How would you record a whole drum kit with just one SM57?

[bandso]

Sorry I'm late to the thread. I put together a quick sound clip of an entire kit being recorded on the track,through one Shure 57, at the "heart of the kit", into a Tascam DP-24 and processed with Sonar X3. The sound clip has 3 parts: unprocessed drums, heavily processed drums, and the processed drums being used in a within a full mix with other instruments. I think for doing quick demos during song writing it can be quite usable, and can be done quickly enough so it wont kill the "vibe" when the creative juices are flowing. No drum replacement or samples were used with this recording. Omni condenser mics sound better for this type of recording, but a 57 will work fine as well.

https://soundcloud.com/john-miker-jr/recording-full-drums-with-one-57-in-the-heart-of-the-kit

If anyone is interested, I put a description of how I processed the drums and music on the soundcloud page.

 

[rob aylestone]

Well that sounds better than many multi miked recordings I have heard. So many 'rules' are based on loose foundations and become solid no no's. A bit of experimentation often flattens the rule! Nice one!

 

[gecko zzed]

What Rob A said ^^

Well done!

 

[Greg_L]

Lol for real. Are we listening to the same thing? That sounds like ass to me. Squeaky kick pedal, trash can lid cymbals, the works! It sounds like what it is - one mic on a kit. Hooray for one mic.

You have to ask yourself: are you trying to make a recording, or a good recording?

If it's the former, sure, just stick a mic in there and press record. Yay for minimalism and lowered standards.

If it's the latter, do it better than that.

 

[Rod Norman]

Ouch. But this is what you have. You can try a lot of the suggestions. They are all good. If I have one mic, I like to think live and try to get the sound the audience would hear in a small club. So I place the mic about twelve to twenty feet away right in front, turn that sucker up and hope for the best. You can then very carefully touch it up with eq. Trust me, you won't need reverb. Rami's right. The SM57 has been used like he said and even on whole orchestra stereo recordings. When that's all you have, you just try to get as accurate a recording as you can get.
Rod Norman
Engineer

 

[MrUserNameIV]

You have to ask yourself: are you trying to make a recording, or a good recording?

What constitutes a 'good' recording? I know all the proper recording stuff, etc etc etc, but even if you know all that, it's not always the best to make it perfect if the song calls for something else. There are plenty of great vintage recordings that sound 'bad' by modern recording standards. It depends on what the song needs to convey the right message, emotion, groove, and so on.

 

[Greg_L]

What constitutes a 'good' recording?

Not settling for shit out of laziness or indifference.

 

[grimtraveller]

I put together a quick sound clip of an entire kit being recorded on the track,through one Shure 57, at the "heart of the kit", into a Tascam DP-24 and processed with Sonar X3. The sound clip has 3 parts: unprocessed drums, heavily processed drums, and the processed drums being used in a within a full mix with other instruments.

I found the exercise really useful and it reinforced something I've felt for years and reminded me of why I came to the decision a decade or more ago to do more with drums on my recordings and stop fannying around with them being on one track.
In terms of the recordings bandso has put up, I thought the first clip sounded good considering it was a single S M 57. Everything came across nice and clear. The second clip I didn't like at all. I felt the processing spoiled it but I'm aware that that's just a personal foible. The third clip sort of highlighted the weakness of single mic, single tracking a drum kit ~ competing for space with other heavy sounds, it completely lacked the impact and clarity of the first clip. That could be because they weren't played very tightly but I found this to be the case sonically.

I think for doing quick demos during song writing it can be quite usable, and can be done quickly enough so it wont kill the "vibe" when the creative juices are flowing.

I think it's important that this quote be taken into account when commenting because bandso obviously isn't advocating a single 57 as a viable means of capturing drums for a final finished "to be listened to in this form forever and a day" track. For songwriting and arranging however, it's all Moroccan roll.......
Like Armistice and myself mentioned between us earlier, multi~ miking and processing the drums and having them reside on multiple tracks isn't so much "modern drums" as now old, tried and tested standard drums.

 

[MrUserNameIV]

Not settling for shit out of laziness or indifference.

Doesn't have to be laziness or indifference: It could be that he wanted to challenge himself. In a way, it's more of a challenge to get a good sound from a drum kit with one mic than it is by close micing everything. You don't have the option to micro manage a drum mix if it's all in one track from one mic. As far as the recording. . . Not bad at all for one mic. Could get more control with more mics, but it sounds better than I thought it would.

 

[Greg_L]

it's more of a challenge to get a good sound from a drum kit with one mic than it is by close micing everything. You don't have the option to micro manage a drum mix if it's all in one track from one mic.

Really? Do you have any experience with multi-miking a drum kit? I'm just curious because this sounds like the logic of someone that doesn't know jack shit about recording drums successfully. You act like "micro managing" multiple drum pieces is easy. Let me tell you if you don't know - the multiple tracks on a close mic'd drum kit multiply the problems.

Tracking drums with one mic is hard. Tracking drums with multiple mics is hard. Do them both equally the best you can do, and the multi-miked drums will kill the single mic drums - even if you do want a crappy 50s sound.

 

[Bubba po]

Let's not go back to recording drums with a single mic. I've only just managed work out how to do it successfully with four.

 

[bandso]

Happy Halloween! Thank you to everyone that took the time to listen and comment on my quick little sound clip.

Greg_L has made a good point concerning the quality of my drum kit. I’ll totally agree that it is very low end and it sounds like it (Especially my lack of drumming skills.) I think we all know that a quality kit with new skins, big money cymbals, and a “silent” type kick pedal drive mechanism is going to sound better in any recording environment. That’s not exactly the point of this thread though. The OP asked if it was possible to record (I read this as cover) an entire kit with one 57 and how to make the best out of it. For quick demo and song writing purposes, I’d say yes. Obviously the recording isn’t going to win any awards, but not every recording (especially band rehearsals) needs to sound like a full blown production. Of course you can just throw up a 57 in front of the kit and hit record. That can be just as useful while song writing, I just happen to feel that recording the heart of the kit yields a little better result and is just as easy.

If I were going to try to record something that would be considered “releasable” to the public, I’d just hang the 57 over the kit and later add in phase accurate drum samples. That can bring the drums up very close to a professional sounding quality if done correctly. However I don’t think that is the point of this thread either.
So to answer the op’s question, my own humble opinion is, yes you can: #1 If you don’t want to add in samples later then record the heart of the kit. #2 If you do want to add in samples then use the 57 as an overhead.

I hope everyone have a blast at the costume parties tonight!

 

[MrUserNameIV]

Really? Do you have any experience with multi-miking a drum kit? I'm just curious because this sounds like the logic of someone that doesn't know jack shit about recording drums successfully. You act like "micro managing" multiple drum pieces is easy. Let me tell you if you don't know - the multiple tracks on a close mic'd drum kit multiply the problems.

Tracking drums with one mic is hard. Tracking drums with multiple mics is hard. Do them both equally the best you can do, and the multi-miked drums will kill the single mic drums - even if you do want a crappy 50s sound.

Yep. Lots. Though I admittedly haven't tracked live drums in a few years, I used to track live drums quite a bit. I've even made my own (privately used) drum sample sets from a multi miced kit (awesome drum room, nicely tuned kit, and lots of mics so I could blend the sort of sound I wanted). Hell, I even took impulse responses of the setup so I could emulate the sound with third party sounds if I needed to. It's part of the reason I don't bother recording a live kit these days, because I don't have a nice room at my disposal and the sample sets I recorded are really nice and sound natural when played with electronic drum pads.

My original instrument is the drums and I do recording, so I actually have LOTS of experience doing that. I didn't say micro managing is 'easy': It's a different kind of challenge to do more with less. For the most part, multi micing a drum kit means you just have to worry about placement so stuff is in phase (mic choice matters A BIT, but drum tuning is WAY more important in most cases). As far as the other parts (the room, drum tuning, condition of heads, drum stick choice) you'd have roughly the same challenge with one mic. . . probably even more so because you can't compensate 'in the mix' with outboard gear or plugins. Like, if your room sounds terrible, using one mic is probably going to make it sound even more terrible, because you can't close mic everything and pump up the artificial 'room' verb.

 

[muttley600]

Happy Halloween! Thank you to everyone that took the time to listen and comment on my quick little sound clip.

Greg_L has made a good point concerning the quality of my drum kit. I’ll totally agree that it is very low end and it sounds like it (Especially my lack of drumming skills.) I think we all know that a quality kit with new skins, big money cymbals, and a “silent” type kick pedal drive mechanism is going to sound better in any recording environment. That’s not exactly the point of this thread though. The OP asked if it was possible to record (I read this as cover) an entire kit with one 57 and how to make the best out of it. For quick demo and song writing purposes, I’d say yes. Obviously the recording isn’t going to win any awards, but not every recording (especially band rehearsals) needs to sound like a full blown production. Of course you can just throw up a 57 in front of the kit and hit record. That can be just as useful while song writing, I just happen to feel that recording the heart of the kit yields a little better result and is just as easy.

If I were going to try to record something that would be considered “releasable” to the public, I’d just hang the 57 over the kit and later add in phase accurate drum samples. That can bring the drums up very close to a professional sounding quality if done correctly. However I don’t think that is the point of this thread either.
So to answer the op’s question, my own humble opinion is, yes you can: #1 If you don’t want to add in samples later then record the heart of the kit. #2 If you do want to add in samples then use the 57 as an overhead.

I hope everyone have a blast at the costume parties tonight!

Seriously mate, recording a kit no matter how well tuned, set up, played is never gonna sound half as good as it could good with one 57... It just aint gonna happen. You might as well try and paint the Sistine Chapel ceiling with a pasting brush and pot of black paint. It aint gonna happen. I would however go a step further than gerg and say that you "may "be able to make it adequate if your expectations are pretty low.

Good luck with it and I'd be interested to see how long it takes you all to beg steel or borrow some more mics for the drums...

 

[muttley600]

Oh, and if you are going to add and drop in shit after the event why bother going to the trouble of using a drum kit to begin with? Just get a few relly cheap mics and use them. Even a fistful of cheap mics managed well is gonna sound better than a single mic managed badly..

---------- Update ----------

Let's not go back to recording drums with a single mic. I've only just managed work out how to do it successfully with four.

I told you already... just move the mic around the kit really quickly...

 

[RAMI]

I’d just hang the 57 over the kit and later add in phase accurate drum samples. That can bring the drums up very close to a professional sounding quality if done correctly.

Can you please explain how you can add drum samples when you used only one mic to record a kit? I'm dying to read how to do this.

 

[Greg_L]

I do understand that recording live drums is rife with logistical limitations. If one or two mics/inputs is all you have, you have to make do. I get that. In that case you obviously want to do the best you can.

My stance is against halfassedness with recording anything. What I don't accept is the lie that it's somehow better or more challenging than the old standard traditional way of recording drums with close mics and overheads. The "less is more" cliche is overblown, overhyped, and frankly very incorrect. I think people try to "break the rules" just for the sake of breaking the rules. That's fine, but some "rules" exist because they fucking work. I don't see any benefit in "breaking the rules" when your results are just passable or mediocre. Hey I broke the "rules" and it doesn't totally suck! Great, good for you.

---------- Update ----------

Can you please explain how you can add drum samples when you used only one mic to record a kit? I'm dying to read how to do this.

Oh no you didn't. There was a thread about this already. It's ridiculous DAW shenanigans.

 

[RAMI]

I had no idea. But I knew it was going to be something ridiculous.

 

[muttley600]

........Even a fistful of cheap mics managed well is gonna sound better than a single mic managed badly..

^^^^^^^^This ^^^^^^^^^^

Now close this stoopid thread for everybody's sake....

 

[muttley600]

I had no idea. But I knew it was going to be something ridiculous.

This thread started at ridiculous... It has moved onto totly ridiculous now..