GREAT way to get fat drums, fast, with 3 mics...

Depends a lot of what kind of music you are playing and what kind of sound you are looking for. It's not the same a jazz drum than a grindcore drum.
 
If anyone wants to hear this method in practice I recorded our entire album this way with a few additions. It's not a modern, clicky, drum sound but if you want a classic rock sound it's the only way to go.

http://www.homerecording.com/bbs/showthread.php?t=251794

The main overheads were Josephson C42's, one above the snare and one just above the floor toms ala Glynn Johns. The kick was an ATM25. Snare was over and under Sennheiser E604's. No close tom mics.

I also mixed in some binaural room mics and occasionally a ribbon or PZM room mic.
 
AHAHAH!!!! I am saved from the x/y setup! These drums sound amazing!...I am not going to show you...because...I don't play drums...but trust me this is the way to try if youre sick of thin drums...

If you are confused about the setup...here is a video:

recorderman
QUOTE]

Cool video. Cool technique. I always underestimated the importance of overheads.
 
About a month ago my drummer bought a Shure Drum mic kit -> PGDMK6. Being as I have ears and a basic idea of how a drum set should be mic-ed from playing live we got to work setting everything up. I also added an SM57 for the snare. Over the next month or so we played with different arrangements. We moved the microphones around, closer, farther, different positions and angles, etc... and, oddly enough, even before reading this post, our overheads ended up in the exact locations suggested by RECORDERMAN at the beginning of this post.

Using the overhead condensers in that arrangement gave us the most full and balanced sound even with all the other close mics turned off. After that we just add a little kick and snare and tom as needed to bring them forward in the mix a little. I can see that if you had a good room you wouldn't even need the close mics but my room is kind of dead so I record everything flat then build a room with my Lexicon later.
 
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By the way, I started using a variation on the Recorderman method recently. Glyn Johns: http://www.blaxploitation.com/drums/

Notice the second mic over on the floor tom side as opposed to right over the drummer's shoulder. I find this gives me even better seperation in my cymbals and toms.

I tried it once but it sounded with less punch compared to recorderman method. Did you still use 36"?. BTW I never tried that distance, I always used 48" or two sticks measure.
It´s all about trial and error.
 
:D It was a bad calculation. I´m used to meters, 1.20 mts. it´s what I use the most, since I try what you suggested. It sounded incredible.
 
:D It was a bad calculation. I´m used to meters, 1.20 mts. it´s what I use the most, since I try what you suggested. It sounded incredible.

Cool. I actually ended up at 39" by the time I moved mics around and got the sound I want.:)
 
Bump to tha bump again.

This thing HAS to get stickied.... seriously. One of THE most informative threads on this board, especially with a lot of the recent "3 mic/4 mic technique" questions popping up....
 
I have been experimenting with acoustic triggers with good results
you don't get a lot of unwanted overtones using the triggers.

any one else use the triggers for recording?
 
you don't get a lot of unwanted overtones using the triggers.

Not all overtones are UN-WANTED, so I don't get any UN-WANTED overtones micing my drums, either. I'd rather have 4 well placed mics on well tuned drums any day of the week.
 
HA! Man, this thread changed a lot for me. Once I read this and tried it, my drum sound took a huge step forward. Other than a few small variations, I've never gone back to doing it any other way.

Funny thing is, readin the very first post, I remember how skeptical I was before I tried it.


Does anyone really know who the hell RECORDERMAN actually is?
 
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