For the recording I use GarageBand on a MacBook White, although it would normally be dismissed I would like to investigate using the inbuilt microphone as a sort of overhead mic or room mic which essentially will record the whole kit with an emphasis on cymbals. I find the technique is to investigate round a space to find the best sound. Your results may vary significantly as at the moment of writing all of my methods are theoretical as in I have not fully tried them myself. Once you have found a good spot you should essentially get a decent recording of the drums. As I said previously I am no sound engineer so jsut investigate the best you can and if you have other methods use them.

As do normal bands my band contains a vocalist and I because I like to think outside the box I plan to use his microphone for the recording of drums. He uses a dynamic mic – I’m no expert but my initial thought would be to use it on the snare as it is an essential part of the final mix. If the snare is mic’ed I will have to run it through some form of preamp. As a band oddly we don’t have a preamp but I found a solution – using my old DigiTech RP200 pedals on a clean tone then sent through to GarageBand using the UCA202 interface.

I noticed after creating the diagram the laptop position is off putting. Clearly you wouldn’t put it on one side of the kit and secondly it would be inpractical to put it up high, except in my case where there is a high wardrobe nearby. Anyway all said find the place you feel is suitable – have it to the right of the kit if it works for you.

As it stands I have not had a chance to try these methods but plan to in the near future. I use this blog to note my ideas and share them. In later blogs I plan to investigate further MIDI options and live recording methods (which I know little about) but for know this is all i’ve got

Fortunately I am fortunate enough to own a Wii along with a number of controllers and nunchucks. Knowing that the controller uses bluetooth I searched the internet to find a Wii To MIDI Application and my results navigated me to ‘The Wii Instrument‘

The Wii Instrument allows you to utilize the controller and nunchuck as virtual drumsticks, a useful tool with the limitation of only being able to play two drums at a time. It is however useful in programming drums in a somewhat practical sense, it is also a lot easier in terms of keeping in time compared to using the on screen keyboard for example.

Although useful the drums may sound robotic and the recording will be a tedious task, not to mention the still prominent needs of a practical drummer. The solution in my eyes is to mix this Wii to MIDI protocol with real time recording.

STAGE 1 – REMOVING THE DRONING BASS DRUM

From what I have noticed the bass is what ruins the recording so if it could be removed and the rest recorded we may be left with a somewhat ‘decent’ sounding recording. All good in theory but getting this to work will require some DIY :/

METHOD 1 – Sellotape

This was the first thing I tried. Setting the controller to bass drum on the Wii Instrument  and simply sellotaping the controller to the beater of the bass drum mechanism, therefore when the drummer hits the pedal the drum is played as well as a MIDI note sent to GarageBand.

Unfortunately this method seems better on paper than it does in reality. Correct the MIDI note is sent but unfortunately the pedal is spring loaded so after it has hit the skin of the bass it swings back and fourth resulting in multiple MIDI notes being sent. Another issue is that although a MIDI message is sent the droning bass sound still exists.

METHOD 2 – An Artificial Bass Drum

This method introduces what I would call a cog system whereby instead of receiving the MIDI note with the beater it is sent on collision with the skin. The easisest way to describe this is using the diagram below:

As you can see the Wii Controller is on a different axel and therefore like two cogs meeting will move in the opposite direction. A spring it attached to smake sure it returns to its orginal position. Also note this time the beater will hit a practice drum pad, thereby making no noise. This solution is far superior to method one as theoretically the MIDI note will only be sent once on meeting the drum pad and no noise is made by the bass drum allowing you to record the rest of the kit.

As for software I have tried a number of Solutions as explained below:

• Ardour – This is nice and has a lot of potential, unfortunately I find it is more of a framework than a fully fledged DAW. (NB I think Ardour is great, just for the purposes of recording a full band simplicity would be favored)
• REAPER – Once again a great, inexpensive product but once again not as fully featured as a commercial product. It implements MIDI which is important but does not have a range of instruments for recording – this would not be an issue on a PC as there are loads of third party VSTi’s out there but for Mac the choice is more limited
• Ableton Live – This is a fully featured and ideal DAW but unfortunately comes with an expensive price tag
• Logic Express – Like Ableton it is fully featured for what I am trying to achieve but still expensive
• GarageBand – Comes free with iLife and is a well featured product,but not quite as featured as featured as Logic or Ableton Live

After trying them all looking for a perfect solution I came to the conclusion that I already have GarageBand and it has all of the features needed for the purposes of recording a full band. I would however happily upgrade to Logic Express if I felt it was relevant. Anyway back to the point. I use my MacBook, Behringer UCA202 – 2in 2out and a Monster 1/4 inch to 1/8 which along with the inbuilt microphone effectively gives me a total of 6 inputs and 4 outs.

I have no problem recording guitar, bass and to an extent vocals into GarageBand and making them sound half decent – methods I may get round to explaining in a later post. The trouble is drums.

The built in microphone is surprisingly powerful on the MacBook but when I try to record a full drum kit the bass vibrates and gives a horrible shivering growl and overall the recording sounds messy and unprofessional. I could of course go all out and buy a selection of drum microphones and a 8in 8out interface to accommodate them – but this is expensive and out of the question.

The other option is MIDI, any user of GarageBand would have at some point utilized the onscreen keyboard, and this does work in terms of creating drum patterns. Some points to note, this is made easier by cycling the region so you can overlap MIDI patterns and not replace them, this option can be set in the preferences. It is also helpful using a MIDI device using a keyboard.

I am not a drummer myself, but I can understand the tedious task of programming MIDI sequences using a keyboard would feel pointless and the creativity would disappear from the final recording. To overcome this an electronic drum kit could be purchased, but this will be expensive – possibly more so than buying the microphones.

So, somehow I have to find a mix between live recording for the enjoyment of the drummer and making it sound professional on the final track. The answer a fusion between live recording and MIDI.