Recording drums w/ minimal mics/tracks?

[carquinez]

Need to record a jazzy, brushy kit consisting of bass, flloor tom, rack tom, snare, two rides, and a hi-hat to four tracks. The mics I have are two 58s, a 57, a Beta 57, and a condensor mic. A good feel and rhythm are key, not total isolation and seperation of every drum.

I've read the "recording drums with 57s" thread elsewhere on this board, but I'm interested in how others might set this up. I'll need to bounce this down to two tracks upon completion, maybe even bouncing the bass guitar with them...yikes?

What if I wanted to be even more lo-fi and use only one room mic to record the kit? Or two?

Thanks,
Ryan

[manning1]

if you search under my name and add the word triangle...ive posted some ideas on this in the past. my preference is two crown pzm's (or try the cheap shack pzm's modded if you can find them used) in xy overhead.
and a kik mic eg....electrovoice dynamic .
peace.

[tollbooth]

gosh darn drat, if only it were two condensers!

i have a drummer with a fairly complex rig and we always end up with 8-10 mics per session, however, one of the best sessions we got was when we got stuck on a session for someone else and i only had two rode nt1's, and two 57s.

so - 57 in the bass drum port hovering about 2" from the back of the front skin, 57 on the snare, and the rodes in x-y about 2 feet above the drummer's head.

sounded great, and the drummer played better as he wasn't concerned about battering the hell out of all my mics i usually have slung up!

can't remember where i read it, but one of the old school engineers who'd worked on some classic drum tracks (awh wish i could remember who!) advocated this approach as they felt that the person who knows the kit sound best is the drummer, and so what you should try and pick up is what the drummer hears, as they will change the dynamics to match their own 'monitoring'.

this approach will mean you don't have as much control at mixdown as you don't have as many separate elements, but i've done this a few times now and rarely found anything i couldn't pull out with EQ or dynamic control. unless you have an odd piece of 'featured' precussion, say like a djembe or wood blocks or something, and then it might be worth overdubbing this afterwards, or thickening the 'live' sound up with an overdub.

for budget overheads - have a look at the SE's, they work quite well - they're not pristine by any means but they're ok.

have fun!!!

paul d

[Ronan]

This should be no problem if your drummer is good. The album I just finished was a rock album and we did the whole kit with two mics.

Jazz is even easier (I assume we are talking acoustic jazz). The the condensor if differnt place and capture the whole kit with that. Try over head or in front of the kit. Move the mic around to mix. If the drummer and mic are good, you are done. Then stick the 57 a couple feet in front of the kit in case you need a little extra clarity from the kik. Done.