andrea,

making a bad drummer sound good is nearly impossible. i think everybody on this board has probably had to deal with it...its very frustrating.

i once recorded a friends band who were going for this very heavy jesus lizard like sound, the bass was heavy, the guitars were great, the vocals great and then the drummer was a tapper...

tappa tappa tappa

it sounded terrible. it really kills me when musicians do not play aesthetically...if you're going for the big as hell sound, you cant be tapping away!

if you're going for a smooth groove, you cant be trying to pull off some crazy ass fill that throws off the beat ... etc. etc.

in any case, one method i might use is after recording a few takes, play it back to both the drummer and his bandmates...if it sounds as bad as you think, you can try and show him some problem areas --- it is also probable that his bandmates will get on him and hopefully somehow inspire him to provide something useful...

andyk

troubles123 wrote:hi all

so my question is easy: is there a "technical" way to correct those problems?

assuming that in a 5 days session is almost impossible to make a bad drummer become a good one. I try sometimes, when it seems possible, to give him some advices about the way to beat and so on, but it rarely works.

help me

thank you
andrea

troubles123 wrote:
I want to know if there's a way (compression? gating? mic placement? drum tuning? gun on the head?) to improve a take of this kind.

thank you
andrea

I find that pistol-whipping the drummer with a 57 works great for this.

Ari

Improving the drummer's confidence could help the situation. I've certainly worked with bands where the drummer couldn't play consistently or was the 'Animal beat drums' player. Usually those drummers also come in with a drum set where the heads haven't been replaced in several decades. I can't polish a turd but I can make the smell a little less pungent. I'll convince the drummer to get new heads or use some different drums I have laying around. I find that if I get a marginal drummer behind a good drum set tuned to the room with good drumheads they play a whole lot better. It might not be perfect but if the recording tones sound good and the tempo is a little sloppy some different things will happen: the band will return with a different drummer, the drummer will go home with the recording and naturally know the parts better and subconsciously become better at playing the songs thus re-recording at a later time.

If the drummer is playing with headphones on try messing with them a little bit so they're fighting a bit with what they hear and how they're playing.

If you have to, compress the living crap out of the kick and snare. Saturate the kick and snare mic gain a bit so it compresses to tape (if you are using a tape format).

Most musicians don't like to hear from anybody that they need to change something or try it again for the 100th time (carefully choose your constructive criticisms). But yet again usually musicians are more receptive to what the engineer has to say than the other members of the group so you have to play a little psychology when addressing situations like this. I don't like to gang up on a drummer, or who have you, but a gentle approach making them feel comfortable and having options helps their morale. I find that if the tones are set they'll listen back and say, "wow that sounds great, now all I have to do is tighten it up a bit".

If I'm doing an 'assembly line' recording I'll make sure that the bass and guitar slop tracks are half-way decent tonally just to give everyone, especially the weaker musician, a better perspective on what's happening and how it all fits together.

It's about building confidence, not fixing it in the mix, or settling for second best. If you want, demo what they do first and cut them a deal on another session a month or two later. You'll be surprised how much better their performance becomes after they listen to something better than a boom-box practice session.

--Adam Lazlo

so perhaps i will offer some alternative info... who knows

bad drumming is not possible to fix. FACT. it's like a bad singer. you can throw the autotune at it, and all the 'tube' gear etc etc, and no matter how many people think it's normal, what you end up with is ultimately flawed, flase and corrupt. you can pollish a turd until it shines like jesus, but it will always in fact be the indian meal you half-digested yesterday. catch my drift?

there's another side to this coin however, i have a few problems with certain methods used in drum recording in general...

eg: i have a friend who thinks that 'producing' drums is all about recording the sound (which i must say always sounds pretty cheap) and then replacing the kick and snare, and then beat-detectiving (i know it's not a real word) the shit out of it until it sounds like the midi guide part he already created. so what's the point? you basically end up with a 'real' overhead sound. it's removes all performance out of it, which is funny, since when i get booked, it's because he wants some 'real performance feel'.

you've gotta have standards, because it's all coming apart at the seams now, and you'll go down with a sinking ship if you don't raise the bar a little. i don't work on my drumming for hours a day so that some f**k can go quantize my playing with his 'variable-swing' computer program.


amen

most bands aren't good. Unless there's a big hastle with a record label or something, I would record them the best i could. You're not going to improve a drummer's performance.
Unless you get involved in digital editing. Which pretty much replaces most levels of skill.

Sounds professional, dude.

Jerm Snyder wrote:(mic it good, maybe throughsome pre's)

Maybe...

Jerm Snyder wrote:(mic it good, maybe throughsome pre's)

This may be the dumbest series of words I have ever seen.