Quote:
Originally Posted by Wysh
I go way back to the days of analog when drums seemed much easier to mic. I seem to believe there was more sound integrity on my old analog drums tracks. Now that I've gone digital with all my recording gear I can't seem to get a good final product on my drum tracks. I've washed them through mixers, adjusted the high/mid/low ranges but still come up wanting. The drums either sound "flat" or have no real resonance or depth. Any suggestions on how to improve the sound quality?
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If you're going directly into your audio interface with the mics, the preamps and converters probably have a lot to do with it. Professional studios that are all digital use interfaces that are upwards of 3 grand. In most cases, the home studio enthusiast is not going to have an interface with that kind of quality.
I find that using a decent analog mixer for all the mics sounds far better than using the preamps on a budget-friendly interface. In my situation, I use a Mackie mixer, and have each microphone going through a direct output and into my audio interface (Echo Audiofire 12), which is just balanced TRS ins/outs, but it has a nice AD converter. So the Mackie takes care of the preamp part of it, and the Audiofire handles the rest.
In reality, though, all you need to do is have a separate preamp box of good quality, and if your converters on your interface are good enough, go with that. If you're still having issues, you might want an interface with known good converters, to use with your preamp box.
Also, what microphones are you using?
If you don't mind, give us an overview of your setup in its entirety.