Anyway, since I have used a lot of money in my eyes, that`s about 1500 euro on mics and micholders/stand, drumchair and one cymbalstand, cables, I just have to use them all.
Absolutely the wrong mindset.
If you were a carpenter with a whole set of carpentry tools, and you had to hammer in a nail, would you go out to the truck and get every piece of equipment you have? No. You'd use a hammer.
Use the right tool for the job.
Use only the right tool and no more.
If you can get a good sound with one mic and you don't have a more compelling reason to use more than "I paid a lot of money for these other mics," then you shouldn't use more than one mic.
Examples of compelling reasons to use more mics:
1) The drum kit sounds good, but this is a standard pop tune where the kick and snare are providing most of the beat, so I need to spot mic them so I can bring them out a bit more.
2) I'm liking my one mic drum sound, but I would like to have a big stereo spread drumkit on this tune, so I'm gonna experiment with some stereo micing techniques.
3) I'm liking my drum sound, but <reason based on objective judgements you've made about the drum sound and how it will sit in the particular track you are recording>.
Bad reasons to use more mics:
1) I paid a lot for them, so they have to get used.
2) I don't like the sound I'm getting from one mic, so I'll just start throwing more on there.
3) It's what they do in pro studios.
These are bad reasons because:
1) See above carpentry analogy. Use no more than the right tool(s) for the job.
2)
If you can't get a pretty good drum sound out of one mic, then your problem isn't how you're miking your drumkit. Your problem is the sound of the drums, the sound of the room the drums are being played in, or the person doing the playing. I've recorded some really good drummers, some mediocre drummers and some bad drummers (myself being included in that last category). It's pretty consistent that the recordings of the good drummers sound good, the recordings of the mediocre drummers sound mediocre, and the recordings of the bad drummers sound bad.
3) Never worry about what they do in pro studios. If that's gonna be your guiding ethos, then you shouldn't be wasting your money on recording at home. Just pay a pro who has a studio to worry about the recording. I promise they have way better equipment and way more experience than you, so they can set their mics up however they like.
The more mics you have set up, the more opportunity you have for them to start interacting in weird ways when the same sounds hit them at slightly different times. Further, with lower end mikes, off axis ugliness/weirdness can start to be a problem. If you had a mic closet full of Neumanns or similarly priced high end mics, this wouldn't be as much of a problem as they often have very nice, sweet off axis responses that don't get all ugly when combined with other direct source sounds. But even the engineers who do have a closet full of Neumanns still have to be careful where they set up all those mics so as to ensure their various phase relationships stay appropriate. And I guarantee you, engineers with much more expensive mic lockers than yours (mic lockers full of mics that each cost more than your entire compliment of mics) refrain on a daily basis from using all their mics at once. They get their money's worth out of mics by knowing when to use them, using them then, and leaving them alone the rest of the time.
Look, I'm not saying don't experiment with all your mics. But do it as blindly as possible with regards to how much they cost. Try everything out in every position you can think of. Be open minded to the possibility that you already had everything you needed before you spent that last big chunk of change. Be open to the possibility that, even though you just spent a big chunk of change, you still don't have everything you need. The most important lesson you can learn in recording is that the final sound is everything. So get as close to the right final sound as you can while doing the least possible amount of extra miking. You'll find that if you lose any notion of how it should be done and start from the ground up with just one or two mics, it's actually pretty hard to screw up the engineering aspect of it.
And yeah, I know it stings to have some mics you paid a buttload for just sitting there collecting dust. But try them out on every new sound you record and see if you can find what they're right for. If you just can't find anything they really sound great on, then they just aren't the mics for you. Sell them to somebody who can use them and start saving up for something you can use. It stings to take a loss like that, but the sting can be soothed by listening back to a really good recording you did where you didn't use the wrong mics just because you had them.
Good luck.
