Glenn reminds me of my high school band conductor with his ridiculous demands that our instrument be working properly and we know how to play our parts.
And with his have your hi hats up over your head bs. I play open handed and no way I’m keeping my hats that high. I see many drummers Todd Sucherman, Lang etc who have their hats down lower when they record. Going to force a drummer to put his hats way up and play like shit uncomfortably over just doing a lil light gating or editing on the snare. No way, in fact my snare track sounds relatively clean even without gating or post editing still.
@@larrytate1657 open hand is different. When you play open hand the hi hat has to be further away from the snare. His point was that the hi hat, and other cymbols shouldn't too close to the drum mics, and you should put more energy into the drums than the cymbols.
Number 14 : Don’t re-adjust the mics in the drum kit. The engineer has put them that way because it works, and if it is different from what you do in your home studio, or what the sound guy did at your last gig (so long ago, and that is not a Covid reference), it is different for a reason !
Yep - that should deffo be on the list - drummers moving mics after you have done all your pre-checks - you go to record and suddenly that snare doesn't sound as snappy as before???.... or even worse when the drummer takes the mic off the rim to adjust it, but goes for a smoke first - comes back and starts a take - and you stop it because the dumbass forgot to even put the damn mic back on the snare!!!
@@thebasementfilmgroup Ahhh, don't clip a mic to a snare! Rimshots will send vibrations up the mic mount and it'll be a lot of extra work to try to EQ that out! Clip mics to toms, but the snare mic should be on a stand.
overhead mic adjusting drummers are the worst. ive listened to that pair of overheads for literally hours and days, you have no idea what they sound like, and if ive kept them a certain way for over a year its because it works, asshole
I definetly agree, but i had a Sound tech once place the Snare Mic Straight down on the Snare. Like literally 90° with a millimeter distance to the head, right at the Rim. I told him, that this is not going to Sound good, because he is only going to capture the overtones right at the Rim. He did it anyways, and i was totally right, the Snare sounded like Shit. Had no attack and sounded like a Cowbell, so he gated the shit out of it and made it Sound like a ratteling piece of Paper stabbed with a knife...
I once recorded a band whose drummer had that issue of keeping a nice steady beat but rushing his fills. The incredible thing was they’d played and rehearsed so much they all accommodated this perfectly and always came back in bang on time. I call this the “Metallica phenomenon”.
That is pretty common, guitarists often up tempo on their solo breaks also, it's human nature to speed up when nervous or excited haha! I don't play metal much but having been a festival stage manager for almost ten years the most common mistake I saw metal drummers have is using those stupid crash cymbals that are too thick and clangy usually marked as Metal crash or Rock crash or Heavy crash. They always suck, get medium weight for best results. Heavy rides or hats can often work but not crashes!
"I swear, if we were still recording to tape most of you drummers just wouldn't be able to cut it." I'm drumming on a session tomorrow just because the artist is recording to tape and needs it done right the first time.
Drummers are not the only people that have issues with tape. According to Slash's sound engineer, the only two singers he has worked with that are good enough for tape are Beth Hart and Miles Kennedy.
Our job is the hardest as drummers here we go again getting criticized again. Not all drummers are the same way but you all love to say we are . All guitarist that I played with have egos and think there better then everyone else in the band . They think they can play the drums and everything else but then when they try to play the drums all they can come up with is the same beat over and over and can’t think outside the box . There I said it .
Hey, Glenn! We just wrapped up drums last month. Just wanted to say how helpful your recording tips and "mistakes to avoid" videos have been so far. These things can sometimes be easy to overlook! I was also fortunate enough to work with a drummer who was willing to listen, understand, and cooperate :) Lucky, lucky me. Thanks Glenn!
My recommendation if you can afford the time and money, arrange to take the drums into the studio the afternoon before the session this will give you and the engineer the time to mic up the kit and to tune it. it also means less time wasted setting everything up on the day.
I'm SO glad that we recorded in the 2" tape era. We had to work hard to get to the point where we could record our basic tracks live in one or two takes. One mistake = another take= Mo money. These days, I would be so pissed off if I worked and worked to get the songs into muscle memory, and then find out somebody had replaced my work with fucking samples.
Yet it is the norm, at least in metal. And it's not simply because the drummer couldn't cut it - I think younger engineers l just don't know and/or care how to record acoustic drums, just capture the hits for replacement. Listen to Derek Roddy on Dan Wilding's podcast.
Yes, you should do a dedicated episode on tempo maps. I still have much to learn and am indeed a visual learner so seeing just how they're made will be a huge help. Thanks for the great content!
As a person that recorded with Glen multiple times, listen to him. I had four different drum kit set ups when recording with Glen. One recording session was identical to Neil Pearts set up since vapor trails. Glens #3 is the best advice. I always had at least 12 inches of space between the cymbals and toms. 95% of the time I used rim shots. Never hit a cymbal dead on, always hit a cymbal in a circular motion. The snare should be near belly button level. If I didn’t have a great sounding kit, I would’ve used Glens DW kit. DW is second to none. Love the Kathleen Kennedy burn.
I like to put my new heads on about 3-4 practice sessions before recording. The reason why is 1. I need a couple hours to get used to their feel and 2. They will be finicky for the first 2-3 sessions and will need high maintenance tweaking until they’re set into their tension
A great engineer and producer as well. He keeps his Hi-hat level with the snare, but he plays it pretty lightly and his other cymbals are pretty high. And he tunes his kit really well too. A lot of mics, but no snare bottom! Different thing, but he played a gig close to where I live and had four mics on that huge kit. Kicks and overheads only.
The acoustic impedance of a solid vs air is somewhere above 1000, the exact figure is not important at the moment, it is also most likely much larger... It just means that air transferring sound vibration to a solid has 1000:1 ratio and vice versa, we are in that kind of scale. you need 1000 units of energy in air to make 1 unit of change in solid, free moving air molecule hitting a crystalline solid does not have a good energy transfer ratio.. As you hit a drum shell, you are making the solid membrane move but due to it's material properties, it transfers this movement to air very fast. It does not hold a lot of energy but the energy is all in the air, as sound energy. You will get a snappy, rather loud transient but everything after that is the air pushing and pulling the membrane, not the membrane itself vibrating using stored energy in the solid. As you hit a cymbal, the energy goes to moving the mass of metal and is stored there for longer. It will have less snappy transient and the energy stored in the cymbal itself will release slower. Its frequency range is thus much higher too as with acoustic impedance we also have attenuation happening. With drum shells your frequency response is much lower as it is the air that is doing most of the work, bouncing between drum heads, losing high frequencies with every bounce. Think of how things sound underwater, this is caused by acoustic impedance too. All the high frequencies are cut out. But cymbal has its energy stored in the solid mass and it will release wide band content from the attack to the finish of the tail. It is way more audible for much longer. It is also easy to overload the "spring" that is effectively the driving force in the cymbal, it can only store so much energy until it starts to warp, creating different spectrum of frequencies. What you don't want is low frequency wobble to modify the spring parameters unevenly and dynamically. Spring that is overloaded will create quite ugly harmonics... I haven't tried but i think for training purposes, high speed camera could be a nice tool to find a good hitting strength as the wobble really is the key, the more of it you have them uglier it will sound. Instead of having nice round and flat disc you will have spots of higher tension/compression that will change the resonant frequencies, locally.. You want it to sound the same all around the disc. And of course, some of the sound of a crash comes from making it more "ugly", there is a happy medium somewhere in the middle where you are properly making it "crash" but still having some of the "ring" that you can hear when you just tap the cymbal lightly. Speed of sound in a metal is very fast so a peak in that visible wobble is going to have sound bouncing over it multiple times before the "slow wave crest" has leveled. You can sometimes even hear this wave "wash" over the cymbal from side to side, modifying the faster moving sound waves in the metal and their spectral content.
Sounds like a PhD material... :) But it is a great read and very informative, so thank you! And I agree with 'spring overload' - once I hit my crash so hard I could hear it distort. It actually went into overdrive... Not a pleasant sound and certainly not to be repeated. PS: for all guitar players: hitting cymbals so hard they sound distorted IS NOT A GOOD THING! Cymbals are not valve guitar amplifiers! They do not sound better when pushed into overdrive! So please don't ask your drummer to 'distort' his/her cymbals. Thank you. :)
I've taken to doing my demo recordings with only the overheads, room, and kick mics. Doing this forces me to play with proper dynamics and has also allowed me to learn what proper recording dynamics are when I'm playing. If you can record with only these mics and get a mix where you can hear the entire kit, you're fully miced and recorded drum tracks will sound way better.
thats very interesting. how does mono compatibility work with this? your microphones will all be naturally stereo paired or already mono. i suspect it must work really well.
When you mentioned Neil Peart (RIP), it reminded me of an interview where he said that, before going into the studio, he would practice the hell out of the demos of the songs to be recorded every day until it came time for the recording process to begin.
I really appreciate that these videos aren't full of obnoxious jump cuts. The guy yells, but also actually talks at a reasonable pace without needing to have every pause clipped out for squirrel-brains.
Yes PLEASE to the Tempo Maps video. I'm doing my first ever recorded song and it's a remote collab. The drummer is going to need a click track and I assume this tempo map will be useful as well . I have literally no idea where to begin
The best drummer I met made notes of the different sections of songs and other things I didn't understand and when he performed or recorded, it was a brilliant performance. A friend of mine who is also great doesn't make notes, but he listens to fucking songs like thousands of times and is able to hum and tadada the rhythm and fills of complete songs while in his car on the way to work. In rehearsal, he hardly ever fucks up and is even also able to cue others in. Regardless of your approach, clearly, you must do the homework and learn your shit. Be prepared. If you fail to prepare, you prepare to fail.
GLEEEEEEEEEEEEENN, I wanna share a technique I use for drummers who can't do a track with less than 10 takes. I set "checkpoints" when a new riff begins. If they fail, I ask them to go back to the "checkpoint" and hit 4 times the cymbals they were hitting before it. With a little crossfade, I get amazing results and the transition is absolutely inaudible. Saves time, nerves, and your nose from being broken by musicians who can't take a skill criticism. Thx for your godlike videos !
I would REALLY love to see a video where Glenn takes the worst possible recordings (violating every principle he's laid out in this series) and shows what it's like to mix that versus well-tracked versions.
I've never heard of a tempo map, and I'm a guitarist. Usually I do it the old fashioned way, and write it out on sheet music paper with the measures that change tempos specifying the tempo, and the time signature changes beign marked. Usually I just leave the staff empty, and do the rest just for the drummer or bassist. None of us are really good at reading music, but we have good ears, and can tell what key we're in even if we don't know the name. The hardest part to clarify has always been tempo and time signature. My drummer can get into the groove of a different time signature, but usually is late or early to change tempo, and my bassist can't feel time signature changes, but is on time with tempo changes. They both still find their way to a part that works, but I find it funny how they do this every time and they still don't understand those two simple concepts. Do you think a tempo map would work better for them or is this something they're going to have to sell their souls to satan to learn? I've got him in my contacts just in case.
I was once asked to record an EP for a band and like always, I went to check out their rehearsal prior to them coming to the studio. The drummer had some solid black Pearl 9-piece kit that sounded amazing. We made a plan for the studio and when he showed up, he brought a 5 piece Mapex that was beat to shit that he hadn’t played in months. When I asked why he didn’t bring the Pearl his response was something like “it’s just too big to move around especially for the studio”. His snare sounded awful but thankfully he had his own solution… he’ll just use his wallet to dampen it. In my experience, the drummer is often time the one you have to watch out for, not the bass player.
A tempo map video would be invaluable! I don't know if it's just my Left-Right-Kick Brain, but I'm having trouble manipulating the click to play smaller subdivisions than quarter notes. Being able to drop a bar of 16th notes into an area where a fill is located would be very helpful. I know Alex Rudinger has touched on this but never elaborated on how he does it.
Hey Glenn, I auditioned for a band a couple of weeks ago & the bass player & I were talking about recording. He mentioned he watches a Canadian RUclipsr & I asked mid-sentence if it was you & it was. Your channel is definitely growing rapidly & the word about the helpful content you have created is definitely being spread around. Cheers for all the great information I've learnt & fuck you from Australia!
As a self-taught drummer and an Audio Production student, I found this absolutely spot on. I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels this way! I've also learned to take into consideration (as an engineer) that drummers play/hit differently.
When I was taking marimba lessons my instructor held a note book at head level, then had me do check marks on the page with my pencil over and over, with force. This was because I was bashing the marimba like a drum kit. I learned to use this stroke on crash cymbals while still bashing on the drums. I still suck at marimba. Your cash is going to choke out if you hit it too hard. The loudest it can get is not the loudest you can hit it.
Another major thing I talk about with people and drumming is what he talks about at #8. A major thing about me is I’m actually left handed but play drums completely right handed with set up configuration and playing as well. Many drummers right handed tend to wail on cymbals with their dominant right hand and barely hit the snare with their left. Being left handed I naturally hit the snare hard but not as hard on cymbals with my right hand.
Pro tip: how you play in a live setting and how you play in a studio (along with what sounds good in each) are entirely different things. For ANY instrument.
I don't play drums. I don't play any instrument. I'm not likely to. I don't record audio for a hobby. I just watch these videos because they are fucking brilliant.
Just wanted to say you have helped me alot to be a greater person towards audio engeneers. I always try to make the recording and mixing process easy for them. Coming over-prepared is the best way to keep your engeneers your friend
Glenn, that first lesson on the finer points of compression, what the terms "Attack", "Release", "Ratio", and "Threshold" actually mean in real time when utilizing compression to control transient spikes and peaks, so you can turn up the overall volume without exceeding your desired Gain Staging Limit, and still ending up with a nice "Snap" and extended "Resonance" to your drum room (or any other instruments in a mix) was hands down the very best demonstration and explanation of "Compression" that anyone has ever presented to me over the course of several years. This is the one tool that always has and always would have confused pretty much everyone on some level, but thanx to the Guru of Recording Studio Magic and your extensive knowledge, I now totally get how to utilize compression to control, yet emphasize each instrument track in my mix so that I end up with a professional sounding product, free from unwanted comb filtering between frequencies, wash-out between instruments that otherwise would have stepped all over another instrument's desired bandwidth, and how to gain dBs without unwanted distortion, and still maintain plenty of headroom. Glenn, you are a scholar and a gentleman, and I think you have earned the added moniker of "Freaking Genius!" I look forward to the next two classes my friend. Good stuff!!! 🏆🥇🎗💯🤘
An easy solution to number 10 is use Guitar Pro. You can export a scratch track which when loaded into REAPER will automatically set the project to the correct tempo, and place tempo changes in the correct place. The scratch track may sound like MIDI noise, but if you for some reason can't play to a raw click, it's a massive money saver.
number 15: watch what you're doing with your sticks right after the last note and during pauses... overheads and snare mics often pick the sounds of drumsticks clicking against each other much before this last cymbal hit fades out.
Just my own $.02 regarding new heads in the studio here, dontchaknow… The thing about brand new heads is that once you have them in tune, the break-in period has begun when the playing starts. This means that there’s gonna be SOME stretch occurring as you start playing, which means the pitches are going to drop and at that point, the heads on each drum are not in tune with each other anymore. Now you’re looking at spending time getting each new head BACK in tune before the next take. My own experience, FWIW, has been to play on new heads for an hour sometime BEFORE you go in to track, then retune them. That way, everything’s gonna be more stabilized and then the only tuning issue to be dealt with will be the gradual detuning of an individual rod here and there. Takes much less time to rectify. Also, and cannot be emphasized enough…. If you don’t know how to tune your kit to sound the same in the room as you want on “tape”…. Take the time to figure out what it takes to get it. (Helpful hint: room acoustics don’t have as dramatic an effect on the sounds of toms and bass drums as they do on snares, thank ya jayzus.) I guarantee you that you WILL pull it off if you’re willing to take the time and approach it analytically, provided you’re using a quality kit. ETA - one last thing. With the reality that snares sound so different from room to room, just because it sounds perfect to ya in your practice space, expect it to NOT sound like that in the studio. (Ya might get lucky but it’s rare). Not a bad thing, necessarily, just make sure you’re ready. For example, through my own decades of masochism…er…doing sessions along with drum teching…I’ve been lucky enough to happen upon 6 snares that go to every session (5”, 6.5”, and 8” Ludwig Black Beauties and 5.5”, 7”, and 8.25” Slingerland Radio Kings). I know for a fact that at least one or two of those will get me the given sound I want/need in whatever acoustic environment I may find myself in. Also makes producers and engineers happy guys coz it’s less work for them, with the bonus of your snares not sounding all over-processed coz of necessary compensation for incompatibility between a given snare and the current room acoustics. I did NOT mean to type this much!
This is why I am building at home.....I practice and work out all my parts so if I do go into a bigger studio I'm all set. Apppreciate the tips and have to get back to the course on mixing. 👍
Drummers are divas, LOL! (So sayeth the drummer) EXCELLENT video. Some points to consider: A cheap set of drums with decent heads and cymbals oftentimes sounds way better than a high end kit with factory heads all beat to hell. The active ingredient in a drum is the drumhead and the shell. A shell is going to make the sound of the drum, but EQ can make a drum sound like anything it wants to, as long as the head is somewhat new. A trick to "retreading" your heads is to use a hair dryer on them and blow them out; the hot air from the nozzle will shrink the mylar film back into memory and it somewhat rehashes them. But this won't work with cratered-out heads at all. Also a trick to getting longer life out of a bass drum batter head is to rotate it using the label as a position; most drummers put the logo at 12:00. AS you play, rotate it to 3:00, then 6:00, etc. after every few weeks of playing. Or months, just use an impact pad to give it more longevity. Just remember, drumheads are like chewing gum; they will lose their flavor eventually and they become dead and lifeless. And by Jeebus, change the bottom snare head before you go in and maybe get some new wires! Wanna know what sucks? Is blowing out a bottom snare head and the store being either out of them or not open. Been there, done that. And do NOT use a standard batter head on the bottom of a snare no matter what the guy at GuItAr cEnTeR says! Make sure your cymbal stands don't have rattles, and that means making sure there's a proper plastic insert that prevents metal to metal contact. The cymbal is metal, the cymbal stand is metal. There's a plastic piece there that isolates the two. If you can't make it to the music store, stop by a local home improvement outlet and get some cable wall inserts or some rubber tubing that you can slide down over the post and prevent that metal on metal contact and therefore, prevent those mysterious rattles from appearing. Your bass drum pedal needs some lube as well. Use 3n1 Dry lube, as it won't leave a slippery mess. Hit all the rotation points, where there's movement. Oil the spring, trust me.
For a tempo map, write your song out on guitarpro, or another similar program, then the tempo map is already done and is easily transfered to any daw. Just make sure the whole band has played along with the programmed version and are happy with it.
Good points. Just gotta be careful with the advice "don't sit too low". That might be a good idea but I think too late for most drummers to be told in the studio. That can very easily result in bad playing because of the drummer feeling uncomfortable und unfamiliar with the drums just because of the hight of his seat. Should be tried out before the studio. And if you're comfortable sitting low and still can really smash out a solid double bass then don't change it. And if you can't -> maybe think about the height of your seat, but most importantly: practice!
Can you do a video on how to tune drums for metal? I know how to tune a bass and guitar. Pretty straight forward. Do you tune a snare until it sounds subjectively good? Is there a note it should be at on a drum tuning apparatus? Same for toms and bass drum.
I absolutely love this guy!! Just coming back im 65!! Played yrs ago. Out but since 63 beatlplaying on sears catalogs. Now I hear this!! PERFECT Thank u guys!! This dude is a fucking genius yes I have recorded and botched at lol
#7 - Saw Kiss reunion tour in 1996. Peter Criss was struggling with a physical ailment that didn't allow him to hit the drums very hard. I could hear the drums, but I could also tell he was just lightly tapping them. Sounded like the drums belonged in a 70s soft rock band like Seals and Crofts instead of Kiss.
the seat and toms angle tips are great not only for recording but for playing drums in generals, this happens way too often and for me are a clear sign that this drummer is a beginner
#10 --> The whole "drummers (and musicians) not being able to play to clicks" and bands not having tempos maps REALLY irks me. Trying to get a decent recording where everyone is held accountable is a pain working other people. When it comes to my own productions, I map out the tempos to all of my songs ESPECIALLY if it varies. It makes it so much easier, too, when I send my tracks out to session players (drummers and keys players in my case) for them to record parts on my songs. I totally understand the whole "playing with feel" aspect, but that's usually an excuse from players to play terribly out of time from their lack of practice.
Great video. Very humorous and informative. The drum stool height thing was a bit misleading though. Too low or too high is bad. Ideally you want to be sat so your legs rest at 45 degrees or slightly more. Too high and your hand technique will go out the window, unless you’ve set everything as high as Mike Mangini.
Good tips in here - certainly didn't really think about sitting up higher at the kit and the rimshot thing. Would love to see a video on tips for recording drums at home. That alone could be a 12 part series though. Tip #1 - Have lots of money for mics and an 8 channel minimum interface.
Hi Glenn, so you're saying drummers should follow the same guidelines as everybody else: 1. good enough gear (read: studio worthy) 2. good enough performance (read: years of practice WITH AND WITHOUT a metronome, notes, time-sheets, ...) 3. be ready to work: with the engineer (drum setup, mic placement, even drumhead choices, ...), with the band (team spiwit, ...), for the song (tiny adjustments on the fly for greater impact etc...). Well... you are right. It is too much to ask from a musician, let alone from a drummer. :)
I had a few bands and was in the studio several times for recording and once in a major label ( for german Metal standards...) Studio in Berlin. The drummer of one band (death, grind core) had a good shape drum set with wooden bass drum mallets and rather new heads and cymbals. The overall sound from this recording was - at least for me and my hearing- GREAT. It was a 16 track all analog recording with only two compressors, one noise gate and one reverb as outboard gear, I went to the same studio with same engineer with my other (more speed/thrash) band whose drummer paid no interest into his drum set. It wasn’t that he had no money, but rather his punk-style mindset: it’s not about the instruments, it’s all about the music. His cymbals were torn and the heads were several years old and beaten.the sound guy somehow managed to tune them somehow. He literally had 2 Tama Rockstars kits put together with one snare but all toms double.... The endresult was still ok or good, but it could have been superb with that sound guy. He was doing it like an internship voluntarily and was mixing all semi-pro live events in the area. He was a drummer himself and it wasn’t his main job, but now he is the man for music in the city’s youth department. So, y’all can make your own opinion on my YT channel and on SoundCloud. The band with the good shaped drum was : Very Wicked (VW, because we are from Volkswagens main site in Wolfsburg...) The other with shitty drums was: Intoxicated. Please feel free to listen to them and give me your thoughts. Like I said on YT ANDYW1228 or on SoundCloud Andyw1228.
Gleeeeeeeeeennnnn. I'm sure you've talked about it in a previous video but as some who's watch you're channel since 2014 I have to idea where to start looking. My question is how/what do you hook your drum mics up. I'm assuming an 8 channel pre amp, but you know what they say about assuming. I'm completely new on how to record live drums, as is the rest of my band, and we really prefer live drums instead of samples. And yes I am the bassist.
I mixed a live recording where the live engineer placed the snare mic just behind the hi-hat stand. When the drummer hit the hi-hat pedal, the stand would move backward and tap the boom the snare mic was on. That took a LONG time to edit out! (I think that live guy was a semi-evolved simian, himself -- it's not hard to sneak a boom stand in away from things that might move.)
As a drummer, I agree with all your point, but... not the rimshots. At least not 100%. Like you said, if the drum setting and mic positions are good, then there is no need for the (sometimes rather annoying) rimshot sound. I don't remember, from which VHS video of which drummer I picked it up, but it made sense. Therefore, I play rimshots live and at practice, but avoid it at recordings. Actually, I would be great if you could demonstrate it, not focusing too much on the loundness, but also the sound of the snare with and without rimshot.
So I dabble in all kinds of music, and I have to say you’re awesome for posting that free course. I’ve been playing music all my life but I’m new to recording and it’s INTIMIDATING. It can really make you feel like an inadequate musician haha.
Great video. I already do a lot of these, but after 43 years of playing, I've finally figured it out. #7, hitting the drum with authority is a technique thing. You can bash your drums and they'll sound like ass if you don't know how to pull the sound out of the drum. #8, I use 13" hats as much as I can. Sound guys love how easy those are to mix over my 14" hats. #13...NEVER FIX IT IN THE MIX! Garbage in, garbage out.
Great list…I was a singer in a band for about 8years but was a drummer for many years before that. We ended up in a pretty big studio and they recorded the drums and bass to 2 inch tape…I ended up having to play drums because I was always focused on timing and fundamentals when I was coming up…the drummer was actually pretty pissed and ended up quitting. I played drums on most of that album, until we found a drummer who came up the same way and focused on skill rather than trying to play fast etc…I actually suggested he re-record my parts but we ended up only having time to do this on a couple songs. The producer told me I was pretty well in time cause they had to replace a few errant snare his and I was locked in (even without a click)…a little bit of professionalism over trying to be flashy goes a long way!
I uhh...I don't know about that whole "you have to have the toms parallel to the ground" thing. I find it extremely rare when a drummer doesn't have their toms angled towards them. Extremely uncomfortable to play them like a marching band.
SIDEBAR: hanging your toms vertically is also a great way to wear out the heads, because you're pushing the acorn straight into the head, leaving the dimples you were speaking of earlier.
If you have an ambidextrous drummer, try asking them to put the high hat on the opposite side of the kit from the snare. It'll bleed into less used mics and (depending on panning) gives a different soundstage to everyone else
13:53 - Yes, this would make a great episode! Important for all members of the band to be aware of the different changes going on in their work. Learn the possibilities those types of changes have when creating music. Learn how to identify/work with them, regardless of instrument. That's key knowledge for anyone who wants to be a musical bad ass, so to speak. Keep spreading the good word, Glenn!
I don't know what I don't know so vids like these are invaluable, thanks Glenn! Used to be a gamer term for someone who just stops learning because they think they know it all even though they've barely scratched the surface. Scrub. The "I play for fun" person that'll wear the armour that looks good instead of statting up for the team, for eg.
As tracking my own drums, I map everything out with my guitar player making the click tracks. I then run practice takes as many times as I feel I have to but roll each time to audit and in case I get a lucky shot that sounds stellar the way I want it to sound before it hits a mix engineer.
I love your vids Glen, been drumming and recording drums for 20 plus years, all this stuff is right on. I bet you would love recording my setup. Even if you thought my playing was crap, kit would sound good.
Where the hell have you been all my life??? Now I can't stop watching your fucking amazing videos!!! I'm pretty sure I'll learn a thing or two from each one of your videos. You're a great and awesome addition to the RUclipsrs I follow in my quest for empirical music ed. Love your in-your-face tell-it-like-it-is approach.
Thanks for the shout out to Simon Phillips. I think he’s the GOAT. He’s also an excellent recording engineer. Turns out he asked questions in all those sessions he did in the 70’s and 80’s.
Its probably true for the other musicians as well, its to easy to cheat these days, autotune, copy paste etc. If you record to tape (and i have) you have to be able to play everything and if you make mistakes then you have to re-record or punch in destructively and if you miss that punch in (or if the punch in doest sound good) then you have to punch in at an earlier point. That said, i think its great with most of the new possibilities (except for autotune), but dont use it as a crutch for not being able to play.
For me, the first time recording drums in studio was a very humbling experience. I'm not some kind of pretentious asshole and back then I didn't even had that much experience, but it makes me realize how many thing I was doing wrong. It was just one afternoon in the studio and I learned more than in any other place.
I often write riffs in my head while doing chores. If a goodn hits me ill run to my guitar and jam a lil. If it's really hitting me ill run to mixcraft and hit record. It's then that I'll go "huh... really? It's in 3/4 130bpm?" Ok! Practice your own shit! It's crazy what you learn from yourself
Glenn reminds me of my high school band conductor with his ridiculous demands that our instrument be working properly and we know how to play our parts.
Those poor souls.
I mean, he's not wrong. Everyone wants to be a performing musicians until they realize they can't keep up with other musicians.
And with his have your hi hats up over your head bs. I play open handed and no way I’m keeping my hats that high. I see many drummers Todd Sucherman, Lang etc who have their hats down lower when they record. Going to force a drummer to put his hats way up and play like shit uncomfortably over just doing a lil light gating or editing on the snare. No way, in fact my snare track sounds relatively clean even without gating or post editing still.
@@larrytate1657 open hand is different. When you play open hand the hi hat has to be further away from the snare. His point was that the hi hat, and other cymbols shouldn't too close to the drum mics, and you should put more energy into the drums than the cymbols.
@@McGuire40695 and being a recording musician is a step up from that ...
..... and let's hear it for the one you missed, Glen!
THE SQUEAKY FUCKING STOOL!!!!!!
Lo now that is so fuckin true man
hahahah, but Since I've Been Lovin You wouldn't be the same without Bonham's squeaky speed king
@Zack Darce when you're on acid and since I've been loving you is playing and all you hear is
SQUEAK
SQUEAK
SQUEAK
Some olive oil will solve that squeak
As a bass player... This was very satisfying.
How sweet it is .
Same lel
- jingles keys
😆 🤣
As a drummer, that was funny.
Number 14 : Don’t re-adjust the mics in the drum kit. The engineer has put them that way because it works, and if it is different from what you do in your home studio, or what the sound guy did at your last gig (so long ago, and that is not a Covid reference), it is different for a reason !
Yep - that should deffo be on the list - drummers moving mics after you have done all your pre-checks - you go to record and suddenly that snare doesn't sound as snappy as before???.... or even worse when the drummer takes the mic off the rim to adjust it, but goes for a smoke first - comes back and starts a take - and you stop it because the dumbass forgot to even put the damn mic back on the snare!!!
@@thebasementfilmgroup Ahhh, don't clip a mic to a snare! Rimshots will send vibrations up the mic mount and it'll be a lot of extra work to try to EQ that out! Clip mics to toms, but the snare mic should be on a stand.
@@soundman1402 never ever had that issue - and I been recording since the 80's
overhead mic adjusting drummers are the worst. ive listened to that pair of overheads for literally hours and days, you have no idea what they sound like, and if ive kept them a certain way for over a year its because it works, asshole
I definetly agree, but i had a Sound tech once place the Snare Mic Straight down on the Snare. Like literally 90° with a millimeter distance to the head, right at the Rim. I told him, that this is not going to Sound good, because he is only going to capture the overtones right at the Rim. He did it anyways, and i was totally right, the Snare sounded like Shit. Had no attack and sounded like a Cowbell, so he gated the shit out of it and made it Sound like a ratteling piece of Paper stabbed with a knife...
Was packing my bong while watching this when you said, “put down the bong” 😅
Same. I did not put down my bong tho because I'm a fucking edgelord.
I was smoking a bowl!
I was rolling a joint lol
I was smoking heroin 😎
@@GenerationDown I applaud you sir!
I once recorded a band whose drummer had that issue of keeping a nice steady beat but rushing his fills. The incredible thing was they’d played and rehearsed so much they all accommodated this perfectly and always came back in bang on time. I call this the “Metallica phenomenon”.
That is pretty common, guitarists often up tempo on their solo breaks also, it's human nature to speed up when nervous or excited haha!
I don't play metal much but having been a festival stage manager for almost ten years the most common mistake I saw metal drummers have is using those stupid crash cymbals that are too thick and clangy usually marked as Metal crash or Rock crash or Heavy crash. They always suck, get medium weight for best results.
Heavy rides or hats can often work but not crashes!
As a drummer and a home stuido owner, I had a really good laugh at a few of these. Thanks as always for the content Glenn.
I lost it when Glen got lower
Lol noice name
"I swear, if we were still recording to tape most of you drummers just wouldn't be able to cut it."
I'm drumming on a session tomorrow just because the artist is recording to tape and needs it done right the first time.
Drummers are not the only people that have issues with tape. According to Slash's sound engineer, the only two singers he has worked with that are good enough for tape are Beth Hart and Miles Kennedy.
How was the session?
Our job is the hardest as drummers here we go again getting criticized again. Not all drummers are the same way but you all love to say we are . All guitarist that I played with have egos and think there better then everyone else in the band . They think they can play the drums and everything else but then when they try to play the drums all they can come up with is the same beat over and over and can’t think outside the box . There I said it .
i would love to record on tape just to experience it but yes its gotta be done RIGHT 🤟
@@erictorres4889 preach my friend. Much love and respect.❤❤❤❤🤘🤘🤘🤘
Hey, Glenn! We just wrapped up drums last month. Just wanted to say how helpful your recording tips and "mistakes to avoid" videos have been so far. These things can sometimes be easy to overlook! I was also fortunate enough to work with a drummer who was willing to listen, understand, and cooperate :) Lucky, lucky me. Thanks Glenn!
Godspeed
Put issolated and full tracks online so we can judge you remorselessly
My recommendation if you can afford the time and money, arrange to take the drums into the studio the afternoon before the session this will give you and the engineer the time to mic up the kit and to tune it. it also means less time wasted setting everything up on the day.
That would acclimatize the drums and make the tuning more reliable. Good point.
Daaamn right ;)
@@fumedrummer Tuning??! I kid, I kid. It's amazing how many ppl just can't.
Semi Evolved Simian. Good Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy quote.
I was hoping someone would catch that!
ready to go have Pangalactic Gargleblasters when you are, good sir. After recording, that is. you know.
I'm SO glad that we recorded in the 2" tape era. We had to work hard to get to the point where we could record our basic tracks live in one or two takes. One mistake = another take= Mo money.
These days, I would be so pissed off if I worked and worked to get the songs into muscle memory, and then find out somebody had replaced my work with fucking samples.
Totally!
Yet it is the norm, at least in metal. And it's not simply because the drummer couldn't cut it - I think younger engineers l just don't know and/or care how to record acoustic drums, just capture the hits for replacement. Listen to Derek Roddy on Dan Wilding's podcast.
"male, female, in-between, IT DOESNT FUCKING MATTER" i lost it at this part lol
Yes, you should do a dedicated episode on tempo maps. I still have much to learn and am indeed a visual learner so seeing just how they're made will be a huge help. Thanks for the great content!
Same here 👍
yeah, actually. i'm interested to see if there's any tips or alt workflow on making them.
If you write your song out on a program like guitarpro, the works already done.
@@stephenlindsay3792 yeah ive come to learn the hard way that reaper / daw isnt an authoring tool. im doing baby steps learning guitar pro.
As a person that recorded with Glen multiple times, listen to him. I had four different drum kit set ups when recording with Glen. One recording session was identical to Neil Pearts set up since vapor trails. Glens #3 is the best advice. I always had at least 12 inches of space between the cymbals and toms. 95% of the time I used rim shots. Never hit a cymbal dead on, always hit a cymbal in a circular motion. The snare should be near belly button level.
If I didn’t have a great sounding kit, I would’ve used Glens DW kit. DW is second to none.
Love the Kathleen Kennedy burn.
I like to put my new heads on about 3-4 practice sessions before recording. The reason why is 1. I need a couple hours to get used to their feel and 2. They will be finicky for the first 2-3 sessions and will need high maintenance tweaking until they’re set into their tension
I'm so happy you mentioned simon Phillips, lol. He's easily my favourite drummer.
A great engineer and producer as well. He keeps his Hi-hat level with the snare, but he plays it pretty lightly and his other cymbals are pretty high. And he tunes his kit really well too. A lot of mics, but no snare bottom!
Different thing, but he played a gig close to where I live and had four mics on that huge kit. Kicks and overheads only.
The acoustic impedance of a solid vs air is somewhere above 1000, the exact figure is not important at the moment, it is also most likely much larger... It just means that air transferring sound vibration to a solid has 1000:1 ratio and vice versa, we are in that kind of scale. you need 1000 units of energy in air to make 1 unit of change in solid, free moving air molecule hitting a crystalline solid does not have a good energy transfer ratio..
As you hit a drum shell, you are making the solid membrane move but due to it's material properties, it transfers this movement to air very fast. It does not hold a lot of energy but the energy is all in the air, as sound energy. You will get a snappy, rather loud transient but everything after that is the air pushing and pulling the membrane, not the membrane itself vibrating using stored energy in the solid.
As you hit a cymbal, the energy goes to moving the mass of metal and is stored there for longer. It will have less snappy transient and the energy stored in the cymbal itself will release slower. Its frequency range is thus much higher too as with acoustic impedance we also have attenuation happening. With drum shells your frequency response is much lower as it is the air that is doing most of the work, bouncing between drum heads, losing high frequencies with every bounce. Think of how things sound underwater, this is caused by acoustic impedance too. All the high frequencies are cut out. But cymbal has its energy stored in the solid mass and it will release wide band content from the attack to the finish of the tail. It is way more audible for much longer.
It is also easy to overload the "spring" that is effectively the driving force in the cymbal, it can only store so much energy until it starts to warp, creating different spectrum of frequencies. What you don't want is low frequency wobble to modify the spring parameters unevenly and dynamically. Spring that is overloaded will create quite ugly harmonics... I haven't tried but i think for training purposes, high speed camera could be a nice tool to find a good hitting strength as the wobble really is the key, the more of it you have them uglier it will sound. Instead of having nice round and flat disc you will have spots of higher tension/compression that will change the resonant frequencies, locally.. You want it to sound the same all around the disc. And of course, some of the sound of a crash comes from making it more "ugly", there is a happy medium somewhere in the middle where you are properly making it "crash" but still having some of the "ring" that you can hear when you just tap the cymbal lightly. Speed of sound in a metal is very fast so a peak in that visible wobble is going to have sound bouncing over it multiple times before the "slow wave crest" has leveled. You can sometimes even hear this wave "wash" over the cymbal from side to side, modifying the faster moving sound waves in the metal and their spectral content.
Wow! Great info, copied and shared with many engineers friends! Thank you!
Sounds like a PhD material... :)
But it is a great read and very informative, so thank you!
And I agree with 'spring overload' - once I hit my crash so hard I could hear it distort. It actually went into overdrive... Not a pleasant sound and certainly not to be repeated.
PS: for all guitar players: hitting cymbals so hard they sound distorted IS NOT A GOOD THING! Cymbals are not valve guitar amplifiers! They do not sound better when pushed into overdrive! So please don't ask your drummer to 'distort' his/her cymbals. Thank you. :)
I've taken to doing my demo recordings with only the overheads, room, and kick mics. Doing this forces me to play with proper dynamics and has also allowed me to learn what proper recording dynamics are when I'm playing. If you can record with only these mics and get a mix where you can hear the entire kit, you're fully miced and recorded drum tracks will sound way better.
thats very interesting. how does mono compatibility work with this? your microphones will all be naturally stereo paired or already mono. i suspect it must work really well.
When you mentioned Neil Peart (RIP), it reminded me of an interview where he said that, before going into the studio, he would practice the hell out of the demos of the songs to be recorded every day until it came time for the recording process to begin.
I really appreciate that these videos aren't full of obnoxious jump cuts. The guy yells, but also actually talks at a reasonable pace without needing to have every pause clipped out for squirrel-brains.
Yes PLEASE to the Tempo Maps video. I'm doing my first ever recorded song and it's a remote collab. The drummer is going to need a click track and I assume this tempo map will be useful as well .
I have literally no idea where to begin
The best drummer I met made notes of the different sections of songs and other things I didn't understand and when he performed or recorded, it was a brilliant performance. A friend of mine who is also great doesn't make notes, but he listens to fucking songs like thousands of times and is able to hum and tadada the rhythm and fills of complete songs while in his car on the way to work. In rehearsal, he hardly ever fucks up and is even also able to cue others in.
Regardless of your approach, clearly, you must do the homework and learn your shit. Be prepared. If you fail to prepare, you prepare to fail.
GLEEEEEEEEEEEEENN, I wanna share a technique I use for drummers who can't do a track with less than 10 takes. I set "checkpoints" when a new riff begins. If they fail, I ask them to go back to the "checkpoint" and hit 4 times the cymbals they were hitting before it. With a little crossfade, I get amazing results and the transition is absolutely inaudible. Saves time, nerves, and your nose from being broken by musicians who can't take a skill criticism. Thx for your godlike videos !
I'm so glad that this came out, cause we're about to give drum recording a shot hahaha
Good luck, dude!
Do you have a shock collar for the drummer ??????
@@gilbertspader7974 no, but that's not a bad idea haha
I would REALLY love to see a video where Glenn takes the worst possible recordings (violating every principle he's laid out in this series) and shows what it's like to mix that versus well-tracked versions.
This is an incredible luck. He'd have to trick a shitty drummer into participating 🤣
7:28 well, Simon Philips also a world class audio engineer, and he knows how to "balance" hats and snare 😁
I've never heard of a tempo map, and I'm a guitarist. Usually I do it the old fashioned way, and write it out on sheet music paper with the measures that change tempos specifying the tempo, and the time signature changes beign marked. Usually I just leave the staff empty, and do the rest just for the drummer or bassist. None of us are really good at reading music, but we have good ears, and can tell what key we're in even if we don't know the name. The hardest part to clarify has always been tempo and time signature. My drummer can get into the groove of a different time signature, but usually is late or early to change tempo, and my bassist can't feel time signature changes, but is on time with tempo changes. They both still find their way to a part that works, but I find it funny how they do this every time and they still don't understand those two simple concepts. Do you think a tempo map would work better for them or is this something they're going to have to sell their souls to satan to learn? I've got him in my contacts just in case.
I kinda want to see glen yell at a drummer, "NOT QUITE MY TEMPO, AGAIN". "ARE YOU DRAGGING OR ARE YOU ON MY FUCKING TIME"
FAN Nailed THIS ! Really Appreciate you Glenn. Your Course is AWESOME.
Your channel and videos definitely are a must watch for anyone wanting to learn!! You have helped me so much!! Thanks again for the awesome upload!
I was once asked to record an EP for a band and like always, I went to check out their rehearsal prior to them coming to the studio. The drummer had some solid black Pearl 9-piece kit that sounded amazing.
We made a plan for the studio and when he showed up, he brought a 5 piece Mapex that was beat to shit that he hadn’t played in months. When I asked why he didn’t bring the Pearl his response was something like “it’s just too big to move around especially for the studio”. His snare sounded awful but thankfully he had his own solution… he’ll just use his wallet to dampen it.
In my experience, the drummer is often time the one you have to watch out for, not the bass player.
"if we were still recording to tape, most of you drummers couldn't cut it" = quote of the match
A tempo map video would be invaluable! I don't know if it's just my Left-Right-Kick Brain, but I'm having trouble manipulating the click to play smaller subdivisions than quarter notes. Being able to drop a bar of 16th notes into an area where a fill is located would be very helpful. I know Alex Rudinger has touched on this but never elaborated on how he does it.
Hands down, this video had THE best intro you’ve done in a while!! Big Robin Williams “Good Morning, Vietnam”-vibes there!! 😀
Hey Glenn, I auditioned for a band a couple of weeks ago & the bass player & I were talking about recording. He mentioned he watches a Canadian RUclipsr & I asked mid-sentence if it was you & it was. Your channel is definitely growing rapidly & the word about the helpful content you have created is definitely being spread around. Cheers for all the great information I've learnt & fuck you from Australia!
Thanks!!
It's funny how they're all waking up, and we're like, it's 10pm Monday night. :)
As a self-taught drummer and an Audio Production student, I found this absolutely spot on. I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels this way!
I've also learned to take into consideration (as an engineer) that drummers play/hit differently.
When I was taking marimba lessons my instructor held a note book at head level, then had me do check marks on the page with my pencil over and over, with force. This was because I was bashing the marimba like a drum kit. I learned to use this stroke on crash cymbals while still bashing on the drums. I still suck at marimba.
Your cash is going to choke out if you hit it too hard. The loudest it can get is not the loudest you can hit it.
Another major thing I talk about with people and drumming is what he talks about at #8. A major thing about me is I’m actually left handed but play drums completely right handed with set up configuration and playing as well. Many drummers right handed tend to wail on cymbals with their dominant right hand and barely hit the snare with their left. Being left handed I naturally hit the snare hard but not as hard on cymbals with my right hand.
Pro tip: how you play in a live setting and how you play in a studio (along with what sounds good in each) are entirely different things. For ANY instrument.
I don't play drums. I don't play any instrument. I'm not likely to. I don't record audio for a hobby. I just watch these videos because they are fucking brilliant.
It takes a good youtuber to make someone who doesn't care about the subject matter to watch them lmao.
Just wanted to say you have helped me alot to be a greater person towards audio engeneers. I always try to make the recording and mixing process easy for them. Coming over-prepared is the best way to keep your engeneers your friend
Glenn, that first lesson on the finer points of compression, what the terms "Attack", "Release", "Ratio", and "Threshold" actually mean in real time when utilizing compression to control transient spikes and peaks, so you can turn up the overall volume without exceeding your desired Gain Staging Limit, and still ending up with a nice "Snap" and extended "Resonance" to your drum room (or any other instruments in a mix) was hands down the very best demonstration and explanation of "Compression" that anyone has ever presented to me over the course of several years. This is the one tool that always has and always would have confused pretty much everyone on some level, but thanx to the Guru of Recording Studio Magic and your extensive knowledge, I now totally get how to utilize compression to control, yet emphasize each instrument track in my mix so that I end up with a professional sounding product, free from unwanted comb filtering between frequencies, wash-out between instruments that otherwise would have stepped all over another instrument's desired bandwidth, and how to gain dBs without unwanted distortion, and still maintain plenty of headroom. Glenn, you are a scholar and a gentleman, and I think you have earned the added moniker of "Freaking Genius!" I look forward to the next two classes my friend. Good stuff!!! 🏆🥇🎗💯🤘
An easy solution to number 10 is use Guitar Pro. You can export a scratch track which when loaded into REAPER will automatically set the project to the correct tempo, and place tempo changes in the correct place. The scratch track may sound like MIDI noise, but if you for some reason can't play to a raw click, it's a massive money saver.
number 15: watch what you're doing with your sticks right after the last note and during pauses... overheads and snare mics often pick the sounds of drumsticks clicking against each other much before this last cymbal hit fades out.
My favorite part - watching the compressed vs uncompressed versions of your VO tracking behind you. :)
Excellent video - as a seasoned session drummer, avoiding flamming the kick & snare is INSANELY hard!
Unintentional flams, yeah... But I think it is harder to intentionally flam, especially at odd intervals during a song.
Just my own $.02 regarding new heads in the studio here, dontchaknow…
The thing about brand new heads is that once you have them in tune, the break-in period has begun when the playing starts.
This means that there’s gonna be SOME stretch occurring as you start playing, which means the pitches are going to drop and at that point, the heads on each drum are not in tune with each other anymore. Now you’re looking at spending time getting each new head BACK in tune before the next take.
My own experience, FWIW, has been to play on new heads for an hour sometime BEFORE you go in to track, then retune them. That way, everything’s gonna be more stabilized and then the only tuning issue to be dealt with will be the gradual detuning of an individual rod here and there. Takes much less time to rectify.
Also, and cannot be emphasized enough….
If you don’t know how to tune your kit to sound the same in the room as you want on “tape”….
Take the time to figure out what it takes to get it.
(Helpful hint: room acoustics don’t have as dramatic an effect on the sounds of toms and bass drums as they do on snares, thank ya jayzus.)
I guarantee you that you WILL pull it off if you’re willing to take the time and approach it analytically, provided you’re using a quality kit.
ETA - one last thing. With the reality that snares sound so different from room to room, just because it sounds perfect to ya in your practice space, expect it to NOT sound like that in the studio. (Ya might get lucky but it’s rare). Not a bad thing, necessarily, just make sure you’re ready. For example, through my own decades of masochism…er…doing sessions along with drum teching…I’ve been lucky enough to happen upon 6 snares that go to every session (5”, 6.5”, and 8” Ludwig Black Beauties and 5.5”, 7”, and 8.25” Slingerland Radio Kings). I know for a fact that at least one or two of those will get me the given sound I want/need in whatever acoustic environment I may find myself in. Also makes producers and engineers happy guys coz it’s less work for them, with the bonus of your snares not sounding all over-processed coz of necessary compensation for incompatibility between a given snare and the current room acoustics.
I did NOT mean to type this much!
This is why I am building at home.....I practice and work out all my parts so if I do go into a bigger studio I'm all set. Apppreciate the tips and have to get back to the course on mixing. 👍
These videos are pure gold man! Thanks!
Drummers are divas, LOL! (So sayeth the drummer) EXCELLENT video.
Some points to consider: A cheap set of drums with decent heads and cymbals oftentimes sounds way better than a high end kit with factory heads all beat to hell. The active ingredient in a drum is the drumhead and the shell. A shell is going to make the sound of the drum, but EQ can make a drum sound like anything it wants to, as long as the head is somewhat new.
A trick to "retreading" your heads is to use a hair dryer on them and blow them out; the hot air from the nozzle will shrink the mylar film back into memory and it somewhat rehashes them. But this won't work with cratered-out heads at all.
Also a trick to getting longer life out of a bass drum batter head is to rotate it using the label as a position; most drummers put the logo at 12:00. AS you play, rotate it to 3:00, then 6:00, etc. after every few weeks of playing. Or months, just use an impact pad to give it more longevity.
Just remember, drumheads are like chewing gum; they will lose their flavor eventually and they become dead and lifeless.
And by Jeebus, change the bottom snare head before you go in and maybe get some new wires! Wanna know what sucks? Is blowing out a bottom snare head and the store being either out of them or not open. Been there, done that. And do NOT use a standard batter head on the bottom of a snare no matter what the guy at GuItAr cEnTeR says!
Make sure your cymbal stands don't have rattles, and that means making sure there's a proper plastic insert that prevents metal to metal contact. The cymbal is metal, the cymbal stand is metal. There's a plastic piece there that isolates the two. If you can't make it to the music store, stop by a local home improvement outlet and get some cable wall inserts or some rubber tubing that you can slide down over the post and prevent that metal on metal contact and therefore, prevent those mysterious rattles from appearing.
Your bass drum pedal needs some lube as well. Use 3n1 Dry lube, as it won't leave a slippery mess. Hit all the rotation points, where there's movement. Oil the spring, trust me.
For a tempo map, write your song out on guitarpro, or another similar program, then the tempo map is already done and is easily transfered to any daw.
Just make sure the whole band has played along with the programmed version and are happy with it.
Glenn's experiencie is sacred,this is the gospel of studio drummimg
Definitely one of my favorite video intros, Glenn. Rock on!
Good points. Just gotta be careful with the advice "don't sit too low". That might be a good idea but I think too late for most drummers to be told in the studio. That can very easily result in bad playing because of the drummer feeling uncomfortable und unfamiliar with the drums just because of the hight of his seat. Should be tried out before the studio. And if you're comfortable sitting low and still can really smash out a solid double bass then don't change it. And if you can't -> maybe think about the height of your seat, but most importantly: practice!
Awesome as always!!!! We love you Glenn!!!
Can you do a video on how to tune drums for metal? I know how to tune a bass and guitar. Pretty straight forward. Do you tune a snare until it sounds subjectively good? Is there a note it should be at on a drum tuning apparatus? Same for toms and bass drum.
I learned the tempo mapping bit the hard way. Now, it's always perfectly laid out and ready to go when I get there.
As a drummer (and a soundengineer) I totally agree with the description Glenn gives in the beginning.
I absolutely love this guy!!
Just coming back im 65!! Played yrs ago. Out but since 63 beatlplaying on sears catalogs.
Now I hear this!!
PERFECT Thank u guys!!
This dude is a fucking genius yes I have recorded and botched at lol
Good morning Glenn, glad to be in the notification squad once again!
Morning!
#7 - Saw Kiss reunion tour in 1996. Peter Criss was struggling with a physical ailment that didn't allow him to hit the drums very hard. I could hear the drums, but I could also tell he was just lightly tapping them. Sounded like the drums belonged in a 70s soft rock band like Seals and Crofts instead of Kiss.
Glen maybe for a future episode do one about what not to do when opening your studio for business
Hmm... that sounds like a great show!
the seat and toms angle tips are great not only for recording but for playing drums in generals, this happens way too often and for me are a clear sign that this drummer is a beginner
Love to hear Glenn’s screamingly good advice while it rains outside!
#10 --> The whole "drummers (and musicians) not being able to play to clicks" and bands not having tempos maps REALLY irks me.
Trying to get a decent recording where everyone is held accountable is a pain working other people. When it comes to my own productions, I map out the tempos to all of my songs ESPECIALLY if it varies. It makes it so much easier, too, when I send my tracks out to session players (drummers and keys players in my case) for them to record parts on my songs.
I totally understand the whole "playing with feel" aspect, but that's usually an excuse from players to play terribly out of time from their lack of practice.
Great video. Very humorous and informative. The drum stool height thing was a bit misleading though. Too low or too high is bad. Ideally you want to be sat so your legs rest at 45 degrees or slightly more. Too high and your hand technique will go out the window, unless you’ve set everything as high as Mike Mangini.
Good tips in here - certainly didn't really think about sitting up higher at the kit and the rimshot thing. Would love to see a video on tips for recording drums at home. That alone could be a 12 part series though. Tip #1 - Have lots of money for mics and an 8 channel minimum interface.
Hi Glenn,
so you're saying drummers should follow the same guidelines as everybody else:
1. good enough gear (read: studio worthy)
2. good enough performance (read: years of practice WITH AND WITHOUT a metronome, notes, time-sheets, ...)
3. be ready to work: with the engineer (drum setup, mic placement, even drumhead choices, ...), with the band (team spiwit, ...), for the song (tiny adjustments on the fly for greater impact etc...).
Well... you are right. It is too much to ask from a musician, let alone from a drummer. :)
I'm about to professionally record a cover of Tom Sawyer myself, I'm using all these tips. Great video man
I had a few bands and was in the studio several times for recording and once in a major label ( for german Metal standards...) Studio in Berlin.
The drummer of one band (death, grind core) had a good shape drum set with wooden bass drum mallets and rather new heads and cymbals. The overall sound from this recording was - at least for me and my hearing- GREAT. It was a 16 track all analog recording with only two compressors, one noise gate and one reverb as outboard gear,
I went to the same studio with same engineer with my other (more speed/thrash) band whose drummer paid no interest into his drum set. It wasn’t that he had no money, but rather his punk-style mindset: it’s not about the instruments, it’s all about the music. His cymbals were torn and the heads were several years old and beaten.the sound guy somehow managed to tune them somehow. He literally had 2 Tama Rockstars kits put together with one snare but all toms double....
The endresult was still ok or good, but it could have been superb with that sound guy. He was doing it like an internship voluntarily and was mixing all semi-pro live events in the area. He was a drummer himself and it wasn’t his main job, but now he is the man for music in the city’s youth department.
So, y’all can make your own opinion on my YT channel and on SoundCloud.
The band with the good shaped drum was : Very Wicked (VW, because we are from Volkswagens main site in Wolfsburg...)
The other with shitty drums was: Intoxicated.
Please feel free to listen to them and give me your thoughts.
Like I said on YT ANDYW1228 or on SoundCloud Andyw1228.
Gleeeeeeeeeennnnn. I'm sure you've talked about it in a previous video but as some who's watch you're channel since 2014 I have to idea where to start looking. My question is how/what do you hook your drum mics up. I'm assuming an 8 channel pre amp, but you know what they say about assuming.
I'm completely new on how to record live drums, as is the rest of my band, and we really prefer live drums instead of samples. And yes I am the bassist.
I mixed a live recording where the live engineer placed the snare mic just behind the hi-hat stand. When the drummer hit the hi-hat pedal, the stand would move backward and tap the boom the snare mic was on. That took a LONG time to edit out! (I think that live guy was a semi-evolved simian, himself -- it's not hard to sneak a boom stand in away from things that might move.)
My friend just got a drum kit recently so with us be 2 guitarists, this is a great video to start out and learn with. Thanks Glenn!
For the first time I've got mad at something Glenn said in a video, and just ten seconds in.
I forgot it was Monday.
As a drummer, I agree with all your point, but... not the rimshots. At least not 100%.
Like you said, if the drum setting and mic positions are good, then there is no need for the (sometimes rather annoying) rimshot sound. I don't remember, from which VHS video of which drummer I picked it up, but it made sense. Therefore, I play rimshots live and at practice, but avoid it at recordings.
Actually, I would be great if you could demonstrate it, not focusing too much on the loundness, but also the sound of the snare with and without rimshot.
So I dabble in all kinds of music, and I have to say you’re awesome for posting that free course. I’ve been playing music all my life but I’m new to recording and it’s INTIMIDATING. It can really make you feel like an inadequate musician haha.
...as a drummer, this was very satisfying!
Oh, and I was/am guilty of doing SOME of the dumb-fuck shit he mentioned. And instead of whining, I want to do better!
Great video. I already do a lot of these, but after 43 years of playing, I've finally figured it out. #7, hitting the drum with authority is a technique thing. You can bash your drums and they'll sound like ass if you don't know how to pull the sound out of the drum. #8, I use 13" hats as much as I can. Sound guys love how easy those are to mix over my 14" hats. #13...NEVER FIX IT IN THE MIX! Garbage in, garbage out.
Great list…I was a singer in a band for about 8years but was a drummer for many years before that. We ended up in a pretty big studio and they recorded the drums and bass to 2 inch tape…I ended up having to play drums because I was always focused on timing and fundamentals when I was coming up…the drummer was actually pretty pissed and ended up quitting. I played drums on most of that album, until we found a drummer who came up the same way and focused on skill rather than trying to play fast etc…I actually suggested he re-record my parts but we ended up only having time to do this on a couple songs. The producer told me I was pretty well in time cause they had to replace a few errant snare his and I was locked in (even without a click)…a little bit of professionalism over trying to be flashy goes a long way!
I uhh...I don't know about that whole "you have to have the toms parallel to the ground" thing. I find it extremely rare when a drummer doesn't have their toms angled towards them. Extremely uncomfortable to play them like a marching band.
SIDEBAR: hanging your toms vertically is also a great way to wear out the heads, because you're pushing the acorn straight into the head, leaving the dimples you were speaking of earlier.
If you have an ambidextrous drummer, try asking them to put the high hat on the opposite side of the kit from the snare. It'll bleed into less used mics and (depending on panning) gives a different soundstage to everyone else
drummer : *counts in about 150bpm, and proceeds to play 225bpm blast beat without telling anyone that the song is being in triplet feel*
13:53 - Yes, this would make a great episode! Important for all members of the band to be aware of the different changes going on in their work. Learn the possibilities those types of changes have when creating music. Learn how to identify/work with them, regardless of instrument. That's key knowledge for anyone who wants to be a musical bad ass, so to speak. Keep spreading the good word, Glenn!
I don't know what I don't know so vids like these are invaluable, thanks Glenn! Used to be a gamer term for someone who just stops learning because they think they know it all even though they've barely scratched the surface. Scrub. The "I play for fun" person that'll wear the armour that looks good instead of statting up for the team, for eg.
17 minutes of truth about drummers… you sir earned yourself a subscriber.
As tracking my own drums, I map everything out with my guitar player making the click tracks. I then run practice takes as many times as I feel I have to but roll each time to audit and in case I get a lucky shot that sounds stellar the way I want it to sound before it hits a mix engineer.
I love your vids Glen, been drumming and recording drums for 20 plus years, all this stuff is right on. I bet you would love recording my setup. Even if you thought my playing was crap, kit would sound good.
Where the hell have you been all my life??? Now I can't stop watching your fucking amazing videos!!! I'm pretty sure I'll learn a thing or two from each one of your videos. You're a great and awesome addition to the RUclipsrs I follow in my quest for empirical music ed. Love your in-your-face tell-it-like-it-is approach.
Glenn's "good morning" gives me Vietnam flashbacks
Thanks for the shout out to Simon Phillips. I think he’s the GOAT. He’s also an excellent recording engineer. Turns out he asked questions in all those sessions he did in the 70’s and 80’s.
As a drummer, i am offended by how enjoyable and accurate this video is…
Soooo true especially the comment about "If we were still recording to tape most drummers would.....". BIG difference between live and studio.
Its probably true for the other musicians as well, its to easy to cheat these days, autotune, copy paste etc. If you record to tape (and i have) you have to be able to play everything and if you make mistakes then you have to re-record or punch in destructively and if you miss that punch in (or if the punch in doest sound good) then you have to punch in at an earlier point. That said, i think its great with most of the new possibilities (except for autotune), but dont use it as a crutch for not being able to play.
This is gold. I hope people really listen, but I doubt it. They'll cry and get offended rather than take good advice.
10:16 on top of sounding nicer, this technique is also benefecial if you don't wanna crack every cymbal on your kit
Lol, I'm glad I found this channel. There is some great advice, even for the guy who is a newb to recording, and still holding the bong.
Hell yea! I've been looking forward to this one!
For me, the first time recording drums in studio was a very humbling experience. I'm not some kind of pretentious asshole and back then I didn't even had that much experience, but it makes me realize how many thing I was doing wrong.
It was just one afternoon in the studio and I learned more than in any other place.
I often write riffs in my head while doing chores. If a goodn hits me ill run to my guitar and jam a lil. If it's really hitting me ill run to mixcraft and hit record. It's then that I'll go "huh... really? It's in 3/4 130bpm?" Ok!
Practice your own shit! It's crazy what you learn from yourself