How to record drums?

B

buckshot plevna

New member
Just wondering if anybody could give us a suggestion or two on recording our drums properly, here's the lo-down

We'll be recording in a HUGE hall, the room is by my guess, roughly 35ft. by 40ft. and about 20-25ft. high. I know it sounds excessively big BUT #1 we can get this hall for free (as recording artists we all know how valuable that is) #2 the building is about 115 years old so it's all wood flooring and stone which make for a great natural reverb from the walls, and #3, the ceiling is barn shaped, which also adds huge sound. All in all the hall (hey I rhyme!) is spectacular sounding, we've done some recording there already and were blown away by the sound we obtained, but the method we used consisted of placing 13 mics all over the on the kit, including two mics at either end of the hall.

Was this the best approach?

We are debating to try and place only 4 or 5 of our best top end quality mics in the 4 corners of the hall and maybe hang a condenser mic from a light fixture 15 ft off the floor. Would this obtain a better sound? My argument is although the room produces a great sound, if any of the individual parts of drum aren't loud enough, we can't turn them up because the mics pick up everything at once.

If you think neither of these methods are good, or think you have a better one, please don't hesitate to comment...thanks

some of our mics include

sm-57
sm-58
high end audio technica dynamic
an old sony condenser (but works great!)
an audio technica set of drum mics (two snare/tom, two bass drum/floor tom mics)
and about 5 or 6 other half decent mics but nothing that would get a really high quality sound

anyhoo, I think that's a long enough post, thanks again,

BP
 
I'm no pro but I read a book once.. ha ha.. Mic all your drums and put two condencer mics behind the drummer at least 7 to 8 feet high.
 
Puting a mic in every corner of the room mite give it a better sound but it mite be to roommy sounding. I would mic the kick, snare and put some over heads up and then put 2 comdensers in the 2 corners facing the kit. but don't get the room mics too far back or you will hear flamming.

Zeke
 
You put mics up in the corners of a room...

....and you're going to get a big mess.

Close-mic drums along with overheads, and maybe a single room mic at a short distance away to capture some ambience that you can blend in.

Keep the room mic on a separate track so you can control how much you want.
 
I personally agree with close mic-ing but unless we rent a mixer, we're limited to 8 tracks...is that plenty? I'd like to include a room mic, really the sound of this hall in phenomenal...so obviously, set a snare, bass drum, and floor tom mics, that's three, this is where all the discrepancies occur, should there be a hi-hat mic or should the snare pick that up? I'll guess to mic the ride as well, but should we mic the two different crashes together or separately? I know these sound like amateur questions, but I'm learning as I read and it'd be great to maximize the time we spend recording to it's best.
Thanks,

BP
 
Do you mean eight tracks or eight channels?
If it's tracks that should be plenty. One track for snare, one for Kick, two or three tracks for toms, stereo pair for overheads and the eighth track for the room mic.
 
What is the STYLE of the music? Without knowing the style of music, this is the kind of room I like for getting that almost John Bonham drum sound. If you are looking for something else, you will need to make different choices.

For a big rock sound, which would be great in a room like that, I would probably start by putting up a pair of hyper-accurate SD condensers, Earthworks TC30Ks being my preference. On the other end of the spectrum from this (stylistically) would be to use some nice LD condensers. The SD is, for lack of a better term, more "eighties", and the LD is more "seventies." When I use LD OH, I almost never use two. I just like the sound more when I only use one omnidirectional LD condenser. This is pretty much my favorite overhead mic option, but in a big room like this I would not want to try this without a backup option. Using only one OH has the side benefit of allowing me to only have to worry about the phase relationship the snare mic to one overhead, as opposed to the snare mic and two overheads. These are my two most used overhead mic setups, thought there are of course others at different times, and of course it is all just my preference. You may find you do not like the way I do things.

Next would be a kick mic. For me, this would be a Beta 52, but again this is just my preference.

A snare mic, for the sound I am thinking of, is necessary. A Beyer 201 is my first choice, but any cardioid or hyper-cardioid dynamic will work well. A 57 is a traditional and good choice. If you have the channels (and it does not sound like you do) an under snare mic is a good idea. I generally want to use the same mic as for the top, as this makes the phase and polarity relationships a little simpler. Give the channels and the mics (for this sound) I would actually like to have a Beyer 201 on the top, another on the bottom, and also an AKG 414, with its 20dB pad, on the top. I do not guess this is an option for you, however.

These are the most important of the "close" mics, thought the OH are not that close.

Given that you have a large room, and that you like the sound of it, I think it behooves you to capture the sound of the room. My favorite way to do this is a pair of hyper-accurate SD condensers, spaced about six to 12 feet away from one another. The distance, in a room that large, is very much open to interpretation. I would start by trying them about half the distance of the room from the kit. My first choice of mics for this would be a pair of DPA or B&K 4006s. If you are going to rent something, this is where I would want to put my money, but these are VERY expensive mics, which have a sound which can not be matched by anything else on the market. In general, I like to compress the hell out of these mics, and I usually do this while I am recording. I like to use the SSL quad compressor (if I have one), a pair of stereo modded Distresors set to Nuke, or a couple of old 1176s, with all the ratio buttons pushed in (that "British" sound). Fast attack and fast release gives you that really powerful "pumping" sound. This is not a subtle effect, but when it is mixed in with the close mics, it makes for one of the best rock drum sounds you have ever heard, probably without any need for reverb latter on. You may or may not wish to follow my example on this. All things considered, the room mics and the overheads are probably the most important mics in the setup.

Only after I had these mics in place would I start to think about the possibility of tom mics. They may or may not be necessary. Again, I like 201s, but other mics will work. Listen to what you have before making the decision. I almost never use hi-hat mics (to the point where I can not remember the last time I used them).

If I was short on tracks, I would just record all the close mics to one or two tracks (depending on the number of OH), and the room mics on two more tracks. If I had to, I would have no real problem with recording it all to two tracks, provided I had a good monitoring setup. Without a good monitoring setup, I would wait until I was in a space to make these choices. But of course, I have never liked leaving my choices until the mix. Get them out of the way, while I can focus my mind on them. If you leave it all until the end, you just have more choices to make, and then you can not focus on each one as intently.

Sorry about the long post. Some days I just can not help myself.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
Don't worry about the long post Light, you really sound like you know what you're doing. Our sound is weezer-esque with hints of great 80's guitars, a lot like 1994 alternative music... Personally I'd like to have a huge, heavy sound. Something that sounds powerful and intimidating. I guess I forgot to mention we're working with an 8 channel mixer, I didn't mean 8 tracks, we use cool edit pro (again because it's free!) so the number of tracks aren't an issue...so if that helps any...

Thanks again for the informative posts

BP
 
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