Drum Mic Positions

[Whyte Ice]

What are some good mic positions for a drumset? I have 4 mic stands to work with and lots and lots of mics.

My drum set consists of a snare, toms, floor tom, kick, 2 crashes, & hi-hat.

If you can sort of see, I'm new to the whole world of drum recording. So if you could please be soft on me.

 

[pratt]

hmmmmm......

1 mic on snare (preferably SM57 or similar)
1 mic on bass drum (preferably AKGD112 or Shure Beta52 or similar)
2 overheads set up as a stereo pair (preferably condensers - I currently use RodeNT3s but have used ShureSM81s (nice!); AKGC1000S (don't like much, really); CAD EquitekE200 (nice! wish they were mine) )

that basic setup will get ya a pretty good drum sound

Here's a decent article on mic placement:
http://homerecording.miningco.com/library/weekly/aa072997.htm

if you come up with some more stands throw a mic on each of the toms as well the high-hats

 

[LongWaveStudio]

try a condensor like the c414 on the bottom of the snare aswell, with a 57 on top. reverse the phase of the bottom mic, and ..wow...

 

[sonusman]

Or just try a 414 on the top of the snare!

Ed

 

[LongWaveStudio]

the bottom of the snare is pretty important!

 

[xtremedb]

If you're any good with placement and eq, you can get a good sound without micing the bottom of the snare. The biggest benefit (one that no one seems to mention) is that you can apply reverb seperately to the top and bottom. This way, you can fatten the sound without losing the transient attack. Messing around with two different reverbs also provides neat results sometimes.

Brad Gallagher
http://www.just-for-musicians.com/

 

[LongWaveStudio]

i usually mic up both to and bottom, really nice sound usually. yeah, i did the two reverb thing a while ago on this pop track, hehe, sounded good!

 

[Bedubs]

On my 5 piece I have a SM57 between small tom, HH, pointing directly at the snare, a D112 just inside the hole in my kick, another SM57 above my ride, right of my medium tom, pointing toward my 16" floor tom. I also have a V57 suspended from the ceiling about 2' above my toms to pickup any extra cymbal or room noise.

It seems to work pretty well and we don't get a lot of feedback or phasing.

-b