3 Toms, 2 Mics

MrKwik

MrKwik

**will man ho for gear**
I have been trying to get a good drum sound using only 2 overheads and close mic on kick & snare. I used recordermans overhead setup and it seems to work pretty good but when I mix my drum tracks in with other instruments, the toms just get lost. Basically the overheads pick up alot more cymbals than toms so I cant raise the overheads without the hats and ride getting really overpowering. I figured I would play with close micing the toms and see what happens. Problem is that that I have more drums than I have inputs on my mixer and soundcard. My mic setup is pretty low end but what I have so far is a 57 on the snare, and PG52 on the kick and a pair of superlux SD condensers that came in this drum mic kit I bought as overheads. The way my kit is set up, I have 8", 10" and 13" rack toms in front with a 16" floor tom on my right and a 14" rack tom to the left of my hi hats. I had 2 snare/tom dynamic mics from the superlux kit that I wasnt using so I put one of those on the 14" and 16" low toms. Now my dilema is that I need to mic the front 3 toms with only 2 mics because thats all the inputs I have left. I have considered 2 diferent options and need to know what would probably work best. First option would be to get 2 more dynamic mics. If I did that, would it be best to put one between the 8-10 pair and one between the 10-13 pair or would it be better to put one on the 13 and one between the 8 annd 10? My other option would be to upgrade my overheads (which I have been considering anyway) and that would leave me with the 2 condensors. Would those work well either on top in the same fashion as the dynamics or out in front of the toms maybe? I figure that they would pick up even more of the cymbals and I would be shooting myself in the foot, but my concern with using dynamics is how well they will pick up the toms being between them rather than pointed at the heads. What would you do?

Here is a pic of my kit for reference
 

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if you boost the eq on the overheads at around 80-100hz, around there, it will bring out a bit of the depth in the toms. not too much tho or the tom sound will go tubby. hope this helps.

Steve
 
Try setting up your cymbals lower and further out, and moving your OH mics in closer -maybe using an x/y technique. Keep adjusting incrementally until you get an OH mix that sounds good to you. You could also use compression to bring the toms out.

I've spent quite a bit of money on close micing my toms and just hardly ever need to use it at all...

But you might want to invest in some better OH mics. If your room is nice, you might even consider some LDCs.
 
After messing around this last weekend, I've found they key is to simplify. I've already been in your shoes with all those mics and what to put where. What I found quickly fixed my recording woes was to get a quality $99.00-199.00 LDC(=Large Diaphragm Condensor mic-not like kind that you already have) and your questions will likely go away. I just slap one up right behind my head and that's that's needed. Trust me on this recommendation. I use only ONE MXL 990 and it picks everything up as if every drum is prefectly and individually mic'd- at least it does afterwards with a minimal amount of enhancement processing with FX. It's the simplest, yet most effective method for me personally.

Here's an example of my method and I use the same mx2004a Mixer as you do. The song is BluMetal Groove (Example 2):

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/2/theanoymousmusicexplosionmusic.htm

You can check out my earlier micing methods on the different songs and such to see what sort of results I was achieving. I posted micing info about most the songs in the "Lyrics/Story" info links with each song.
 
fritzmusic said:
After messing around this last weekend, I've found they key is to simplify. I've already been in your shoes with all those mics and what to put where. What I found quickly fixed my recording woes was to get a quality $99.00-199.00 LDC(=Large Diaphragm Condensor mic-not like kind that you already have) and your questions will likely go away. I just slap one up right behind my head and that's that's needed. Trust me on this recommendation. I use only ONE MXL 990 and it picks everything up as if every drum is prefectly and individually mic'd- at least it does afterwards with a minimal amount of enhancement processing with FX. It's the simplest, yet most effective method for me personally.

Here's an example of my method and I use the same mx2004a Mixer as you do. The song is BluMetal Groove (Example 2):

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/2/theanoymousmusicexplosionmusic.htm

You can check out my earlier micing methods on the different songs and such to see what sort of results I was achieving. I posted micing info about most the songs in the "Lyrics/Story" info links with each song.
Click to expand...


I don't know dude, that doesn't sound very good. It's all phasey and washed out. I'd second the single LD overhead but obviously not the one you used or where you placed it. I use a Blue Baby Bottle for mono overhead and it works really well.
 
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