Drum recording techniques

Doctor J

How do you eat yours?

I've been tweaking how I go about recording drums over the last while. I picked up one of those Audix drum mic sets a while back and have kind of grown to favour them over the tradtional D112 in the bass drum, 57 on the snare, Senn 421s on the toms, 2 overheads setup. The Audix are all hypercardiod, and while the 421s are lovely mics, I prefer the cleaner sound from the Audix. For overheads, I quite like using them exclusively for picking up cymbals and positioning them accordingly, rather than for a stereo representation of the whole kit. I've also been putting a mic on the hihats and a mic on the ride, to have greater control of their levels and use one large diaphragm condenser to pick up an ambient sound of the whole kit to blend at will.

So, how do you do it?

TelePaul

I am thinking of going for the 'recorderman technique'...I'll post properly on it when I have a bit more time! It uses 3 mics.

frobisher

UNless I'm working on something that demands a different approach, I've always gone for as solid a BD sound as I can get then taken a while with the overheads, usually in a XY, until I get what I want. From there I bring in the close mic'ed parts as needed and despite their untrendiness, have often whacked on a few gates if needed. I've had great results with a trusty 57 on the BD. It's been a while since I mic'ed a kit though.

Doctor J

You can use them with a clip or a regular mic stand, just had them on toms so far. Having A-B'd them I couldn't hear a difference between stand and clip with the drum solo'd, so I'd be pretty sure a punter isn't going to hear any difference when everything is mixed. In truth, they're actually a lot more convenient, you can get into places (the cramped area with a floor tom, ride, crash for example) where it gets very awkward, sometimes impossible to place a mic stand and position the mic where you want.

unclebill98

well....

Long time reader....

Its been a while but I thought I'd share my tech...

I'd use a beta 91 in the kick, place in the middle of the bass drum. Using it live at the mins and my god, it can give some great thump. A E602 on the beater side of the bass drum head. For the toms I use E604 at 45degree to the skins. Snare, can never beat a good SM57, maybe the Beta version on top. Under the snare a good condenser, AKG 414. For Hi Hats, a good pencil conderser mic, dont have one yet but the Jomeek's little green one looks like the it would be nice, but I am using standard SM57 for that. For over heads I would like to use 414, but I am one short so I use C3000b's for that, they also make great tom mics if i was doing it diff. Ambient mic is usually a tube mic. I have used an RCA mic before is a session, so one of those babys is on the wishlist on ebay!!!! I have also used 2 of these BBC 4038 RIBBON MICROPHONE in an x/y infornt of a kit instead of overheads and again....there on the list too!! For the hell of it I have used a mic outside in the stair well just to get a great reverb sound and works well for a breakbeat part of a song.

Micing the ride on its own has proved very usefull for mixin....

My simple answer to using tons of mics is...."Better looking at it than, looking for it!"

There ya go....