Gig vs studio - technique differences?

[electrizer]

I have a studio In my basement with pro level gear..IE Neuman, AKG, Senheisser mics, with hi end preamps ect..

From a perspective of someone who records albums that I play on the dynamics count regarding cymbals ect....
A great deal has to do with the smaller room I'm in. 30 by 15 with a 6 ft 3 ceiling... It's heavily treated and I rebuild the room sound after...

Most of the heavy duty outboard gear, plugins and sample libraries were developed to deal with garbage sounds or lack of ability on a musicians instrument. Like pitch correction, reamping guitars, Melodyne, or Slate Drum samples ect.

If you want to spend a ton on that or succumb to a "God Complexing" engineer who will resample you drum sound ect.. That's one way to go..

However,... realizing what you sound like in any given room using your ears rather than strict muscle memory will help when you want to sound great in any room.

The development process of most of us is playing in small rooms. Either slowly going deaf from the volume and developing muscle memory that way

Or ,wearing hearing protection and developing muscle memory with a 15 to 30 db reduction in what we are producing..
(Mostly reducing in the mids and highs)

So if we heard back a full range mono or stereo mic either behind the right ear or in front of the kit, Things would most likely be alot different than what we thought was happening...


Top level recording studios jobs are to eliminate that difference while you are recording so it feels awesome while tracking,..
Top Level studio musicians jobs are to make it easy for an engineer/producer to get levels that are consistent and don't need any EQ, Compressions or Effects when tracking...

That's why there are people that get payed hundreds do there job and there are others that get payed thousands..

Very interesting, thanks Chris! So again, what is that mic behind and in front of the kit supposed to tell u? Is there any particular positioning I should focus on?

[Jim Richman]

A headphone mix can make or break your playing. Getting a good headphone mix of your drums and the music can do wonders for your playing. Turning up the overheads will let you hear your dynamics better and you can adjust accordingly. If your drums are hot in the mix, play quieter. But when the drums are not in the mix, you will play louder, and your tone will suffer. I move cymbals around to adjust for phasing.

I like Hihat cymbals that are thin and dry. I use my special dry customs. They do not go crazy in the other mikes, and you can actually turn them up in the mix. You can do a lot with EQ and compression to get a sizzley hihat sound with them as well.

[Josiah]

Honestly I just go in and play. Might change a snare, hats or ride to grab a particular sound. But otherwise I just swing for the fences

Now if it's a commercial gig, that's a whole different story. You show up with 12 snares, grips of cymbals, drums etc and are trying to work with the production team on what sounds they are trying to achieve.

[chris perra]

The Mono mic idea is to see if you sound balanced and self mixed..

Can you hear all the drums and cymbals evenly? Is something jumping out too much? Or is something buried.
In front of the kit is more of a perspective pertaining to live performance.. What the audience hears.. Behind the ear is more of what recordings will sound like..

You can do tons with mic placement, plug ins ect, but the closer you can get not using that stuff the better... A cool thing to do is use this mic technique..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiFOD1EeKhQ

See how close you can get to an even sound... then use the other mics to supplement the drum sound..

That's if you are going for a natural drum sound.