Most recording engineers have a long-standing love hate relationship with drums and drummers. On the one hand a great drummer with a great drum sound can really take a record and band from good to great, but on the other hand the drum set sure can be a nightmare to record. Most demo tapes I’ve heard over the years have suffered from an inadequate recording of the drums. This is a dead giveaway that the recording is a demo instead of a “professional” recording. Most beginning engineers struggle to get drums on tape though a combination of a lack of proper equipment and overall lack of experience in how to record. It’s not as simple as just sticking up a couple of microphones, and nowhere is this more apparent than when trying to record a drum set. Most of you, however, have some idea how to do it. What many of you lack is just a few bits and pieces – a few more good ideas – to help you get better results. After all it’s never going to be perfect. We just want to get better.
Like most things in music recording there are many approaches that work well for people, and certainly not every trick is for everyone. We’ve compiled a bunch of responses from our inSync readers about how they successfully record drums in hopes that everyone will find one or two useful tidbits they can try. Even if they don’t directly lead to better results, rigorous work in trying them may unveil other good ideas and techniques that do help. When we asked for submissions we also floated a series of leading questions to help promote thinking on the subject. Those questions are posted here for your reference. Some respondents directly answered the questions while others wrote more in a freeform style, which is what we had hoped for. We hope you enjoy reading
- Given a choice, what microphone do you generally use on:
- Kick
- Snare
- Toms
- Overhead
- Hi-Hat
- Other
- How do you decide about the positioning of your microphones?
- What positions have worked best?
- Describe the rest of your signal path from the microphone to tape (or disc or whatever).
- What sort of special treatment of the drums do you do? Some people put pillows in the kick drum, or blankets over it. Some people have special “magic” drum tunings they use to record. We’d really love to hear from you drummers on this one.
- Are there any special drum or mike placement issues you would like to speak about?
- Do you do anything special with the room (acoustics) while recording drums?
- How do you approach working with the drummer? Do you try to dictate the drum sound somewhat or do you just try to capture the sound they bring to the studio?
- What do you do for a monitor mix for the drummer? What types of headphones, amp, etc? Are there any special considerations for the mix he or she gets?
- What else do you do for the drummer to help get a good performance?
Brian Miller
Mystery Music
Langley, B.C. Canada
Okay, first things first – you must have a decent set to work with. To follow a tried and true expression, “garbage in, garbage out” what is needed firstly is a good instrument and secondly a good signal path.
I like to use condensers all around the kit, if budget allows for it. If you do use condensers, placement is a big issue, as it will capture so much of that plastic meets wood sound (head to stick contact) if you don’t position the mic well (unless you’re going for that effect). If the budget cannot afford, say, 8 condenser mics, then I would recommend some good dynamic hypercardioid mics for close miking the drums, and a couple of cardioid condensers overhead for stereo placement.
For mic placement, spend the most time on the overheads. There are two stereo mic placements that I really like – the XY coincident pair, and the ORTF method – placed a few feet above the cymbals. Though they don’t make a wide stereo spread, they cover the kit well, with minimal phasing problems. If space allows for it, put the overheads up higher, but the distance from the kit should be less than the distance from the ceiling in order to have less reflected sound. For the toms, I like to place the mics almost perpendicular to the plane of the tom head. This placement gets less stick sound, and more resonance and phat low end. The kick and the snare are worthy of the most setup time and there are numerous placements to consider, especially on the kick. Miking from a distance captures more low end, but doesn’t sound as tight as close up. If you have an extra mic available, put one up close, and one distant (about 6 feet or greater, depending on room size).
Room acoustics note: curtains and thin foam do nothing for the low end. They do, however, take out the great sheen of the cymbals! Invest in thick fiberglass wool. It is a good absorber throughout the sound spectrum. Keep it live enough, just use absorption where its needed.
For a monitor mix, it depends on the situation. If the players are live on the floor, I might be inclined to put straight vocals and click track in there. The vocals helps to give definition to song structure, while the click keeps it in time. However, if there is a guitar with digital delay (a la U2), I would take out the click and crank that guitar. Keep the vocals in there. In a non-live situation, get that click in there, and any scratch tracks available. Don’t bother sticking the drums in there, drummers deserve to keep their ears, too!
I think the key to getting the drummer’s best performance is to keep him relaxed. Try to have the setup time be minimal. Use your own tried and tested methods, if it’s quick. Get the sound check done, and get going. Don’t spend your time on guitars and vocals and accessories, they can be done in the overdub stage.
Mark Hingsbergen
“The Catacombs”
Ideally I’d prefer to record a great set of drums in a 25’x35′ room with vaulted ceilings, wave traps, diffusers, and a nice hardwood floor with a few throw rugs. But the reality is that my studio is my basement and “standard” techniques don’t work well.
The problem with a finished basement is the early reflections from the low ceiling and the nearby walls. These early reflections are the psychoacoustic “clue” to the listener’s ears that you didn’t use the ideal room described above. What I do is to first minimize early reflections, then work on simulating the liveliness of the “perfect room”.
To eliminate ceiling reflections I have installed a pair of panels, approx. 2’x5′ each, above the drum kit in a shallow V shape to angle reflections away from the kit. I treated the surface with convoluted foam to provide additional absorption. Plush carpet helps the floor a bit, then for the walls I use bookshelves (stuffed with my kids’ toys and books) for diffusion and I hang ordinary bedding comforters from hooks around the perimeter as needed to knock down the “flutter” echo typical in small rooms.
This all works well except for the fact that in a confined space, a professional snare drum is going to dominate virtually every overhead mike and a live kick drum is not far behind it in volume. I have noticed from doing live recordings of my band that the same kit with the same mikes in a bigger room “breathes” and separates more, but in the small room there is just no way to get the snare off the overheads without trying something funky with phase cancellation. So my drummer and I have come up with a hybrid triggering approach that retains nearly all the feel of a real snare and kick, yet gives me incredible amounts of isolation and flexibility. The Roland V-drum snare is nearly silent, and it provides wonderful expressiveness (the TD10 converts stick placement information into controller 16 expression!). Similarly, the kick trigger is nearly silent as well. (I suppose if a better kick drum feel were needed, one could purchase the new Roland adapter, which allows a mesh head trigger to be used as a kick drum.)
Instead of using an audio track for the kick and snare, I send the trigger signals back to the control room and use them to trigger the TD10 head unit. I then sequence the MIDI output and save a copy of the “raw” kick-snare performance. If needed, I can nudge the timing a bit, and I have total flexibility on drum sound choice at mixdown. Further, with no kick and snare in the room I can saturate the tape a lot better with cymbals and toms.
For the live drums, I prefer the following: Toms – SM57 Nice and bright, good isolation capability. Overhead cymbals – have been using a pair of TOA KYs but am eager to try my new Oktava MC012s. Hi-hat – CAD E-300. Snare (when needed) – SM57, Sennheiser 421, or AKG D1000E. Kick (when needed) – Sennheiser 421.
I usually set up my best possible sound with an x-y overhead pair, then spot mike the ride, the hats, and any other specialty cymbals. Other times I will use a left, right, and center configuration. When spot miking a cymbal I usually aim at the center so rocking does not alter the timbre, but off-axis to avoid the low end fundamental. I also roll off the low end even before printing so I’m not saturating the tape with a lot of useless low end. I prefer to mike all toms from the top near the edge, aimed about halfway between the center and the edge.
To mix, I start with kick and snare, then add in the overheads to get the most prominent cymbals to the right volume. Then I’ll add in the individual toms and spot cymbals (as well as hats) to flesh out the rest of the kit.
At mixdown, I will often use a combination of small room and large room programs. The small room gets me back to that “ideal” recording space (more or less) and the large room program gets me the rest of the way, whether I am after an arena or a club sound.
This hybrid approach to drum tracking has given me excellent results, and I recommend it to anyone recording at home.
Jim Rizzuto
Long Island, New York
As you read through the many methods of achieving drum kit miking Success, many seem to start with the overheads and “blend in” the individual mikes. Instead, try this and if you have a good set of ears, you will produce bombastic drums:
Most home studios don’t have a really good sounding room so the task will be EQing the tracks to remove whatever sounds bad. Instead, start with nothing and add to taste. It’s actually easier to use an acoustically “dead” room and utilize all of those rack effects you bought to simulate a room rather than try to make a bad room sound better. Listen to a CD with the approximate sound you are looking for right before you start and after you finish – as a reference.
1. Start with the snare. SM57 is usually the best bet, although I have used an AKG414 and got a killer – bright – in your face sound, but I would have killed the drummer if he hit the mike with his stick. Barring murder, it worked great. Then, apply EQ. If you have sweepable mids, crank it up and zone-in on the frequency that you want to “bring out”, then back off the level to taste. I also add a little upper end, around 8-10K just for clarity. Go ahead – be bold. The signal should be compressed and/or gated, and reverb added during mixdown. Record it “hot”. In the mix, snare should be slightly off-center.
2. Next comes the bass drum. Go for an AKGD112 mounted inside about 6 inches from the beater aiming directly at the beater so you get some “click”. There’s not much EQing to do, and you can add what you want in the mix. Of course, compress/limit – unless your drummer’s strike is as constant as a clock (which isn’t usually the case). Don’t worry about dynamics in soft passages – if your bass drum and bass guitar are not constant, the mix will sound sloppy. Record below 0VU so you don’t bleed to other tracks. Always record the bass drum dry unless you (positively!!!) plan on using a gated verb and don’t have the luxury of adding it in the mix..
3. Toms – These get a little touchy. Here you will need to do a lot of experimenting with respect to placement, mikes, EQ, etc. Every kit is different, the song might not have a lot of tom action, or it may require a nice stereo spread (hard left, middle offset, hard right). Just don’t ever put a tom dead center in the mix, since dead center should be reserved for lead vocal, bass, and bass drum. Compression is usually good for control, verb is nice in the mix stage. Again, if you have sweepable mids, do your thing.
4. Overheads – Here’s where it all comes together. Unlike a lot of engineers, I use overheads simply for cymbals and detail. When testing them, shut all the other mikes off and listen. You can use EQ to remove a little of the snare, since you don’t really need it from the overheads. Use the old x-y high above the kit, or come in from the outside of the kit. Whichever you choose, just make sure the stereo image sounds nice and wide, yet sensitive enough to capture the delicate ride hits and bells. You might even add a little 10K for clarity. Note: the hi-hat will need a lot of attention since a lot of it will be bleeding in from the snare mike. Placement and limiting will be tricky especially when you hear that annoying phase-shift/cancellation stuff. Your hi-hat levels in the mix may not be as you intended.
Mike Shelton
On snare drums I typically use a dynamic, SM57 or SM56 on top and I have started using an Audio Technica ATM35 on the bottom. I clip it to the lowest lug on the kick drum, aiming at the bottom of the snare. On mixdown, I run the two channels through a dual gate/compressor (dbx 1066) and have the top channel trigger the gate on the bottom mic. This gives me a nice large snare sound with no kick leakage.
The other trick I’m going to divulge is miking the hi-hat from underneath. I happened across this technique because a certain drummer I was working with hit the hat so hard the cymbals kept hitting the mic (not good for my 451). So I placed the mic under the hi-hat and noticed that the sound did not change timbre when the cymbals were played open. They “sizzled” even when open. This is because the distance to the mic does not change.
Trigga
To me the setup becomes an exponentially more important factor as you move through your equipment from the disk (or recorder) to the source, my input is directed towards those few drummers recording hip-hop beats.
The bass drum mic is something circa D112, providing adequate bass response. The major alterations that need attention are compression and reverb. Although the D112 will pick up bass, the bass drum does not produce long lasting bass often heard in hip-hop recordings esp. those using 808’s, no matter how far back you place the mic (from my experience). I usually put a short reverb on the bass drum, which is active only around the 80Hz range. I actually put the dry/wet mix level up near 50%, so it doesn’t sound like reverb, but rather like an extended hit. You sometimes need a really simple compression that just keeps the input levels from -5 to 0 at a constant output (-5). This way, when you have the bass drum all the way up in the mix, it doesn’t clip so much – masking other instruments in the higher ranges.
For snare, although everyone claims they can use an SM57, a condenser like the C418 gets you the high snappy sound you need. The processing on this track NEVER STOPS. There are so many things you can do with a snare drum track to completely change the mood of your song. These include reverbs, limiting (bringing out the actual snare sound), filtering (enhancing the highs even further, and reducing leakage), slapback delays (making it stand out more without having to turn it up), and sometimes even replacing the impulses with different sounds, or changing the pitch with benders and/or flangers. This is the punctuation of any hip-hop track, the consistent sound anticipated by those who need to retract their heads from the bobbed position.
As long as you don’t go crazy on the toms a lot, or use too many different cymbals, you should be able to have space for a mic dedicated to cymbals. On this track, I completely take out the rest of the beat using noise reduction or simple volume envelopes and add a ton of sparkly reverb to the crashes or rides. Although it sounds like it’s missing attack when you hear it by itself, when heard with the rest of the mix, it can’t be noticed (it’s generally simultaneous with a bass drum hit).
If you do have a tom track, de-amplify on the parts where there aren’t any fills, and add a general reverb that will make the toms stand out, and somewhat effect the mood of the beat on the rest of the beat in the back of the mix.
John Grant
“1. Given a choice, what microphone do you generally use on:”
- Kick: D-12
- Snare: sm57
- Toms: md421
- Overhead: c451
- Hi-Hat: I NEVER MIC IT – and when I have, I never use it!
- Other: Anything out in the room – crushed with compression
I position the microphones as close as possible to source – rejecting other drums as much as possible. For a signal path, I run the kick and snare through an Aphex Dominator II – it rules! Gate kick first, usually. Toms – gated, then a bit of compression – knock out some 400 Hz – they always sound better.
For monitoring, I use Fostex T-20 phones hooked right up to a beefy power amp. If they’re playing to a click, give them lots of it and only a little, if any of themselves. Also lots of everyone else, especially the bass.
It’s important to TUNE the drums. I believe most toms have a frequency at which they like to resonate – grab a key and try to find it – you’ll know when you have. And don’t forget the bottom heads! If a drummer isn’t really familiar with a studio or recording, I’ll usually “tech” their kit for them. It’s amazing how many kits I’ve seen with toms tuned to exactly the same pitch! I try to let the drummer warm up a bit and get used to being in the studio. Engineers should spend more time outside the control room. Remember what it’s like.
NIFTY TRICK: Got this from Will Calhoun (Living Color) – put a floor tom, extra bass drum, etc. out in the room in front of the real kick. Mic it for resonance. If the main kick is real tight, you can mix this one in for some “Bonham” vibe.
Joel Fairstein
Castle Acoustics Mastering
One rule in drum miking I’ve found is there are no rules. Also, I tend not to trust what the big dog engineers use simply because the caliber of musicianship they are recording comes across well on just about any decent miking setup.
The rule I’ve discarded that has yielded great results is the assumption that overhead mics are essential. Cymbals actually sound better to my ears when they are miked from the side rather than from above. I place a small diaphragm cardioid mic to the side of each cymbal in a position that also points at the upside rims of an adjacent pair of toms. The mic forms a 45-degree angle with the tom heads and is about 6 inches away from the rims. If you have a permanent kit in the studio, you can set the cymbals down fairly close to the toms, so that the cymbals are just behind and below the mic heads. You will get a nice balance without the usually cymbal overkill that results from overhead mics. Another small diaphragm condenser points at the snare rim at a 45-degree angle and 4 inches distant. This mic is 3-4 inches off center towards the hi-hat and will capture it nicely. I use the Sennheiser K6/ME64 for this setup.
Andy Peterson
Engineer/Studio Manager
Clean Cuts Music
I wanted to add my two cents about miking drums. I’m an engineer at a custom music house in Baltimore. We do tracks in all styles, and our deadlines are short, so we have to get our drum sounds quickly. I don’t think it matters too much which mics you use or which compressor, etc. Many engineers agree on a lot of those things, and those rules are meant to be broken, too. That’s why I prefer to talk more about questions 8-10 on your list (Approach, dictating the sound, monitor mixes, how to get a performance…).
For me, the best place to start is with a guy who really tunes his drums well. In my case, we have the luxury to hire guys who have the sound we’re after right off the bat, so if anything, I usually suggest we tighten something here, work on some offending frequencies there. As I said, we have to get it right without spending too much time.
For a monitor mix, what works for me, and hopefully for the player, is that I give him a mix that contains as much of the rhythm element as possible. While the drummer sets up, I just monitor my aux send I’m giving him and develop the mix quickly that way, so I know what he’s getting in advance. I try not to give them any of their own kit in that mix, however, since that just starts the dog chasing it’s tail in terms of volume. If I must give them something of themselves, I like to give it to them from the overhead mics. I recommend a good bright pair of phones (like the Sony 7506’s) for the job. (No offense to you drummers out there, but many of you have lost some of the high end hearing response…)
The performance is everything. Otherwise we wouldn’t bring anybody in. There are many “great sounding” drum samples out there, but programming them on a keyboard isn’t the real thing. Getting a good performance is the true art of recording and can be done if you treat your player well, give him a good mix, a good track, and a good vibe in the room, and allow for the occasional mistake or happy accident. Sometimes doing take after take doesn’t yield anything better than that first or second pass you thought you liked initially.
David Stewart
Sweetwater Sound
Yes, your inSync editor has his $0.02 worth too. While not the simplest approach, I’ve had good results in the past by getting the kit as far away as possible from any surfaces and recording the ambient sound as well as the direct sound. One time we took the multitrack and a bunch of preamps to a big old warehouse (with 50′ high ceilings). We built a riser on top of scaffolding and had the kit about eight feet up in the air. We placed some large diaphragm condensers around the kit between 10 and 20 feet away and also used the typical close mics. It took all day to get the mics placed right. The ambient sound we got on tape was just amazing, but it (understandably) wasn’t very articulate. On some of the tunes I was able to use it sparingly in the mix to just add an overall hugeness to things. However, there were a few songs where I ran a mult of those tracks to another channel of the mixer. I put a noise gate on it and triggered the gate with the snare track. After some serious EQ work I had the hugest snare sound you’ve ever heard. Later I dumped that mono track into a DAW and moved it forward in time by about 30ms. The impact of the snare came much more into focus. The client was happy.
Another trick is to set up plywood around the kit to intentionally create all sorts of short reflections. This is a relatively easy way to get that rock ambient sound. Add a little digital reverb later (for space) and it will blend in well with other tracks. These tricks are more useful for doing Big Hair Rock Tracks (circa 1987) than a typical Jazz session, but you’d be surprised how a big drum sound can add life to many types of music and song styles.
Richard Cole
For what it’s worth (from an old drummer).
I tend to keep my kick drum tuned as low as it will go and still hold tension. I got tired of chasing pillows across the studio, so I put some sheer interfacing type fabric under the kick drum head (available at most fabric stores) to take the ring out of it. I keep this head very dead and use no front head on the kick drum when performing (to avoid muddying the bass guitar). To liven up the kick for recording, I sometimes lay a floor tom on its side in front of, and a small distance away from the kick drum. This floor tom has little (or no) muting, and no bottom head. Once aimed correctly, it picks up a nice sympathetic ring off the kick drum, and acts like a front head, only it is somewhat acoustically isolated from the beater head of the kick drum. By miking this floor tom separately, you can control the ring of the kick drum from nearly dead, all the way to a ringy hip-hop sound.
Although not strictly a recording tip, another standard trick for floor toms (or a large shell mount tom) is useful on many ballads. Tune the floor tom to a low 5th (dominant chord) of the key signature of the ballad. Let it ring like a tympani. The drummer can play a fill (usually open single strokes) at the end of the chord progression when it resolves back to the root (tonic chord). This can enlarge the sound of a small ensemble by putting a real bottom on things.
Keep an oil can handy in case squeaks are detected in the kick drum or high hat linkage. The poor construction of some drum thrones can be a source of noise as well. Keep the snare strainer off when not recording drum tracks. In fact, if your drums are not well isolated in the studio, mute all the heads as well when recording non-drum tracks (towels work well).
Don’t overlook the myriad of sounds that can come out of a high hat during mike setup. Try to see how the high hat will be used during a run-through of each song before deciding on mic placement or setting the level. You could miss the subtle backbeat of the pedal actuated cymbal closure. (Most players deliberately tip the bottom of the two high hat cymbals to insure that they don’t meet completely on axis. This amplifies the pedal actuated sound, and adds sustain to the partially-open stick sound.) This is a very important component of jazz drumming, particularly when brushes are used. You could be swamped by a stick blow to the high hat while the pedal is partially open. Many rock players will do a ride pattern with the high hat cymbals just barely in contact on fast tunes (sort of a thrashing sound). This allows the right hand to grab a rest by playing quarter notes, rather than continuous eighths, on a long, or very fast tune.
Although some drummers hate them, plastic beaded sticks can sometimes be helpful in keeping the (desirable) ping sound of the ride cymbal at a higher level than the (undesirable) hum sound that builds up on a fast ride pattern.
You can actually learn something about the way a guy is going to play by looking at the wear pattern on his sticks. This can be useful since some drummers play atypically during sound checks. Assuming a normal setup (snare on left, kick drum at right), an abrupt wear pattern near the grip of the left hand (sometimes accompanied by chips and splinters) means you may be in for a lot of rim-shot on the snare drum. (It is not uncommon in rock drumming, for the left stick to be played with the butt instead of the bead. It is sometimes used to compensate for a difference in arm strength in right-handed people.) A similar, but somewhat more gradual indentation pattern near the shoulder of the right stick is not unusual, and indicates a shoulder crash technique on the crash cymbals or upward incline of the sticks on the high hat (typical disco techniques).
Jarno Maki
I’ve had good results miking drums with three overheads. I use one Shure SM81 at the middle and a pair of old (and not so good (they are late-70’s Japan-made K-Kay’s)) electric-condensers at sides. I noticed that having only one overhead gives much more focused sound than two at sides. I read an article that advised to try three overheads on drums. So I tried it and liked it. The middle mic gives me focused drum sound when the sides (mixed hard left and right) adds a little stereo image to sound. One will notice that this setup could generate major phase problems, but for me it hasn’t been an issue.
Bryan Husk
I have found great success recording a local reggae drummer’s kit using just three mikes. He plays a beautiful Yamaha Maple Custom and has to have a poppin’/boomin’ bass drum sound. There is a pillow in his bass drum where I rest a D112 in the middle of the drum aimed at the beater. I then mike the snare from the top about 2 inches from the head with a C1000. Last but not least, I use an AT 4041 as an all-purpose overhead directed like an umbrella over his head leaning toward the tom/cymbal spread.
I usually run the mikes through Aphex 107 preamps direct to 20-bit ADATs. I’ve also used the mike pre’s in my Mackie 1604 and have to admit I noticed very little difference except maybe in the bass drum. I mix down with the EQ’s from the Mackie board with Aphex 109 compressors inserted in each channel. Sparing use of the compressors makes a huge difference and offers a lot of dynamic control.
I often cut the highs from the bass drum, plump up the low end a little to get the “boom”, and juice the parametric mid tuned to about 225hz to get the “pop.” I accent the snare at around 1200hz, but the secret to my drum mixes comes from the great overhead presence of the AT4041. Even in mono, it evenly captures the cymbal, snare, and high hat, and toms. In fact, I could probably get by without the C1000 on the snare if I had to–it works that well. Very light on the compression with the 4041, good to let the open air breathe. Pan the bass drum slightly off center, opposite of the bass guitar. Pan the snare slightly opposite of the bass drum, and leave the overhead near 12 o’clock. Viola! Live-to-tape reggae drum tracks.
John Zeratsky
I use an AKG D55S on the kick drum. In most cases, I set up a pair of A-T C-87s in an XY configuration about 10-15 feet back from the set. I run the mics through the preamps in my Spirit Folio Rac Pac and directly to an ADAT LX-20. The most important “treatment” is a good set. Aside from stuffed animals (seriously!) in the kick, I don’t use anything at all. I can’t stress enough that if you stand back and listen to the set and it sounds good, mic it like that. Set up a stereo pair where your ears would be, and then add a kick and/or snare mic for added emphasis and clarity. For monitoring, I run a monitor mix over bus 1-2 or 3-4, whichever I’m not using, and I monitor it myself to try and get it as close to the final result as possible and give that mix to the musicians.
Paul Haneberg
Barrettworks Studios
I’m going to be the radical of the group and suggest that you don’t mike your drums at all. I’ve got a set of Roland V-Drums with a couple of extra pads and double bass pedals. I run them direct into 8 channels. I’ve got total control over all parameters and total isolation between bass, snare, toms, hat, ride, cymbals, etc. I EQ each drum individually and add effects individually. Since I’ve gotten my V-Drums (from Sweetwater of course) I haven’t had one client record with acoustic drums. I know this is upsetting to those acoustic drum purists, but I get a fantastic drum sound. It doesn’t take two hours to set up mikes either, I keep the V-Drums connected to a patch bay and it takes about a minute to patch them in and I’m ready to record. I also run bass, guitar and keyboards direct except for acoustic instruments. I get a live sound and I get total isolation, no phase problems, no mikes, and no gobos. I do use a mike on the vocalist! If someone wanted me to record acoustic drums I would, but it hasn’t happened in a long time.
Ted Forbes
I think the most important factors in getting excellent results go beyond mike placement and equipment set up. I have had everything perfect before and ironically sounding very bad in the end. In fact, I really think
that you should use ONLY what you absolutely need. In a recent recording session we did some straight-ahead jazz stuff using only two condenser overheads and it sounded incredible. That was all due to the fact that I had one of the best jazz drummers I know. That is the key – a really great player will be able to, and be more comfortable with, balancing the drums on his own. This goes not only for the mix of the kit, but the sound and color as well.
I like to spend as much of the session as possible working on the music. I have found that most musicians in general do not give their best performance when they are obsessing over finding the ultimate sound. It is obviously preferable to spend weeks getting the kit tuned, the mikes placed, and then more time busting the drummer to get the perfect take, but for practical concerns I stand by my methods. As in the piano recording summit – I say simply find a tried and true way to mike everything, use the best equipment you can afford, and most importantly – use the best drummer you can find for the job.
One final note – on the subject of coaxing the best performance: I think the most important thing is keeping a drummer (or any musician) relaxed, but focused for the entire session. For whatever reason I kind of have to plan on throwing out the first 30 minutes of takes – that seems to be how long it takes for people to get warmed up, settle the headphone mix, get used to the sound of the room, and start to really play well. After that, I get apprehensive if we get past take 6. If it gets to that point someone is either not prepared, the music is awkward for the musician, or it just is not going to happen. While mistakes tend to get fixed, the performance loses interest. And one last observation – I get better performances when I help the poor guy schlep all the gear from the car. This works best when you have no budget and the guy is doing you a favor, but it comes in handy in other situations as well.
Greg Baum
Sweetwater Sound
In recording live drums I have found that, after the mics themselves, the #1 most critical factor is the quality of the mic preamps. This assumes that I’ve got a good sounding room or booth and that my mic placement is good. Even a dead old 57 can snarl and roar when run through a quality mic pre. For monitoring I give the drummer his own headphone amp and the loudest cans in my box.
Roger Romeo
My answers for the drum miking questions
“1. Given a choice, what microphone do you generally use on:
- Kick: EV ND 757
- Snare: SM57 or EV PL95 (very clean)
- Toms: SM57
- Overhead: RODE NT-1 (Sweeeeet)
- Hi-Hat: AUDIO TECHNICA AT813 (lots of highs)
For microphone position, I keep rolling the tape and constantly make changes until it’s right. One cool positioning trick in particular: Placing the Rode NT-1 high and above while the drummer’s back is against a reflective wall. As far as special treatment for the drums, I use a bass drum with a small round hole in the front head and stick the EV NDYN 757 just barely inside and aimed directly at the spot where the beater hits.
I try to go for as little as possible in the signal path. I use Mackie boards and ADATs, and use an Alesis 3630 on the snare and kick. For monitor mixing, I use a Samson 1502 live mini-mixer. It has a high headphone output and lots of ins & outs. The headphones vary but have to be full ear otherwise the headphone mix can be heard in the drum mikes.
If their drums sound good, try to capture it. If they don’t, try to EQ them till they do. Don’t plan to fix it in the mix because quite often you can’t.
Adam Lake
LakeFX Studio
To start with, I use Ensoniq’s Paris DAW as the base for my studio. With the drums, I’ve had success using an SM57 on the snare about 2 inches off the head near the rim. On the bass drum I use a Sure Beta 52, which has a nice fat sound. I put in through a hole in the front head and place it about 4 inches from the beater head slightly off axis. I suggest, if you have the option, making the hole in the front head small (about 4 inches in diameter) and near the top of the drum to get the mic above any pillows or sweaters in the drum. I use 2 overheads, a Rode NT2 on the floor tom/ride side and an Audio Technica small diaphragm on the hi-hat/snare side. This works well without any tom or hi-hat mics. If I need to get the toms to cut through a bit more, I’ll toss a mic on the Floor tom and maybe one between the rack toms. I rarely need to mic the hi-hat, but when I do I’ve found that the inexpensive Octava small diaphragm condensers work quite well. I run the overheads through an Aphex Tubessence mic pre-amp and the snare and bass drum through DBX Project1 pre-amps with a little compression to track. I give the drummer a lot of Bass drum, snare, and Bass in his monitor, but the best policy is to ask what he wants.
Brook Finlayson
Audio Verité
Gadsden, AL
I use a Pair of Oktava Mk-219’s to mic the whole kit, an RE-20 or M-88 on kick, and SM-57 on snare. I try to get the sound I want with two mics before doing anything else. I position them to get the complete kit in balance with the room.
“3. What mic positions have worked best?” I like one mic a few inches over the rack toms facing the snare and another over the floor tom (just a few inches over) facing the snare. Cool stereo image and in your face sound, but watch out for phasing. Experimenting with stereo miking techniques is a good idea with drums. I mic the kick to beef it up a bit or to give me a signal I can use to blend in a kick sample at mixdown (heresy, I know). The snare mic can also be used to add some meat, but is rarely needed. What it is good for is for sending the snare to reverb without necessarily mixing the dry snare in the mix. Especially useful for rim shots.
I let a good drummer do whatever he needs to make them sound good, but I may use pillows or blankets on the kick drum. I see the drum set as a single instrument, not 8 or 10 or 20, in a single (albeit large) space. I think it helps to keep that in mind.
A good room is crucial to the above miking techniques. My own room has a space with parquet floor, vaulted ceiling (13′), and diffusers where the drums normally go. This is in the main room. I also have a dead corner if I need a more sterile sound.
In the headphones drummers usually want a little more bass, but nothing special. I use a Rane headphone amp and closed headphones, which usually help with the bass.
David Klausner
Sweetwater Sound
Regarding the snare: Every studio I have ever worked at used a 57 on snare for rock tunes. There is something about the sound of a 57 on snare that makes you say, “hey, that rocks!” It’s the same reason I keep a Marshall in my studio; because you’ve heard that sound so often on rock records, when you hear a Marshall you think, “This is rock.” Experimenting with very small changes in mic position can yield large changes in sound.
One trick with the 57 is to remove the cheapo transformer (not easy, because the thing is potted in God-knows-what) and hook the capsule right to the XLR. It does reduce the output (not an issue on snare), but also opens up the sound a little while retaining “that character”.
Supplementing with a condenser on the snare side also helps. No matter how hard the drum is hit, the snares are about the same volume, so the harder it is hit, the less snare in the mix, and the mic on the bottom can bring that back up.
I’ve also had great results supplementing with a great shotgun mic suspended 10-12 feet above the snare, and pointed at it. This picks up the whole surface of the drum, but has great rejection of the rest of the kit.
Gregg Petrine
186 STUDIOS
The “sound” from a drum does not come from a close mic position (It is part of the sound). So your choice of mic’s (for close position) becomes a matter of what is solid, not necessarily expensive or pristine sounding, that is why you see such a wide variety of close mics being used. The “sound” of the kit mainly comes from the overhead mic & the room mic. The close position mic is the Last step in the chain. This is a good rule of thumb to follow.
Try this and I guarantee solid results
Shure 57(close mic snare drum)
AKG C1000 condenser (overhead position)
Use two (c 1000’s) if your budget allows (XY stereo position)
Just work on one drum at a time (start with snare)
Play with the overhead positioning (this is the most important mic)
Mix the overhead in a stereo spread and add close position mics for impact.
You will begin to see and hear what overheads mean to the mix.
A small amount of reverb added to the close mic drum makes it come alive.