Recording Drums: Tool sound

Hi all.

I am recording some drums for original music and I am looking to people here for help. I love the sound of Danny Carey's drums, especially on the newest 10,000 Days CD. Does anyone know what he does to get that sound? Toms in particular. I believe he flips his snares on and off for different parts of songs or he has a separate snare with snares turned off. I'll ook at his website to see if I can figure it out.

Also, can any drummers point out some neat tricks when recording drums? I don't have the most expensive equipment though all my drums will be mic'd.

Thanks!

Hi!

You may have to resign yourself to the fact that Danny Carey has a whole hell of a lot more money than you will ever have to do whatever he wants with his drums.  Tool spent a lot of money producing 10,000 days and most of it went to some silly and unnecessary recording techniques.

Apart from that, MarkOne's micking advice is pretty good.  If you want a good sound, invest in a good drum mic set.

Jay440 wrote: GoldenSpiral wrote: If you want a good sound, invest in a good drum mic set. Then after that, heavily experiment with the placement of the mics.Two overheads for the Cymbals will suffice, at least for the meantime.For the Hi-Hats, make sure that the mic isn't pointed at the area where the two hats meet when you close them.....the rush of air that comes out can damage the diaphragm of your mic, or at least be really audible, which you don't want.How many channels do you have on your mixer, and/or how many tracks are you able to record at once?It may be worthwhile, if you can afford it, to set mics close to the drums, and then have another set of mics getting the sound from various distances, catching the resonance of the room that you're recording in.Experimenting with combinations of close and distant-miked drums can give some interesting results.Just remember, a good drum sound starts with the Drums themselves and how you have them tuned.

I will need to get some decent mic stands then. Right now I have just the drum clips. I have one stand for the a mic that combines the snare and the HH. This may not be the best choice.

I like a somewhat dead sound on the toms, so I use the Remo Pin Strip coupled with some ring deadeners which are merely rings of drum head material. The foam rings are overkill.

I tune my toms such that the resonance does not change in tone. I cringe when I hear other drummers during sound checks hit the tom and the tone changes. You may know what I mean.

I have access to a 24 channel mixer. This is more channels than I need as I have a 7 piece kit, but I will not be able to individually mix more than two tracks, thus the mix has to be right at the board level. This can be a serious set back.

I like the idea of room mics as an addition. It could prove to be an interesting additional natural effect.

Speaking of effects, depending on the style of the song, I like a touch of reverb if I'm not going for the "I'm on top of you" sound. For some of the spacier material, I've applied some moderate guitar flange during the long tom rolls. This gives the drum sound a similar effect to Bonham during Kashmir. I've played with digital delay but frankly find it useless.