would be on a higher mac os then that?

please, that interface is useless, and the drivers not being updated pretty much proves it. Please tell me the price that you found one for on ebay, and i will tell you a mac interface that WORKS WELL with great drivers, for the same price.

I have tons of knowledge with mac interfaces, have tried heaps of them.

Just so i know, what OS exactly, what year imac, i presume firewire 800? and is anything else on the firewire bus? Quad core or dual core?

[Theo.M]

Sorry I just also saw the onyx mixer update only goes to mac os 10.8.0 also. They haven't even done a mavericks driver let alone a yosemite one! This tells me it's abandonware.. so even if you manage to find the firewire card for it, i would highly recommend against it. There are TONS of interface options out there, so will just wait to hear back from you.
 
Edit: that mackie interface is officially discontinued so there will never be driver updates. I see they listed for 500 dollars.. you can get a great motu ultralite for that which solves all your problems and is rock solid, and has it's own full dsp effects on board.. 20 inputs from memory.. it has reverb, compression and EQ, you can print with it or just use it to monitor as what they call "confidence fx", and it is zero latency.. the motu drivers themselves for reason/logic etc are VERY low latency.. it will run rock solid at 64 or 128 samples.

[onedogdan]

• Someone just recommended this- and said they've got great results recording drums and choirs with it-  http://www.ebay.com/itm/M-Audio-Fast-Tr ... 27f7e5fe27

[Theo.M]

• Someone just recommended this- and said they've got great results recording drums and choirs with it-  http://www.ebay.com/itm/M-Audio-Fast-Tr ... 27f7e5fe27

it's a discontinued interface but that price is ridiculous, go for it.

I can recommend it because Avid are keeping the drivers up to date!

http://avid.force.com/pkb/articles/en_U ... 8R-Drivers

I am using an avid driver for my fast track c600 and they are literally some of the best drivers I have ever used, the fast track ultra driver is the same.

The reason i love avid's newest drivers (2 years ago and on) is that they report the latency including the CONVERTER latency to the *exact* sample. I tested this doing a loopback test with Fast track. This means you never have to worry about recording offsets and BS like that...

Also, the fast track ultra 8R has dsp reverb with as close to zero latency as possible

The octane pre amps are very decent.

Go for it, i might get one myself at that price as a spare interface, seriously. That's completely ridiculously cheap.

Edit: Spelling only

[selig]

The real problem here is time aligning them in Reason.. I hate to say it but i don't know if i'd enjoy multi tracking drums in reason. You will have phase issues to deal with, and don't have access to any of the amazing plugins that can analyse the delay between mics and automatically align everything perfectly to overcome the "dull" frequencies you will experience recording from multiple mics. You will have to be doing it all by ear in the comp editor using the recording offset which is as fine as reason's nudging goes.

Have you considered recording just the drums in something else that has multi track phase locking quantise? Reason just doesn't have this - yet ( props really did the quantise only half way by excluding this possibility).. Personally if i was ever to record live drums again, i'd use logic, use melda auto align to fix phase then use phase locked multi track drum quantise.. SO much easier than the work you will have to do in Reason. If you are on windows, you have sonar, cubase, and other options.

Multi tracking drums in Reason should produce zero phase issues. That is to say, it will not introduce any issues. It's the editing that is considered weak in Reason, specifically the inability to edit a group of tracks "as one". This includes simple cut paste edits, group crossfades, and of course (as you mentioned) the inability to use any quantizing (either manually or automatically). 

Also missing (for me) is the ability to have multiple playlists/takes for multi-tracked instruments such as drums. 

I have personally never aligned individual microphones on a drum kit, but have tried it a few times with 0% success. With good microphone positioning I've never experienced this "dull" sound you speak of. Removing the delays removes the life and can make things worse in my experience. Plus there's no way to have ALL microphones with zero delay between them (not in this universe!), so you can only choose certain pairs to have no delay (which negatively affect the other microphones - you can't win!). In other words, if you align your room mic with your snare, the room will now be "out" with the other drums. Then you align your snare and kick and the toms are out, and it goes on and on.

Remember, you only have to "fix the phase" if it's broken - applying this approach generically when it's not required doesn't make sense to me. FWIW, I've actually INCREASED the delays on things like room mics to make a bigger sound, which goes 100% against this philosophy. BTW, this is one of those topics where there is often some disagreement among pros (because there are advantages and disadvantages to both approaches), so I'm just stating that in MY experience I've never needed this issue to be 'fixed' and have preferred the original when compared to the 'fixed' in all cases. There are plenty of pros besides Theo that may disagree with me on this one, so do a little research and see which camp you fall into!

Read more here:
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jul10/a ... 0710_2.htm

Finally, here's an in depth article I wrote for the Props about recording drums at home and in situations where you may not have as many microphones as you'd like. There are even tips for recording drums with one or two microphones total!  There is also a mic setup called the "RecorderMan" setup that puts the kick and snare "in phase" in the overheads (at the expense of the others, as I mentioned above). Getting the microphones setup correctly is the key to not needing further adjustments later in my experience.

Hope this helps!  

Recording Drums in your Home Studio
https://www.propellerheads.se/blog/reco ... ome-studio

[Theo.M]

we will have to agree to disagree Giles.... i never said to fix things that weren't there, and if they record without phase issues all the better. But if they don't, it's a pain to time align in Reason, is all I was saying. I have experienced many recordings in my time that needed fixing, and i'd not wanting to be doing it in reason. You know how to set up drum miking professionally, the OP doesn't. My bet is he will have issues. As far as time aligning ones that DO sound dull, melda does it perfectly in about 20 seconds and i have had amazing results with it. Cheers.

[Ostermilk]

Okay, so I want to record my friend playing drums... I want to mic each drum separately, and send them each to separate tracks in REASON so I can fiddle with them however I want. I have a Mackie 1220 mixer, and I found this thing on ebay... would this achieve what I want to do? I'm kind of a noob at live recording, so I'm not sure... big thanks to anyone who can help! http://www.mackie.com/products/400f/

 

 

Well there's some good information on this thread already but I'm wondering if you are new to live recording why you would think that recording each drum seperately as you put it would be the best approach to take initially?

Even when engineers close mic a drummer they will have the basis of the kit mapped out so that the majority of the kit sound will be coming from the overheads and the room ambience and the individual drum mics are basically just filling in any gaps and bringing particular elements to the fore.

90% of a good kit sound is formed from getting the basic aspects of one of the tried and trusted techniques for recording drums, such as Glyn Johns (my personal favourite), Recorderman, A-B, X/Y, ORTF Stereo OH pairs. (See Giles linked article for explanations).  If you get those foundations right you'll get yourself where you need to close mic anything over and above Kick and Snare.

The basic set up for me has always been a decent pair of condensers and SM-57 for the Snare an AKG D12 for the kick (although you'd be hard pushed to find a good working one of those now), A D112 or similar will suffice as a replacement though.  A pair of dynamic mics will suffice for the room if you have a nice sounding place to play in, or sometimes even a single mic for the room will give you more focus than a stereo ambience.

A simple inexpensive mic set-up such as that done right will likely give you better results than trying to juggle 2 dozen of the best mics money can buy.

Selig's article is a brilliant crash course, it covers most of the why's and wherefores, gives some great tips as well as covering pretty much all of your options.  So I'd recommend that being your first port of call.

Recording Drums in your Home Studio
https://www.propellerheads.se/blog/reco ... ome-studio

You'll find the discussion on whether it's best to phase-align your tracks or not is all moot once you've got a couple of brilliant sounding takes printed out as you won't want to touch a thing once you've got 'em...

Good luck and have fun.

[selig]

we will have to agree to disagree Giles.... i never said to fix things that weren't there, and if they record without phase issues all the better. But if they don't, it's a pain to time align in Reason, is all I was saying. I have experienced many recordings in my time that needed fixing, and i'd not wanting to be doing it in reason. You know how to set up drum miking professionally, the OP doesn't. My bet is he will have issues. As far as time aligning ones that DO sound dull, melda does it perfectly in about 20 seconds and i have had amazing results with it. Cheers.

Fair points all around!

[kloeckno]

I've dealt with drum recordings in Reason on a whole album worth of recordings, and it is entirely possible. As long as you have a good drummer that is! My band's drummer got good takes in continuous recordings, so I didn't have to do much editing. So that's always a plus.

I try to always keep in mind that some of the best drum recordings were done without a huge number of mics, with limited channels on the mixer/tape machine, and without all the fancy phase and time alignment tricks we have now. Some of my favorite songs only had a few spare tape tracks to record the rhythm section! But the talent back then was also at a higher standard for studio musicians.