Mic setup

ballophun

New member
I just decided I'm going to do a fast rock cover of a house track this weekend. I usually use samples for drums and spend ages making them perfect with EQ and compression and stuff.
I want the drum kit to sound messy and fucked up on this one though. Doesn't have to be clean and nice. I've got two mics and am thinking of hiring a kick drum mic. I've got a condenser (can't remember what brand but it's pretty nice) which I was going to use as an overhead, and some Sennheiser dynamic thing I was going to mic the snare with.
So if I hire out a kick drum mic, will this be enough to get a dirty rock sound. I know I'll probably end up gating and compressing the crap out of the snare and kick but I might just put a bit of compression on the hats. I've never actually recorded a kit before so don't know what I'm doing.

Any tips for 3 mics? I'm just recording it at home in my living room while my parents are away.
 
I don't mean live. I just mean like messy. So the cymbals don't have to be clearly defined. There can be a lot of sustain on them. The kick doesnt have to be perfectly tight. The snare can sustain. I can't really explain it very well. I guess open yeah.

My condenser is a Studio Projects C-1. It's pretty good. Sounds nice on vocals and guitar. I'm using that as an overhead. Just found out my mate's got some crappy behringer condenser too so I'll use that as another overhead. Then I'll hire a kick mic and use the sennheiser (can't remember which one it is but it looks like an SM-58) for the snare.

I'll mess around a bit with the Glyn Johns setup. Thanks for that.

I've got a Pearl kit which I've never tuned. I only have a bang on it every now and then. Are there any rules for tuning or do you just tune to taste?
 
Actually i think the sennheiser might be a vocal mic. Like a e835 or something. Will that work on snare? Or should I just hire an SM-57 too?
 
Depends on how you want it to sound. In your case, I might skip a snare mic altogether (the main OH should pick up enough) and try the Sennheiser on the kick.

Tuning is half science, half art. How you'll go about it depends on the sound you're looking for. There's a good article here: Drum Tuning and Seating that could help get you started. The basic idea is 1) to get each drum in tune with itself and free of rattles & noise and 2) to then get the drums sounding good as a kit. Then get your drums into the spot in the room where they sound the best, and experiment with the mic placement.

I guess what I'm trying to convey is for you to get the instrument sounding the way you want it to in the room first, then deal with capturing that sound on tape.
 
Yeah I think my toms are about as out of tune as you can get. Sound like a wobble board. But I won't be using them at all. In fact I'll just be using the kick, snare, crash and hat. I just scored an sm-57 too. And have the option to get an sm-58.
So I'll go sm-57 on the kick, sennheisser on the snare, overheads. Or should I score the sm-58 and put that on the kick or something?

Thanks for your help by the way.
 
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