This year has forced a lot of us to record music at home. That’s by no means a bad thing. It is also a time for all of us who make videos for YouTube, Facebook, and other social media platforms to raise the bar on how our instruments sound in those videos. You want to keep the viewer coming back for more — and if the sound and content are good, then they will.
A studio essential is a great audio interface — and one that works well for drummers. I’ve come up with a cool list of interfaces for you to consider that all have four XLR mic inputs. Most of them have all kinds of other inputs as well, such as line-level and digital inputs. The ability to do other things with these interfaces means that you get good bang for your buck, along with being able to plug in up to four mics to cover your kit.
While you can get away with just one or two mics on a drum kit, four mics give you many options for a bigger and wider sound. There are many famous recording engineers who used only four mics with some of the biggest bands of all time. These engineers use different methods to place the four microphones, and those options bring creativity that can inspire. If you’ve been recording your drums at home on your phone or with only one mic in front of the kit, and it sounds distorted and unclear, then I can tell you that you will be blown away when you hear your drums recorded in stereo for the first time, where you can hear everything clearly. It’s really fun to hear, and it’s not hard to do.
Before we move on, I want to point out two things:
- Your drums need to sound as good as they possibly can before they will record well. I put this number one on the list for a reason. If your drums are out of tune or making noises, such as rattling, then they will not sound good no matter what recording gear you have. Something as simple as a fresh set of drumheads can really make a drum kit sound much better.
- Where you record your drums is a big part of the sound. If your room is small and dry sounding, then that is what your drums will sound like. The same can be said if your room is lively and bright. If you have the ability to manipulate your room and change its characteristics, that’s great because you can then mold the sound to whatever you’re working on. Whatever your situation is, make sure you take some time to get the best possible sound in the room then move on to recording.
Mic Placement
Now let’s get into where to place the mics on the drum kit. The most basic way is to put a mic on the kick drum, one on the snare drum, and then use the other two as overheads.
For the kick drum, I suggest that you experiment with your particular drum to get the best sound. If you place the mic inside the drum, then you’ll get a very focused sound. Putting the mic at the hole on the front head (if you have one) will get you a little more of the whole kit coming through. If you place the mic out in front of the kick drum, say about 12″ or 18″, then you will get the whole drum kit coming through.
For the snare drum, you just need to place the capsule of the mic just a little bit above the rim of the drum and point it at the center of the drumhead.
For the overhead mics, I suggest you experiment with all the different methods to see what works best for you. Here are a few, but certainly not the only, options:
- A spaced pair, with one mic above the left side of the kit and the other above the right. Both mics are the same distance from the floor and the same distance from the center of the kick drum.
- The XY setup. Both mics are above the center point of the kick drum with one pointing to the left side and the other pointing to the right side of the drum kit.
- The Glyn Johns method. I’ve seen this done in different ways, but basically you put one “overhead” mic about 3′ directly above the snare drum. The other mic is to the right of the floor tom but also 3′ from the snare drum. Make sure the tom mic is a little bit higher than the floor tom, pointing at the snare.
Recording Interfaces
The interfaces on this list are packed with features, and I have put them in order of cost, from the lowest to the highest. All of them are under $1,000, with some of them well under that price. They all have 48-volt phantom power so that you can connect condenser mics, and they include jacks so that you can plug in other instruments. Most of them come with software, such as lite versions of DAWs and plug-ins. Some of the interfaces are expandable with digital inputs. The last two on the list, from Audient and Arturia, are like little full-on consoles, with options for talkback, direct inputs, and even a USB hub built right in. These interfaces record at high sample rates, and some of them can even be controlled from a tablet.
The final thing to mention is that all of the interfaces are easy to use. You don’t have to get into the weeds with all the bells and whistles. You can just plug in, get a level, and go. Just dive in and make music!
