Miking Drum Question

M

Melvin McSnatch

New member
Until recently, my gear has been completely focused on recording my guitar. Over the weekend, I picked up some new stuff and I'm going to be recording some drums and I'm trying to think about how best to set it up. Not all of this gear is optimized for drums, but there's nothing left in the budget for a nice kick and overhead mics. Here's what I got:

2 EV N/D468s - One on kick and one of floor tom.
2 SM 57s - One on snare and one on tom.
AKG Perception 120 - Single overhead condenser placed over the center.

I also have the SM48, built in condensers on my Zoom R16 and some even cheaper dynamic mics I wasn't going to use.

Does anyone have any better ideas or tips?
 
Sounds like a plan to me. Set them mics up and give it a roll and see what it sounds like. Moving the micsa just a little can give endless variety of sounds. Experiment sir.
 
That was my reasoning for suggesting the 57 on kick, I've never tried the 468 on one. I have the 308's that I use on horns, guitars, toms, etc...... My one attempt of using a 57 for kick left me with the impression that it worked OK if a real kick mic was not available. That seems to be the legacy of the 57, it seems to be an excellent SECOND choice for just about anything you can think of. Can't think of anything (maybe snare) that I use it as a first choice.
 
Tomm Williams said:
That was my reasoning for suggesting the 57 on kick, I've never tried the 468 on one. I have the 308's that I use on horns, guitars, toms, etc...... My one attempt of using a 57 for kick left me with the impression that it worked OK if a real kick mic was not available. That seems to be the legacy of the 57, it seems to be an excellent SECOND choice for just about anything you can think of. Can't think of anything (maybe snare) that I use it as a first choice.
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I concur with this part about the 57 on the kick. I'd go sm57 on the kick and snare and then throw the other two on the toms. I personally only like the 57 on smaller toms like an 8" I'd try this method first but by no means avoid experimenting others. I personally would like a similar frequency/dynamic response out of each tom mic even if its not ideal theyll atleast sound more "balanced". For the record though the more i do this recording bit the more I find myself using the sm57 as my go to mic. I'd definitely try not to get overwhelmed by the mic selection and focus more on placement than switching them around so much.
 
guitarded2 said:
I concur with this part about the 57 on the kick. I'd go sm57 on the kick and snare and then throw the other two on the toms. I personally only like the 57 on smaller toms like an 8" I'd try this method first but by no means avoid experimenting others. I personally would like a similar frequency/dynamic response out of each tom mic even if its not ideal theyll atleast sound more "balanced". For the record though the more i do this recording bit the more I find myself using the sm57 as my go to mic. I'd definitely try not to get overwhelmed by the mic selection and focus more on placement than switching them around so much.
Click to expand...

Much to be said for this. Since the high/mid/floor tom's don't sound the same, not really that worried about using identical mics. The very difference between mics used could be the flavor that makes it great.
 
I ended up using the 468 on kick. It did slightly worse than OK.

My real problem was with the Perception 120 as an overhead. The small crash comes in way to high frequency and strong. It's incredibly piercing. But adding the condenser to the arsenal made the drums and other cymbals sound fantastic otherwise, so I need to make it work.

Luckily, it was just a scratch drum track, so I'll get to move it around and try to fix the problem today.
 
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