Drum Miking again?
“In keeping with the recent topic of drum miking, I have a question about snare drums. It seems in every interview I read ‘big name’ producers/engineers say they use SM57s on snares. These same pros will use C-12s or U87s as overheads, so we know money is no object. And yet they still reach for the 57 for the snare. My problem is I can’t get my trusty Beta 57 to sound anything like the professional recordings I regularly listen to. Adding a second mic on the bottom of the snare has improved my sound, but I still can’t figure out how the full yet detailed sound on these recordings came from an SM57. Can you recommend some alternatives? Condensers perhaps?”
Okay, THAT’S it. We’re gonna’ have to have a Summit on drum recording. I’ve been threatening to do it for a while. I need to spend a minute to think through some of the issues, but stay tuned for the announcement. If anyone has any ideas or “thought provoking” drum recording questions feel free to send them in.
This type of question is very common for us. Specifically I would say that you shouldn’t assume a Beta 57 sounds like an SM57. They don’t. Nevertheless you should be able to get a good sound out of it. Without knowing the rest of your setup and what you are specifically doing I could speculate for days about why you aren’t happy with what you are getting. Just know that, while the microphone is very important, there are tons of other variables in getting good recordings. An often overlooked consideration is the source material itself. You can’t just throw a drum set up, haphazardly put mics around it and expect it to sound good. In LA there are “drum tuning gurus” who often go around and do extensive drum set up, tweaking, and tuning before the kit even gets miked. The sound of the drum set itself is easily the most critical component in how it sounds recorded. Unfortunately, the finer points of all of this are simply beyond the scope of inSync. Hopefully some of our readers will have some input in the upcoming Drum Recording Summit.