Can you use any mics to mic up a kit?

[Dopps]

I have 3 regular vox mics and although I know it won't produce studio quality I was wondering if anyone could give any tips on how to get a half decent sound with these. I have a drum machine so could maybe do some of the drums with this. Any help would be appreciated.

 

[TripleJ]

You have to give us more information than that.

What brand microphones? What type? Model#s?

What signal chain you got goin there? Do you have a good singer, or is it voiceover stuff?

 

[mikeh]

If you are not overly concerned with a high level of quality, than certainly you can use almost any mics to mic up a drum set.

Assuming the 3 mics you have are some basic dynamic mics you may want to try either:

1 on kick
2 overhead

-or-

1 on kick
1 on snare
1 over head (if you don't care about stereo panning)

-or-

1 on kick
2 in front of the drums (one for the snare/hi hat/ high tom and one for the low tom/floor tom)

Cymbals tend to cut fairly well with minimum micing - so the main focus tends to be micing the drums - with particular focus on the snare & the kick.

Candidly, trying to mix a drum machine with poorly mic'd drums can be a losing battle - the drum machine will have very tight, focused, in your face sounds, while the accoustic drums may sound dull and distant.

That being said, you could try to program the snare & kick using the machine and then play the tom fills & cymbals live (this would allow you to close mic the toms). A good way to blend machine & accoustic - play the machine through speakers into the room, and then mic the room sound (rather than recording the machine direct.

However, if the room has bad sound, this will be reflected in the recorded sound.

Good luck!

 

[thembuzz]

The insane option

Firstly, what are you recording into? If it's a computer, I have a suggestion...

I recently worked for a producer called James Sanger, who had a peculiar method for recording drums, but it seemed to work - he used one (you read that right... ONE) mic set up in front of the kit, pointing at the snare, centrally between and at the same level as the crash and ride. Once recorded, he'd use samples to back up the kick.

If you don't want to go quite so far, though, there's a compromise: record your drums into the computer with one of the mic set-ups suggested by mikeh, then reinforce your hits where necessary with samples. This might help compensate for poor sound quality, if there is any.

One draw-back, though - if you're going to use this method, either you're going to have play to a click track like an automaton, with every single beat in exactly the right place, right down to the tick, or you'll need to tighten your drums in a sequencer (which is time-consuming, boring and not always possible unless you have the right software).

If, however, you're not using a computer, then please ignore everything I've said because it'll be of no use to you whatsoever.