?I just finished day 2 of a grueling weekend. We tracked drums, bass, and guitar for 4 songs. Some technical difficulties held us back and the band was being quite anal about their performances. Even though I wasn't producing this one, the amount of time spent wasn't far off from the time I would spend producing 4 songs with a band.

I noticed when we were tracking guitars that the drums sounds were DRAMATICALLY different from song to song. Interestingly enough, I used the same mics, the same pres, etc for the entire recording but the drums are nowhere near the same. Let's talk about why!

How Do The Drums Sound In The Room?

It's easy to forget how a drum sounded 5 hours earlier when your ears are fried. Because of this, there is a strong likelihood that the drums don't sound anything remotely close to what they did when I set up the microphones.

Because I had recorded this drummer before (he knew he was supposed to destroy the snare), I was able to get a really solid drum sound (as solid as you can get in a boxy room) with a kick mic and 2 overheads (which are actually about shoulder height and on either side of the drummer facing the snare drum. I went ahead and mic'd up snare top and all three toms just to have in case I needed them, but I wasn't sure if I would or not.

Because 99% of the sound of the drums came from the overheads and kick drum, it was easy to hear that the drums had changed a huge amount in their tone in the room. The overheads are several feet from the drums, so they paint a very accurate view of how the drums sound in the room.

It was frightening to hear just how much crack the snare had in one song but not in the others. In fact, on some of the others, the snare is horrendously dull!

What Makes A Snare Tone Change?

There are really only two things that can make a snare tone change. The most important is the drummer beating on that snare drum. How hard he hits the drum makes a dramatic difference in tone. If you found that your snares sound dull compared to major label snare drums, it's probably because the drummer isn't hitting the drum hard enough.

Another strong possibility is the tuning of the snare. On the big boy sessions I've hung out on, they will retune a snare drum after nearly every single take. It's quite a amazing really. Drum tuning is about as precise as guitar tuning is.

What I Should Have Done

My gut was telling me that there were some issues with the snare sound at the end of the day even though I wasn't 100% sure I believed my gut. To further complicate matters the drummer and guitar player got into a yelling match and the drummer threatened to walk out. I didn't want to impose the “Oh yeah! Your snare sounds terrible, too!” trick on him at that point.

Either way, I probably should have suggested that he retune his snare, at least. I have a feeling that would have gotten our drum sounds back to where they were (which wasn't that good anyway simply because the room).