Drum Panning - Advice?

I

indravayu

New member
Hey folks,
Just finished tracking in the studio last night the drums (as well as scratch bass & guitar) for my band's new CD - here are the individual drum tracks we recorded:

1 Kick
2 Overheads
2 Snare (Top/Bottom)
3 Toms (High, Mid and Low)
1 Hihat
1 Room mic

My question is this - we will likely mixdown the tracks ourselves (unless we can come up with some more cash to hire an engineer - not likely though) - how would you guys pan these drum tracks for a natural sounding kit? Or would you keep them in mono? Our music is straight-up Led Zeppelin-y rock, if that matters.

Thanks,
Chris
 
Maybe follow your overheads?

Kick and snare are generally center...
With your overheads panned out, where do the toms fall?
Place your toms in relation to this.
 
That is a good idea. Another thing to do, depending on how prominent the overheads are, is pan all the close mics to the center and pan the overheads wide.
 
It all depends on what sounds good. I know that's general, but these types of things are going to differ from situation to situation. I generally like to start with the overheads up by themselves panned out hard. After that, I try to fill in what's needed with the individual mics. Sometimes the overheads can have a major bulk of the sound you need. Usually, the kick needs reinforced. I did some drum mixes just yesterday and it sounded best with overheads and kick by themselves. You just never know.
 
Oh, but as far as panning, yes the kick and the snare usually go straight up, but if you pull them to the left and right just a bit, it can lead to just the amount of seperation you need. The rest should technically be either from the drummers perspective, or from the front of the kit perspective.

Experiment.
 
I always pan from the drummers perspective - cuz I'm a drummer and anything else sounds unnatural.

OHs panned nearly all the way hard left and right. Close mics in the center - EXCEPT for some sequential rolls that I would pan post-recording as they happen (automated in Cakewalk for me). It's a really nice effect for "visualizing" rolls across the set.
 
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