Drum Sounds

[drewsifer]

I have done many different mic placements and expirmentation with drum mic placment/mic useage I wanted to list them here. The cleanest sound I ever acheved was two coles ribbon mics for overheads, a 57 on the snare and a d12 in the inside and a fet on the outside of the kick. we recorded thrua Calrec, by AMS using a gepco balanced snake. This sounded tremendously kick-ass! The rawest tone I ever achieved was a more low-budget approach. I used 3 radio shack dynamic mic's with 1/4" cables into a tape 4 track. Two overheads and one kick. I slung the cords of the mics over the rafters of my garage so they were dangling from the celing. we recorded som very aggressive music and the recording complmented the music 100%. just goes to show money helps, but depending on the sound your going for you may not need the best rig in the world to get good results. what has been successful for you?

[DreamwaveMusic]

first all, recording drums is so much fun, and i love to experiement. some of the best sounds ive gotten (in an acoustically treated room) were by using microtec gefell stereo pair m930 with gefell stereo alignment bar, sm57 on snare (top and bottom), d12 or d112 on kick at sound hole, though i also like putting the d112 inside and a c414 with pad on the outside. I will use a small diaphram condensor on the hit hat, usually a SE electronics SE3 (its cheap, sounds great, and very universal). For toms I like 421s, but sometimes if there are enough avaliable i like to use c414 with gates. Ive used coles Ribbon mics for a ambient AB placement, but not as direct overheads. Ive used this setup with several different drums and it keeps sounding amazing everytime. For tracking i wil use some sidechain filters for a better snare/hat seperation. I love more simple setups as well, eddie kramer and his drum sounds are amazing.

[johnS]

Where do you put the overheads? I always used a coincident pair of small diaphram condensers out in front of the kit and above the cymals by a foot or two and angled pretty widely, but with the capsules together. Sounded pretty good in stereo but also worked in mono. I've seen plenty of guys space them out over each side of the kit, but I always figured that would get them into phase problems. I've also seen guys point them down directly over the cymbals, but I figured that would sound too ringy. Any thoughts on overheads?

[johnS]

Also, where in the room do you set up the kit? Ours was in the corner, but only because the drummer was already set up there. Sounded OK, but I'm wondering if different parts of the room would give you different options, especially for more distant micing of the entire kit.

[DreamwaveMusic]

i try to stick to the 3-1 rule for overheads to avoid phase, but if im going to experiment with overhead placement, i will also experiement with phase reversal on each mic. for larger setups i try to capture a wider stereo image with the mics on both sides in center, but for smaller kits a simple x/y in front usually does the trick. depending on the image you want, you could have the mics on axis (pointed down) or angled out. Ive recorded drums in several different types of rooms, but if im working in a studio that has an isolation room, i would set the kit up so thats its most accessible and convenient for setup, usually center of the room. reflections can still be noticed if its setup in a corner or closer to a wall. guess it depends on what sound you want.

[Nubus]

The room placement is key in less than optimal rooms. In my old A-frame room the drum sound got more and more screwed up the clopser we got to the walls. Something was definitely bad about getting that bounce combined with the standing wave and direct. Something that I had been thinking about when recording bass lately is the way the amp reacts to the room, because my new place has a spot with a big low end bump... which I am not happry about- but if you position your source in a manner which excites the room's nodes the least you'll get the least amount of aural addition/subtraction. Esentially, move the gear around until it sound best in the room before you start recording!