In the early days of pop and rock recording, when tape recorders had a limited number of tracks and too much bouncing of tape tracks would result in degraded audio, drums were recorded with just a few mics; maybe one mic on the kick drum, and another for the rest of the kit. In these days of unlimited tracks and powerful computers, it’s not uncommon for drum kits to be miked up with 16 or more mics, one for every drum in the kit, maybe a couple of mics for a few of the drums, plus overheads, ambient mics, etc.
There is no doubt this gives the engineer and producer fine control over the drums that wasn’t possible previously. By using the right microphones and processors such as gates, each individual drum can be completely isolated from the kit and processed separately. This is especially useful for producers who like to augment individual drum sounds with samples for added punch.
But sometimes, you want that bleed between drums and mics. If you have an incredibly skilled drummer who plays with a lot of swing and groove, those ghost notes and the sympathetic ringing of one drum on another creates a cohesive performance that could end up sterilized by too much production. For example, in the Red Hot Chili Pepper’s breakthrough album Blood Sugar Sex Magic from 1991, even though producers at the time were already using mega-miking and sample replacement techniques, Rick Rubin famously put just four mics on the drum kit in order to capture the sound of Chad Smith’s lively performance.
So before assuming that you absolutely must use a dozen mics to record drums, really listen to your drummer, and decide what kind of sound you’re going for. Are you aiming for maximum post-performance sound shaping to fit into crowded music? Or are you trying to capture a swinging, lively in-the-pocket performance? If you are, you might just want to mic it minimally, and leave that bleed in.
