Recording Drums with these mics

T

tmcbrinn

New member
I'm not new to recording...just always programed drums before. Anyway, I wanted to get some sugestions on which mic to use on what drum. Going for a heavy sounding kit. Here's what I got:
5 piece kit (Tama Rockstar)
(nothing fancy with cymba0ls)
1 At4033 consendor
1 Shure sm849 sm. diafram condenser (older)
1 Sm 58
1 Sm 57
5 Sm 56 (similar to SM58, but older)

I have more than enough tracks, compressors, efffects, mixers, and all that good stuff....I'm just a bit shy of what I need with mics.

I tried before to use the AT on Kick, but it was too boomy....and I'd rather use the 2 condensors for the overheads, even though they are nothing alike. I want to have max. controll over each indivudual drum. THe only idea I have is 58 on kick, 57 on snare, AT on high hat side of overhead, sm849 on other side, and I could stick another mic on that side if necessary. TOms would all use the SM56. Also, can anyone get me started on some good compressor settings for kick and snare? Thanl you sooo much for any responses...cause I'm really stressing over this.
 
Micing a drum kit is an art!

Depending upon the sound you have (on the drums), the style you play, the room you have, and of course the mics, results are going to vary. I say this about a lot of things, and will say it again, there are no standards.

If you have little experience with micing drums, it will pay big dividends to spend some time trying your various mics and different mic placements on the kit to hear what is going to work well for you. It ALWAYS comes down to experimenting. I can spend a whole day micing a kit and tuning it to get the right sound on everything. Once this is done, you can get on with tracking.

Only a few of those mics could be considered "somewhat standard" in micing a drum kit. The 57 is an excellent choice for the snare, but I have used a AKG 414 on a snare before and got killer results, so the 4033 is a consideration too! But you NEED overhead mics, so save the 4033 for that purpose.

I have never used the Shure SM 849 before, but can imagine that it is possibly in the same realm as the SM 81. Possbly a bit brighter maybe.....I would use it on the hi-hat side of the kit and the 4033 on the ride side of the kit for overheads. It is really best to have matching overhead mics, but you don't have that so you will have to make due.

None of these mics are going to make a good stand alone kick drum mic, but, you can probably achieve pretty good results with double micing the kick with the SM 58 and one of the SM 56's. I would use the 58 "away" from the stiker and the 56 "close" to the stiker as a start. The purpose here is to get the boom of the kick and the attack from two different mics. Pay close attention to phase issues. If you are tracking to digital, and have track delay capabilities, try recording with two mics, then track delaying the close up mic about 4 or 5 milliseconds and see how that sounds.

Since you lack experience with close micing a whole drum kit, you may want to simplify and try using 3 or 4 mics. I would suggest the same configuration as above, but don't use tom mics. Let the overheads pick them up. This may require that you lower the overheads a bit and that you are careful in placing them so as to get the best tom to cymbal ratio you can. You also need to pay attention to phasing issues here again. Mono the two mics on your mixer with them panned hard left and right. If in mono the bass decreases a lot, you need to reverse the phase of one of the overheads. If the bass stays about the same or even possibly a tad louder, then your phase is okay.

Truthfully, you are going to be a very luck man if you can close mic every drum on the kit and have a great sound during your first shot at it. Without seeing the exact layout of the kit, and HEARING the drums, it is impossible to give you much in the way of mic placement. You will need to experiment. If you are patient and keep plugging away at it, you will be very please with the results.

Good luck.

Ed
 
something often overlooked while close micing the drums is to keep the mics far enough away to still get a good sound from the mics. you can achieve unique results from exceedingly close micing, but not always desireable. i seem to get giant tom sound out of keeping the mics at a good disatnce away from the toms. as well as for snare.
 
Amen to both those posts !.

Kristian - thats a very important remark what you said.
Last night I was struggling with toms that were so closed mic'ed that I coudn't get any oomph out of them.
I would just add that the angle of the mic has a major impact as well. From 60 to 45 the sound changes dramaticly.
 
Thanks so much for all the info. I realize that rec. in general is an art, but I don't think that I would have ever though to double mic the kick drum. Using Sonusman's methode I can pretty much eq the kick using the mic placement and mix only. Putting the mics far away from the drums is also something that would have taken me forever to figure out. thanks again for the responses.
 
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