mixing drums

[xxmetalinbloodx]

hey guys, im new to the world of recording so be prepared for a few stupid questions at first ;-) Okay, what are some opinions on recording drums? would it be good to mic all of them into lets say an 8 channel mixer, and use the mixer's stereo outputs to put into ur main mixer across 2 channels? I was thinking about it, and since I'm so new at this, I dont know if I dreaming or conceiving.

~thanks

[minusone]

Originally posted by xxmetalinbloodx
hey guys, im new to the world of recording so be prepared for a few stupid questions at first ;-) Okay, what are some opinions on recording drums? would it be good to mic all of them into lets say an 8 channel mixer, and use the mixer's stereo outputs to put into ur main mixer across 2 channels? I was thinking about it, and since I'm so new at this, I dont know if I dreaming or conceiving.

~thanks

Is there a reason why you can't just run your drum mics into your main mixer?

Its usually a good practice to have the shortest audio chain possible.

Close micing (micing each drum) requires a lot of finese and testing as mic positioning is incredibly important (for capturing the tonal qualities you want, and to optimize isolation... if that is what you want).

I typically always start micing a kit with just three or four mics, two condensor overheads, and one LDC out a few feet from kit and a few feet off the deck.

If I do introduce a fourth mic, its usually to the snare (to call it out a bit more). Most of the positioning is done tweaking the placement of the overheads... to balance the cymbol levels with the tom/snare levels.

Just a little FYI... what you are referring to is recording drums... not "mixing" per se... mixing is what happens *after* everything is recorded

[dr.colossus]

i agree it is extremely difficult to run more than four mics into two channels in pre production, whats more is its very easy to make a complete mess of it. if you are coming down to two seperate tracks in a multitracker, then these are two options i'd consider...

1) run snare + overhead hard left
bass drum hard right

(this will give you control over the bass drum level and also the e.q.ing because of the similar frequencies in each group)


2) run snare + bass drum center
left oh hard left, right oh hard right

(this gives you less post production options, but gives out a nice stereo positioning effect on the toms and cymbals)


if you want to run more mics, its best advised to record each to its own track, thus giving you greater post production options...this is not to say you can't get a great sound with just three or four mics, providing you take time in positioning them and really listening hard to whats coming through your monitors

hope this helps