Really, recording drums is something that is hard to learn from someone telling you. It's kinda like you have to do it a bunch of times to understand it. You don't want to "test" it out when you start recording the EP. You want to do this on a day you are not recording the EP to just test it and set things right.
Make the drummer hit the drums as hard as he is going to in the take he is recording to make sure it doesn't clip. You will need to use a compressor after you record, but you can worry about that later. Because of the dynamics of drumming, "one snare hit is hit harder than the second snare hit" You will need compression, which means you WILL need headroom. Which means you will not want to record at a loud volume. You will want to record below -18 more than likely. Maybe even lower. As low as possible while still getting the signal nice and clear and good. Turn the headphones or monitors up loud if you have to. Because you will bring the volume up later, don't try to record it at a decent volume going in, or when you try to correct it, or hire someone else to compress it and master it to correct it, they won't be able to without making it sound horrible. They need a clean signal with no clipping.
I record the drums at a lower level than any other instrument.
Room sound, you got to work with what you have. Put muffling rings on the drums. That will help out with the ringing in the room. The overheads you may not be able to turn up in the mix as much as a pro
studio would just due to the room. But the room sound shouldn't be a problem if the drums don't ring out too much. I use Evans E-Rings. Remo also makes these rings. They make a huge difference for recording.
bass drum mic placement, depends on what kinda drummer this is and what sound you're going for. In a metal band for example it's important to hear the double bass strokes and not just one continuous bass drum sound echoing everywhere. So we usually take the resonant head off of the bass drum. We put the microphone inside the drum almost all the way up to the beaters. If you have a hole in the bass drum head you can do it that way too, although the resonant head might still cause a sound you don't like.
In a rock band, that doesn't do a lot of double bass and wants a "big" bass drum sound and wants more bass, a lower frequency and for it to ring out, they do not place the microphone that close and they do not put muffling in the bass drum.
Most metal bands, use pillows in the bass drums even if they don't do it live, they will in
the studio a lot of times. Nowadays they have
professional pillows and different types of muffling, but some of the biggest bands out there, when in
the studio still use a literal pillow. Although they may not use it live.
Some rock bands prefer the echoing big bass drum sound, like
a classic rock bass drum sound, so they will not place the microphone anywhere near the beaters. They may even place the microphone outside of the bass drum right in front of it. Where as in metal we would prefer it to be inside the bass drum always.
Some do both and mix it together.
