Excell Studios said:
Hi I have some free time with a barn studio and wanted to get an open view of how you guys/ and girls record drums. My drummer has a Peal EXR set with Zildian AAX cybols.
I am borrowing:
1x Akg D110
2x Shure SM57
2x ECM8000 Measurement mics (overheads)
6x Audix OM-2
1x NIB Pure conderser microphone
5x Various vocal mics
I have a 16 track standalone recorder and an acoustically sound room.
With the available resouces what can I do?
Before you even start with any mic's spend as much time as you need on getting the drums tuned up and sounding good. Make sure they sound good in the room first. Also, how many tom's does your drummer use?
Not sure what the NIB Pure Condenser microphone is.
Depending on what kind of sound you're looking for, there are various ways to do this, but I would recommend taking off the kick drum head, putting the D110 inside, and then covering up the space with a blanket. Oh yeah, are the drums going to be recorded alone or with other instruments?
It looks like those Behringer Measurement mic's you have are fixed in omni-directional pattern, so you're going to be picking up everythign from all directions, and using two omni's for overheads may create phase problems.
Is the barn accoustically treated, and more like a studio, or open like a barn? Getting some of that barn sound could be cool.
Anyway I would put
the D110 on the Kick, and SM57 on the snare. If that NIB is a large diaphragm condenser with an omni-pattern option, I would just use that as your room mic, and call it a day with those three. Or maybe one of the Behringer's. Experiment with using both as overheads, but you may get more that you want with the two omni's. You could also do a snare bottom with the condensor mic or the other 57.
General drum micing rules (and feel free to break these) goes:
1 Mic - Room
2 Mics - Overheads
3 Mics - Overheads + Kick
4 Mics - Overheads + Kick + Snare
And go up from there.
In a barn, just using one omni-mic might sound pretty cool, depending on what type of sound you're going for.
