recording drums

[emomusician]

I just got a presonus firepod so I now have the ability to record up to 8 mics simultaneously.. now allowing me to do drums how I've wanted to do them.

But having such limited resources is now making it hard, now that I have the inputs.

How many mics do I use?

and Where do I put them?

What kind of room?

right now I'm experimenting with 4 mics (i need more stands). sm57 on snare, beta 52 on kick, 2 cheap lipstick condensors for overheads.

It sounds ok.. but I am trying to get that really fully, pop punk drum sound. What do I need to do? the room I am recording in has an echo..

[Track Rat]

Generally, I record drums with 7 mics. One inside the kick (D-112 or SM-57), one on the outside resonant head (GT AM-52 in fig 8), snare (MD-441 or C-1000), rack tom (toms)(C-1000), floor tom (C-3000), and two overheads (SR-71's). I can consistantly get decent drum sounds (depending on the kit condition and player of course).

[RAMI]

I do it with 4.

I'd be way more concerned about the room than the mics right now. Especially if the room you're recording in "has an echo".

All the mics in the world won't help you as much as learning about treating your room and tuning your drums.....You don't want a room that "has an echo" for recording your drums.

[Greg_L]

You will have to experiment with O/H configurations and mic placement. There is no "one answer" to tell you. Do some homework, try to understand why things work the way they do, and implement what you learn.

But if you want that snappy pop-punk sound, buy some triggers and a module.

[emomusician]

I've been hearing someone say there is a plugin out there that can take say a recorded snare track, and will replace the wave "marks" with a sampled drum sound.

is this essentially triggering without the triggers?

[Greg_L]

Originally Posted by emomusician

I've been hearing someone say there is a plugin out there that can take say a recorded snare track, and will replace the wave "marks" with a sampled drum sound.

is this essentially triggering without the triggers?

Yeah it's called drumagog.

[drossfile]

if you want to get some answers on how and why you would mic drums any particular way, check out harvey's sticky in the mic forum. the information there is priceless.

also, this gives you some good starting points:

http://www.saecollege.de/reference_material/

good luck!

[elly-d]

arrrggh triggers. i don't get how drummers can be for these things. anyway if your room has echo and you don't have another available room (and you don't want that 'room sound') then you need to close mic every drum and cymbal seperatley. and since you have eight ins now then you should be fine. always stick one back a bit for a room ambience if you have spare, even if you don't use it.

also probably just as importantly compress the hell out of em for that sound.

[thebigcheese]

There's this thread on here about this:

http://www.homerecording.com/bbs/showthread.php?t=39030

Also, look at the Glyn John's method. I like it, but I think I still have to supplement it with tom mics anyway...

http://danalexanderaudio.com/glynjohns.htm