Looking for some advice as to micing the drums! I have limited resources and I like recording for fun so yeah! lol I only have two sm57s one beta 52 and one mxl 990. What are some ways you would mic drums with these? I have two toms, snare, kick, hat, and some cymbals. Thanks!
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Another drum micing question
- Thread starter jrieggs
- Start date
Limitations may lead you sometimes to great sound too!
so with your mics, here is what I'll do:
Get the best overall (main) sound of the kit with your MXL.
Try different placements: Besides the right shoulders of the drummers; above the drummer, aiming at the snare; 4-6 feet high (and 3 feet from) in front of the drums; between and above the tom and hihat, aiming at the drummer seat....and so on.
Go for the best balance between the various elements of the drums (be careful of not picking up too much of the hihat) with this mic. Be carefull too with all the cymbals. Angle the mic so they are not sounding too loud and harsh (by not directly pointing it to the cymbals).
Then, put the 52 on the kick (from just a bit inside the hole to a bit outside the hole of the front skin)
One 57 on the snare (30 to 45 degree angle, somewhere above the rim)
The other 57 on the floor. Find the right distance, going for the lows freq. of the floor.
Having your gears, that's what I'll do first. But it's just a starting point. It's always a matter of experimenting with various placements.
Hope it helps!
so with your mics, here is what I'll do:
Get the best overall (main) sound of the kit with your MXL.
Try different placements: Besides the right shoulders of the drummers; above the drummer, aiming at the snare; 4-6 feet high (and 3 feet from) in front of the drums; between and above the tom and hihat, aiming at the drummer seat....and so on.
Go for the best balance between the various elements of the drums (be careful of not picking up too much of the hihat) with this mic. Be carefull too with all the cymbals. Angle the mic so they are not sounding too loud and harsh (by not directly pointing it to the cymbals).
Then, put the 52 on the kick (from just a bit inside the hole to a bit outside the hole of the front skin)
One 57 on the snare (30 to 45 degree angle, somewhere above the rim)
The other 57 on the floor. Find the right distance, going for the lows freq. of the floor.
Having your gears, that's what I'll do first. But it's just a starting point. It's always a matter of experimenting with various placements.
Hope it helps!
ok, simple drum miking, beta 52 inside the kick 1/2 way, the mxl over the drummer with the diaphram pointing down towards the middle of the horizontal plane of drums, then the two 57 on short stands in front twice the distance from the oh mic a few feet off the ground pointing towards the point the 990 was aimed, but once that distance for the 57's from each other, forming an isosceles triangle with the 990.
This technique ("Recorderman" modification of Glyn Johns technique) would work better (maybe only a little) with two MXLs instead of two 57s, but it's still what I'd recommend, and it's what I do, but with two condensers and two 57s.
1 - 52 in the kick, obviously. Where in the kick depends on the sound you want - close the the beater and with a pillow for a more modern sound, more in the middle with the skins a'ringin' for a more vintage rock'n'roll boom-boom.
2 - 57 on the snare. Put it up under the high hat pointed down as much as the drummers setup will allow pointed toward the center of the snare about an inch to an inch and half above the rim, and pointed away from the centerline of the hi-hat as much as possible. The idea is to get the hi-hats as much as you can into the dark zone of the mic so that you get lots of snare and as little hat as possible.
3 - MXL mic about 2 and half to 3 feet abovethe center of the snare, and 6" or so toward the high hat side of the kit, capsule pointed toward the center of the snare.
4 - 57 over the drummers right shoulder. Using a mic cord adjust the placement of this mic so that it is the same distance from the center of the snare as the MXL mic, and the same distance from the center of the kick drum as the MXL mic. This can be a little tricky, but it can be done. You just have to move it up and down and forward and back until you find that spot. Point this mic at the center of the snare just like the MXL.
The idea behind the placement of mics 3 and 4 is to make sure that the sounds from the snare and the kick arrive at the same time in both mics to avoid phasing issues with the kick and snare since these are generally set right in the center of the mix. Record these two as a single stereo track with the levels adjusted so that the kick and snare sound centered. Record the other two mics each to its own track. Finally, once you've tracked everything, find a snare drum 'crack' in you DAW and zoom waaaaaaaaay in on it. You'll see that it arrives in the Snare track a few msec before it gets to the Overheads. Slide the snare recording until these line up. Zoom back out and do the same thing with the kick. Find an isolated thunk, zoom in on it and line it up with it's waveform in the Overheads. There will be some misalignment of the snare signal in the kick drum mic and the kick signal in the snare mic. Don't worry about that (A. - 'cause there's absolutely nothing you can do about it, and B. - because those "bleed through" signals will be very low level compared to the primary signals on their own channels and in the overheads).
That's it... this method will give you a nice spread signal of the whole kit from the stereo overhead pair, and tight, dead centered/phased aligned kick and snare in the middle of the mix. Depending on the drummers setup, you may need to coach him to adjust his playing slightly ("Hit the toms like they owe you money. Hit the cymbals like they're your grandmother's china." is how I was taught.)
This setup or slight variations of it have been used for tons of classic recordings (Led Zep, Beatles, Who, and many others from the 60s and 70s).
Good luck!
J
1 - 52 in the kick, obviously. Where in the kick depends on the sound you want - close the the beater and with a pillow for a more modern sound, more in the middle with the skins a'ringin' for a more vintage rock'n'roll boom-boom.
2 - 57 on the snare. Put it up under the high hat pointed down as much as the drummers setup will allow pointed toward the center of the snare about an inch to an inch and half above the rim, and pointed away from the centerline of the hi-hat as much as possible. The idea is to get the hi-hats as much as you can into the dark zone of the mic so that you get lots of snare and as little hat as possible.
3 - MXL mic about 2 and half to 3 feet abovethe center of the snare, and 6" or so toward the high hat side of the kit, capsule pointed toward the center of the snare.
4 - 57 over the drummers right shoulder. Using a mic cord adjust the placement of this mic so that it is the same distance from the center of the snare as the MXL mic, and the same distance from the center of the kick drum as the MXL mic. This can be a little tricky, but it can be done. You just have to move it up and down and forward and back until you find that spot. Point this mic at the center of the snare just like the MXL.
The idea behind the placement of mics 3 and 4 is to make sure that the sounds from the snare and the kick arrive at the same time in both mics to avoid phasing issues with the kick and snare since these are generally set right in the center of the mix. Record these two as a single stereo track with the levels adjusted so that the kick and snare sound centered. Record the other two mics each to its own track. Finally, once you've tracked everything, find a snare drum 'crack' in you DAW and zoom waaaaaaaaay in on it. You'll see that it arrives in the Snare track a few msec before it gets to the Overheads. Slide the snare recording until these line up. Zoom back out and do the same thing with the kick. Find an isolated thunk, zoom in on it and line it up with it's waveform in the Overheads. There will be some misalignment of the snare signal in the kick drum mic and the kick signal in the snare mic. Don't worry about that (A. - 'cause there's absolutely nothing you can do about it, and B. - because those "bleed through" signals will be very low level compared to the primary signals on their own channels and in the overheads).
That's it... this method will give you a nice spread signal of the whole kit from the stereo overhead pair, and tight, dead centered/phased aligned kick and snare in the middle of the mix. Depending on the drummers setup, you may need to coach him to adjust his playing slightly ("Hit the toms like they owe you money. Hit the cymbals like they're your grandmother's china." is how I was taught.)
This setup or slight variations of it have been used for tons of classic recordings (Led Zep, Beatles, Who, and many others from the 60s and 70s).
Good luck!
J