Thicker toms in overheads?

[SlowerHand]

I've been recording drums with a classic 4 mic setup with great success now, Glyn Johns, Recorderman, or putting the SDC's on the toms as close mics.

Although it sounds pretty good, I'd like them to sound a bit thicker and fuller. How would I go about make them sound punchier, with this 4 mic setup?

 

[Dogbreath]

I use the Glyn Johns too and just yesterday I tried some little Karma K-Micros set up on the toms which put me at 6 mics on drums.
They're really small condensers (omni, I believe) really really hot and really really cheap.

Anyway, that's what I was lookin for was punchier toms that I have more control of at mixdown.

At about 8 inches out, they sound good. Much closer and they sounded overloaded to my ears.

I've tried a few different mics on toms and, like you said, they sounded ok, just not quite what I was lookin for. I'd say keep tryin different mics til ya find a pair that work for ya.

I'm not sayin these little micros are IT for you in your room but I was pleasantly surprised at how good they sounded.

Besides, I picked up 3 of em for $30.

 

[Greg_L]

I've been recording drums with a classic 4 mic setup with great success now, Glyn Johns, Recorderman, or putting the SDC's on the toms as close mics.

Although it sounds pretty good, I'd like them to sound a bit thicker and fuller. How would I go about make them sound punchier, with this 4 mic setup?

Different heads and/or different tunings.

 

[Bob Ross]

Parallel compression on the overhead mics. Modest to heavy squash, fast attack, medium-fast release...and on the returns from the compressor, add several dB low-Q boost at ~600Hz (lower if your personal definition of "thick" resides elsewhere). Leave your unprocessed overhead mic channels at reference level, and start bringing up the compressed channels until the thickness is where you like it.

It sometimes helps if you roll off a bit of high end on the feed going to the compressor (and note that the ~600Hz boost has to come after the compressor). If I also want more skin/impact I'll dial that in on the unprocessed channels...that's where you'd dial in any cymbal sizzle also.

 

[Russtopher]

If the parallel comp idea doesn't work out (sometimes you get a little too much brittleness/harshness in the comp'd track even after EQ'd) you can always duplicate the overhead tracks, manually remove anything that's not a tom hit, then EQ/compress/send to reverb to taste. Depending on the style of music, mostly heavier rock, that can help the toms cut through much better and give more body.

With a more open/less cluttered mix and style, many times just the parallel comp track Bob discussed can do everything you need it to.