Let's talk (budget) home recording setups!

[sejuba]

Dude, buy second hand from a reliable seller.

Start from the basics. Does your room sound like shit ? If it does, treating it first is the wisest investment to make, if you want to get good sounds.
I wouldn't use towels, or rugs for that matter. Bass Traps are SO EASY TO MAKE and very INEXPENSIVE. They will do WONDERS for the room if you use the right amount
and place them properly. (Usually in between walls). I MUCH prefer a very small room to be totally dead than live.

Another thing: start slowly... get two mics (overhead and kick). Ok, maybe three, for stereo pair on overheads) and work your way from there.
Sit me with someone who can show you how to apply compression and eq to the drumkit in a recording enviroment.

I won't recommend mics because the folks around here have given you a lot of great ideas already. Instead, try to borrow some and find those you like best. Hell, Peter Erskine
says he likes SM57's on toms....its all very subjective.

Ok, I said i wasn't going to recommend mics, but I can't help but to point you into this company: http://www.oktavamod.com/
boutique sounding mics for a fraction of the price. I own some and find them to be super nice !

take care

[LADanny]

Hey Steve,

knowing how your drums sound and how you play, you will be shocked and pleased at the results with four mics: kick, snare, overhead center, overhead by right shoulder. Also, it's just like everything in that each component in the chain is going to have an impact in the quality of the sound, from the mics to the mic pre's, to the room, and of course the sound of your kit.

With your budget, you SHOULD be able to get a decent 8 ch. interface and 4 mics, but will be a little over $1,000, but with great results. Something like this would work great:

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/FastTrackU8R/

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/DP7/

This will allow you to totally geek out and tweak until you're blue in the face. Plus, it will allow you to get a simple 4 mic setup for quick and dirty recordings with GREAT results. Yes, you can hand-pick each mic if you like, but this package is quite good and a great place to start.

Let me know if you need some help.

Danny

[LADanny]

For hand-picked mics, these would be some great choices:

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/KSM137ST/

We use one of these on Erskine's snare at his place. Fantastic for overhead as well.

THE standard kick mic:

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/Beta52/

THE standard snare mic:

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/SM57/

Thanks
Danny

[markie04drum]

As for cables, Go to http://monoprice.com/ . Good stuff and a huge saving. I have used their XLR, 1/4", and firewire cables for the past year and have had no problems. A friend recommended them, and initially I put in a small order just in case they were no good. Turned out to be quality and I put in a much bigger order a couple of months later.

Cables. Not the biggest expense, but I saved a couple hundred that way

[Steve Holmes]

Hi guys -
Thanks again for taking the time with the responses. I made some purchases today, went a little over budget but I was expecting that. In the end I got more than I needed but after some tinkering everything was working as intended. I filmed and recorded a test clip I'm going to put together right now, then tell you all about it. I figure part of the payoff of typing responses is seeing what happened right? I ended up with the Presonus 1818, and a mic pack for drums. Worked perfectly, stay tuned for possible footage (if it's not horrible).

[chris perra]

Hi guys -
Thanks again for taking the time with the responses. I made some purchases today, went a little over budget but I was expecting that. In the end I got more than I needed but after some tinkering everything was working as intended. I filmed and recorded a test clip I'm going to put together right now, then tell you all about it. I figure part of the payoff of typing responses is seeing what happened right? I ended up with the Presonus 1818, and a mic pack for drums. Worked perfectly, stay tuned for possible footage (if it's not horrible).

Cool.. Nice to see you went all the way..The kicker sometimes is the cables and mic stands..
Did you find any sound treatment?

[kinkymook]

Exciting stuff, Steve! Can't wait to see and hear it!

[Steve Holmes]

Video is rendering / uploading.
The Presonus came with recording software but I wanted to try and get something with Garageband real quick. I'm on a macbook air - no dvd-drive. So I drive to a close starbucks, I don't even get out of the car. Logon on to the wireless and go to Presonus' website and download the latest Mac drivers. Installed them in the car, viola. Problem solved.

The bass drum mic stand had a weird issue. The threads for screwing in the mic had another cylinder set of threads screwed in for a narrower screw, so the BD mic wouldn't screw in! Took a chance on some guys practicing down the hall - they had a screwdriver and we got it out. Viola - Problem solved.

So first per the recommendations I set up only overheads, kick and snare. Plug the Presonus into the macbook air and Garageband instantly sees all 8 inputs from it, so I setup some tracks to use those inputs as mono sources. Hit some drums, turn some knobs, get some levels using the headphone jack of all things and some shitty headphones. I'm already amazed it's working. I record a quick thing that I saved (first_ever.mp3) so now I'm happy. I mess with it some more.
Posting and continuing to type...

[Steve Holmes]

After I got the gist of the overheads and snare/kick, I threw on the tom mics. Dave Elicht stopped by and between the two of us we couldn't figure out how the mics screwed into the tom mounts. After a bit I figured it out but they don't make it easy. There's no manual for that. Viola, problem solved.
Keep in mind I'm doing this for education and for YT vids (for now), so my standards are there. I'm not putting out a record or anything at this point. I know there's a lot to learn in terms of mic placement and configuration, etc.
I did a quick mix when I got home just now, messed with reverb and compression until I got a sound I liked. There's some clipping here and there, I can already hear changes I wanna make to overhead placement, I'm working on it.
Imported the video, imported the AIFF (shared from my mac to the pc) and quickly lined them up in Premiere. Works perfect.
After all this I really have to say between the internet information available, the fact that shit works so well is extremely impressive to me. I can't get over the resources folks have nowadays, but I do like that no matter how much tech polish you put on something, the level of playing is still key.

Video link will be up shortly. Please don't pass this video around, it's just me messin around.

[Steve Holmes]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7udDizSKpA if you wanna watch the HD version (better audio)