Advice for Building a Mismatched Studio Drum Kit
Posted: Tue Aug 22, 2023 6:41 am
Hey all.
Obviously this is a guitar forum, but other forums are weird and foreign to me and so are drummers, so I thought I'd ask here first.
Maybe I can make this into a fun thought experiment for you in the same vein as "gear minimalism", then I can glean good advice from those who know more than me.
Background (totally skippable):
So, after about 8 years of trying to do things with electronic drums- either home made analog synth drums or cheesy found PCM sounds, I think for a new project I want the real article again. I recorded a song in 2021 using a floor tom, a muffled snare and a stamped hi-hat, and it was just...better. It was so much easier to work with in the mix. I didn't need to EQ anything to death, the subs were plentiful as was the snare punch, the hats were crispy.
I spend so much time while mixing, just getting whatever sample set I've concocted to just function. And aesthetically, it never really worked with the sound I was after because I was trying to get them to sound and behave like real drums which totally defeated the purpose of this fun gimmick I was trying. Live and learn I guess.
However, last year, short of space and on a noise budget, I sold my drum kit. It wasn't anything special. An entry level Pearl 5 piece and a motley assortment of broken hardware and crack cymbals. So, I starting over from absolute scratch.
Parameters:
Minimalist: Really, it comes down to the big 4. Something that's a snare, a kick, and a hi hat, and a ride/crash. Big drum, little drum. Big cymbal, little cymbal.
Next on the list are the toms. I like lower, closer pitched toms. The most I'd ever have is two, and I could likely do with just one. Just a third color for accents in the beat.
Relatively Quiet: I'm never ever going to play the opening to Hero by Foo Fighters. In fact, I'll never play a Dave Grohl beat of any kind. This is a studio set for recording that will never have to compete with other instrumentation. Small kicks are on the table.
Relatively Small: Still have that space budget.
Tone/Sound: This is gonna be indie-rock. It's either gonna be janky room mic sound, or dynamic up-the-ass deadened close mic sound (or both). There's gonna be a DIY scrappiness to whatever I record with this set. This will never need to sound immaculate or like a pop-punk record. It just needs to be "the drums" on an indie rock, freak folk, alt country, art rock type song.
Money Budget: is tight. Sub $1000. Hopefully less. And that's for everything. The shells, and the hardware, and the pedals and the cymbals. The whole deal. I understand that you often get what you pay for, and maybe I simply lack the aural training to really hear what is and isn't there with any particular percussion piece. I also know that drums get absolutely mangled in mixing and the same snare can be made to be at home in 80's mega pop, techno, pop punk simply through EQ and compression.
What I'm hoping for from this:
I understand that the world of percussion is enormously complicated probably with even more variables to tone than guitar. This is where my drum knowledge falls flat (and where you hopefully come in). Maple, birch, acrylic? No idea. 1-ply, 3-ply, 5-ply? Nope. Flanges? nuh-uh. The only thing I sort of remember is heads, and preferring coated Evans for their less "Hot For Teacher" intro sound.
If you want to go whole hog and have a fun time "building" a sub 1k set, please, that would give so much insight.
But I'm especially hoping for two kinds of tips:
1. Shure-57 type tips. Things that are cheap, even brand new. They may be limited in their abilities, but it's broadly believed that they're a totally respectable choice, and frankly, if we got over ourselves, they're all we really need anyway.
2. Vintage Guild Acoustic type tips. Things that are really really good, pretty commonly available (if you wait for one to come up), and confoundingly undervalued compared to other similar things.
A note about mixing and matching- Like I said, this will be a studio kit that's never seen by anyone, and further, I'm not an initiated drum snob. If you think a piccolo snare from a ska kit is the right move, cool. If a steel shelled thrash metal tom would work, I don't care. If you think that the Quest Love kit would work perfect, awesome.
Thanks very much if you chime in here. I'm not expecting this crowd to have too many drum brainiacs, or that any such brainiacs feel like taking the time to respond. I'm kind of hoping to trick you into helping me by making this a fun thought experiment.
Obviously this is a guitar forum, but other forums are weird and foreign to me and so are drummers, so I thought I'd ask here first.
Maybe I can make this into a fun thought experiment for you in the same vein as "gear minimalism", then I can glean good advice from those who know more than me.
Background (totally skippable):
So, after about 8 years of trying to do things with electronic drums- either home made analog synth drums or cheesy found PCM sounds, I think for a new project I want the real article again. I recorded a song in 2021 using a floor tom, a muffled snare and a stamped hi-hat, and it was just...better. It was so much easier to work with in the mix. I didn't need to EQ anything to death, the subs were plentiful as was the snare punch, the hats were crispy.
I spend so much time while mixing, just getting whatever sample set I've concocted to just function. And aesthetically, it never really worked with the sound I was after because I was trying to get them to sound and behave like real drums which totally defeated the purpose of this fun gimmick I was trying. Live and learn I guess.
However, last year, short of space and on a noise budget, I sold my drum kit. It wasn't anything special. An entry level Pearl 5 piece and a motley assortment of broken hardware and crack cymbals. So, I starting over from absolute scratch.
Parameters:
Minimalist: Really, it comes down to the big 4. Something that's a snare, a kick, and a hi hat, and a ride/crash. Big drum, little drum. Big cymbal, little cymbal.
Next on the list are the toms. I like lower, closer pitched toms. The most I'd ever have is two, and I could likely do with just one. Just a third color for accents in the beat.
Relatively Quiet: I'm never ever going to play the opening to Hero by Foo Fighters. In fact, I'll never play a Dave Grohl beat of any kind. This is a studio set for recording that will never have to compete with other instrumentation. Small kicks are on the table.
Relatively Small: Still have that space budget.
Tone/Sound: This is gonna be indie-rock. It's either gonna be janky room mic sound, or dynamic up-the-ass deadened close mic sound (or both). There's gonna be a DIY scrappiness to whatever I record with this set. This will never need to sound immaculate or like a pop-punk record. It just needs to be "the drums" on an indie rock, freak folk, alt country, art rock type song.
Money Budget: is tight. Sub $1000. Hopefully less. And that's for everything. The shells, and the hardware, and the pedals and the cymbals. The whole deal. I understand that you often get what you pay for, and maybe I simply lack the aural training to really hear what is and isn't there with any particular percussion piece. I also know that drums get absolutely mangled in mixing and the same snare can be made to be at home in 80's mega pop, techno, pop punk simply through EQ and compression.
What I'm hoping for from this:
I understand that the world of percussion is enormously complicated probably with even more variables to tone than guitar. This is where my drum knowledge falls flat (and where you hopefully come in). Maple, birch, acrylic? No idea. 1-ply, 3-ply, 5-ply? Nope. Flanges? nuh-uh. The only thing I sort of remember is heads, and preferring coated Evans for their less "Hot For Teacher" intro sound.
If you want to go whole hog and have a fun time "building" a sub 1k set, please, that would give so much insight.
But I'm especially hoping for two kinds of tips:
1. Shure-57 type tips. Things that are cheap, even brand new. They may be limited in their abilities, but it's broadly believed that they're a totally respectable choice, and frankly, if we got over ourselves, they're all we really need anyway.
2. Vintage Guild Acoustic type tips. Things that are really really good, pretty commonly available (if you wait for one to come up), and confoundingly undervalued compared to other similar things.
A note about mixing and matching- Like I said, this will be a studio kit that's never seen by anyone, and further, I'm not an initiated drum snob. If you think a piccolo snare from a ska kit is the right move, cool. If a steel shelled thrash metal tom would work, I don't care. If you think that the Quest Love kit would work perfect, awesome.
Thanks very much if you chime in here. I'm not expecting this crowd to have too many drum brainiacs, or that any such brainiacs feel like taking the time to respond. I'm kind of hoping to trick you into helping me by making this a fun thought experiment.