Audio Recording

Conga is a wonderful piece of percussion instrument with its very unique tribal sound. In this tutorial you will learn the methods on how to mix conga and apply EQ, panning, compression and reverb.

Analyzing the frequencies of Conga

Before formulating the conga best EQ and compression settings, you need to analyze the underlying sound characteristics of a conga sound. I do not have a conga. So I download a sample clip of conga sound here (Conga beat 2 and the last audio sample):
http://soundcli.ps/search/conga

The downloaded conga audio was an mp3 file in 11025Hz sample rate and 16-bits for the bit depth. So I did some audio upsampling to 48 KHz, 24-bits using Voxengo R8brain. See the result below for the conga musical instrument frequency analysis:

This is the raw conga sound (no effects applied):

Some interesting results:

1.) The fundamental frequency of conga can be found around 200Hz.
2.) It has some harmonics; notably at 400Hz and 700Hz.

To better analyze conga sound, you need to isolate the lower and higher frequency component of a conga. For example this is the lower frequency component:

And this is the frequency spectrum:

It confirms that the center low frequency component of a conga sound is around 200Hz.

Now let’s take a look at its higher frequency component, this is the sample MP3:

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Most drum recordings are done with 3 or more microphones. This method is easier to work with, more efficient and easier to mix than working with only two microphones. In this post, I would give my thoughts on how you would be recording and mixing acoustic drum set recordings done using two microphones.

Getting the Recordings Right

Always remember the “garbage in-garbage out” analogy of music production process. You cannot have a great mix if you do not have great recordings. If you have full control of the drum recording session, I recommend you give the best effort in capturing the best sound as possible from the drums. With two microphone setup, the most optimal setup seems to be aiming one microphone on kick drum and one on the overhead. See screenshot below (enclosed in yellow circle):

Photo credits: apogeedigital.com

The choice of microphones is critical to the captured sound. However even with lower budget microphones, you can still have a great drum sound. At a minimum you can use SM 57 for your overhead microphones mounted at the overhead area pointing to the snare and Audix D6 (or Shure 52A) for your kick drum. If you have some budget, you can buy a condenser microphone such as Rode NT1A for your overhead.
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I am considering adding Superior Drummer 2.0 in my studio drumming gears. But I am also in the process of completing a real drum kit for recording studio use. So which of the two is actually better in terms of music production? In this post, I will take closer look in examining all factors involving both of these great drumming solutions.

Credits: Toontrack/Art Bromage

Cost Benefit Ratio Analysis

Superior Drummer 2.0 is not a free drumming solution. It cost around $400 as a download in their site. I also checked with Amazon and Superior Drummer 2.0 cost only around $179 which is not a download version.

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