Miking drums for a live performance

J

jritschel

New member
Hello everyone,

I've been having difficulty miking my drum kit for live performances. I'm sure that many of you are familiar with the concept, but my buddy and I are working together in a DJ/Drummer combo; the DJ spins and the drummer layers drums over the tracks. For the most part, everything has been going great, we really enjoy our material thus far and we've had some success recording, however we've been having trouble with the EQ when we play live. Its really hard to get the drums to have a presence live; the drums never really seem to "bump" when running out of our sound system, they get even more drowned out when the DJ starts spinning. I'm running a total of 5 mics on the kit with a behringer mixer, shure sm57s on the snare and the 3 toms and a beta 52a on the kick, we don't have any overheads. For sound, we use two QSC HPR 15" subs and two JBL PRX 3-ways. To be completely honest, we're not really sure what we're doing when we're miking the kit/EQing, we just put on some headphones and tamper with the mixer until we get the sound we're looking for out of the drums. As hinted upon above, however, our biggest problem is just making the drums loud enough, I feel like our sound system is big enough, but we're just doing something wrong. Should we just try gaining everything through the roof? I'm not really sure what to do, any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks for reading my post, I'll try and post pictures of my mixer settings.

Mixer Settings:

We use a "pitch and reverb" effect on the mixer.

Pictures coming soon
 
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Forget about getting that sound with a live kit unless its a very high-end drum kit. Do yourselves a favor for what you're doing and get some triggers and a drum module that has sounds you like.
 
You may need to bring the DJ down to match the drums but then if the total mix isn't big/loud enough for your live show then you need to rethink your PA situation and get a bigger one. It all boils down to having enough paper to purchase what you need for a successful show.
 
@Cavedog -- I feel that my kit sounds pretty solid on its own, acoustically, I just simply want to make it louder in a live setting via the mics/sound system. The kit sounds great when soundchecking through headphones or on a recording, we're just having a tough time amplifying the kit for one reason or another.
 
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@Moresound -- I completely understand what you mean; I guess I just need more direction/experience with micing drums in the context of our project before I can really judge how big of a sound system is required. However, we do use 2 15" QSC HPR151i subs and 2 JBL PRX 3-Ways, all in all about 3000-4000 dollars in equipment. On paper it feels like enough sound, especially considering we're not playing all that spacious of venues, but then again I'm no expert. I'd just hate to go out and buy/rent more sound if we really don't have to.
 
Should be fine with this setup, as said you may need to bring down the DJ rig to match the volume of the drums without overdriving the PA.
Don't listen to the trigger advice, I am sick of people recommending triggers because they can't get a drum sound, most drums tuned correctly and miked up properly can sound great, triggers are lazy, only use triggers to get extra sounds if you want them.
You may have to experiment with eq and the drum channels, try to get the kick to have more attack and a bit less low end so that it cuts through the mix with the DJ, also by having a bit less bottom end the PA is not working so hard. It's alright sound checking the drums on headphones, but this does not give you the sound with the room acoustics in the story. Have you got a 31 band eq across the PA so you can eq for the room?

Alan.
 
First off, you don't need a high end drum kit to get a good sound. I've played live with Pearl Exports in the past and have gotten incredible drum sounds. You do need a good set of heads, and your heads need to be tuned properly.

Second of all to get the punch you're looking for you need a compressor. Some of the behringer mixers have built in FX, which if yours does you've already got one, if not, you can pick one up for around 100-300 depending on what you get.

If you're using dynamic mics only you need to get them as close to the batter heads as possible to get that proximity effect, which will punch up the low end. If you're just using one B52 on your kick, you need to port your reso bass head and get a boom long enough to get the mic all the way in the drum 2" from the front head just off center. You'll want to play with how much the mics are pointed to the center of the head for more attack.

Another thing, is that even though you're playing with a D.J. the same rules apply for playing in a band, the drums need their own space in the mix. My guess is your mix is probably stepping over each other, which it sounds muddy.

Don't waste money on triggers if your mix isn't right. People think triggers/electronic drums are the answer to everything, but if your mix isn't good it will sound just as bad.
 
How are you crossing over your system? Is it all done in the PA boxes? If so you may want to run the subs separately through a sub mix for greater control.
 
Your PA is good enough. For those naysayers who arent looking at the picture you're painting about the TYPE of gig you're pursuing let me explain it this way. You're mixing mediums. The DJ spins are highly processed sounds. The live kit is not. It sounds good acoustically, no doubt, but its probably simply getting lost amoungst the sounds you're trying to integrate it with. I doubt that its a matter of volume at all.

I'm not suggesting that triggering is a do-all be-all answer to any situation, but you are, perhaps, the perfect element in which to explore this simply because of the difference in processing between the two sounds. I really do 'get' what you're trying to accomplish and maybe you can get there with some tweaking, but maybe not.

I get great concert quality massive drum sounds in many different venues and without triggering. A lot of times there is a large amount of outboard processing to choose from and this will help. Of course knowing which knob to turn makes a bunch of difference.

The suggestion that the drums need their own space is spot on. But how do you get that easily?

The big guys always trigger. If you think they dont you havent done any big shows.

BTW. A 'trigger' is simply another type of transducer to reproduce a signal. Like a mic. You dont have to overprocess it and I'm sure theres a middle ground with the acoustic sound and a processed sound combined. Its a pretty common thing.
 
To give you meaningful advice on how to get it louder we to know why it isn't loud enough. Is there feedback? Are you running out of travel on the faders? Are the drum mics clipping before it sounds as loud as the DJ?
 
I've done a few shows live like this and they seemed to go well! I just needed to get a good handle on the DJ's signal to me and keep it at a working volume (not to hot/loud) and it was a great show.
 
cavedog101 said:
There's not a lot of headroom in the mixer you are using......
Click to expand...

The headroom of the mixer is directly related to how much power the PA amplifiers have, if there is not enough power on the amps then people then to push the mixer volume up, if there is a ton of power in the amps then the mixer can be turned down.

Sounds to me like you are just pushing the PA too hard with the DJ to start with then trying to get the PA to handle drums as well. You should start with the drums first with some headroom left in the PA so its not running full, then bring up the DJ volume to match the drum volume.
Alan.
 
jritschel said:
Sorry, I should have made myself clearer...yes, the drum mics are clipping before it sounds as loud as the DJ
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Several posts gave advice that applies to this situation. What the DJ is playing is probably heavily compressed and limited so it has almost no peaks. Your drums, being live and without much processing, are extremely peaky. Get the drums right and mix the DJ to them, then turn something up downstream from the mixer. That should work unless the PA is too small or something isn't hooked up right.
 
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