|
Recording your own drum set for use with Acoustica Beatcraft is both simple and complex. Depending on your skill level and how much work you put into it.
We will start with the outline and how I did it with our drummers set, followed by detailed instructions.
-
Take the kit apart so you have each instrument (each drum, cymbal, wood block, etc is an instrument) separated from the rest of the kit.
-
Have your drummer (he/she is the drummer and hits the drum correctly compared to a guitar player who knows nothing about drumming) set up the first tom (smallest one) on a stand by itself. Place the mic and have him/her hit the drum.
-
Do this for each instrument and save each wav file (not mp3 or ogg yet) into a directory of your choice.
-
Once they are all recorded the work begins.
Detailed Instructions
-
Set up an instrument on a stand by itself, it is preferable to start with the smallest rack tom because of level and eq ease of use.
-
Use a sure SM57 or comparable unidirectional mic and place it over the top of the head, pointing almost directly down at the head. See example mic plaement HERE.
-
Use an XLR mic cable to connect to your computers sound card line in jack, you will need an adapter or two to convert from XLR to 1/8 inch. These can be found at any Radio Shack or other store that sells electronics.
-
Open Mp3 Audio Mixer (You can use Mixcraft or even windows sound recorder, but I find it much easier to use Mp3 Audio Mixer), set the input to "line in", and have your drummer hit the drum a few times so you can adjust the level. Not too low or you will get hiss and a weak signal, not too high or you will get distortion.
-
Once the level is set, click record and have your drummer hit the drum 3 times at 3 second intervals. This will give you 3 different hits to choose from. Pick the one that sounds best to you. Remember that you are recording flat (No EQ) and it will sound bad at this point, that's ok.
-
-
Now you should have one hit sitting in Audio Mixer, you will want to cut the silence off the front of the file so the hit occurs immediately when played. If you do not do this, it will play like a late hit or off time within Beatcraft.
-
To cut the silence off as close as possible, drag the file to the very start of the track then zoom in VERY close, you will see where the sound starts, trim the front to that point. See before and after screen shot HERE.
-
Do the same for the end of the hit, cut off any excess ringing the drum has so you end up with a very quick hit, you don't want the hit and 2 seconds of ring afterwards.
-
Save the sound as a wav file into a directory named after your kit. IE: John's Drum Kit
-
Repeat this process for each instrument on the kit, naming the files something recognizable like; Tom1, Tom2, Tom3, Floor Tom, Snare, 14inch Crash, 16Inch crash, Ride, china, Kick, etc.
-
Mic placement is the same for all toms, but for snare and cymbals it will be different.
-
Snare mic placement HERE - Cymbals mic placement HERE - Hi Hat mic placement HERE
-
For the ride, you want to capture the "bell", not the crash it might have. Have your drummer hit the ride cymbal directly on the bell, let it ring out a bit before cutting the end of the file.
-
Once all sounds are recorded, trimmed and saved, it's time to EQ them just a little to remove "bad" frequencies.
-
For this I use Mixcraft with the Acoustica EQ in combination with the NyQuistEQ plug-in found HERE.
Equalizing your sounds before use in Beatcraft
-
-
Uncheck the Nyquist EQ for now so it is not active.
-
Use the Acoustica EQ to tweak the drum sound, try to remove any bad frequencies you might hear, like maybe a low hum or a cardboard box sound. Typically, to get a decent, warm Tom sound, EQ them all in THIS fashion.
-
Now, once you are fairly happy with the sound (we will be equalizing again later within Beatcraft so it doesn't need to be perfect yet), activate the NyquistEQ, this is a 5 band parametric, these are made specifically for getting out exact frequencies that are not easily worked with on a graphic EQ.
-
you will notice 3 dots per band within this EQ, each dot is the color of it's corresponding band. Band one might be green, so you have three green dots. Band two might be blue so you have three blue dots. The easiest way to use this EQ is to pull band one all the way down to the bottom and then bring the other two dots of the same color as close together as you can get them. Screen What this does is isolate the frequency that the lower dot is set to. That way it ONLY effects
that frequency and not ANY others around it, unlike a graphic EQ which pulls multiple frequencies up and down with one slider.
-
Now, play the drum in a loop and slide that bottom dot back and forth slowly until you find that one bad frequency that you were not able to pull out with the Acoustica graphic EQ.
-
You have 4 more bands to do this with in case there are more bad frequencies. Screen
-
Play with it until you get a good tone out of the drum and then save the drum sound as a high quality mp3 or ogg file into the "john's drum kit" folder.
-
Do this with all the Toms, then the kick drum.
-
Kick drums are equalized about the same as toms, so just use the above eq settings, but you might want to use the parametric EQ to add some 20 or 30Hz to give the kick that real low " thump".
-
Also, all toms and kick need some kind of "attack", which is high end, they need some snap to them. This is typically in the 2k to 8k range.
-
If you do not add this "attack" frequencies, your drums will sound garbled, muffled and undefined like an old 50's-60's recording. Especially if there are fast rolls involved in the songs you do.
-
Equalizing the snare is just about the opposite, you want the mid-low, mid and mid-high, kill the lows and highs. Example shot HERE
-
Again, use the parametric after general equalizing with the graphic!
-
Cymbals are fairly similar to the snare, completely pull out any lows from 32 to 125 on the graphic, also kill the 16k. Cymbals don't produce sounds this low or high, and if they do, it is usually a stick hit sound or mic overload you are hearing. Cymbals should be mostly high-mid. See Eq shot HERE
-
Hi Hat is the same as cymbals as far as equalization, but you might want to kill even more of the lows, listen to your favorite band's hi hat sound, it is usually a high end constant. EQ shot HERE
-
Ride cymbal is equalized similar to the snare, you want the mid to highlight that "bell" sound, not the lows and not the highs. EQ shot HERE
-
Once the sounds are all saved into "johns drum kit" folder, open Beatcraft, at the intro screen name your project anything you like and set it for "No Kit".
-
Double click instrument placeholder one (track one is what it looks like), browse to your folder and choose kick.
-
Do the same for the rest of the instruments in the kit until your whole kit is now displayed in Beatcraft.
-
Save the kit as John's Drum Kit or whatever you want.
-
See the flash tutorial HERE
-
You can then further EQ and add reverb or whatever effect you want and start creating your beats/songs.
Trimming Silence From Your Sounds - Flash Tutorial
Questions about this procedure, Contact Me Here
Or post your questions, comments or experiences in the Forum, I check it many times per day.
|
