drum recording

[Jimmy2002]

at the moment in my pc i only have a sound card with one input i seen the new one that that i want with more inputs but untill i have saved enough to buy this one
dose any one know of a good way i can record the drums recently i have been doing as follows
1 mic on the the Bass and 2 over head mics feeding in to a mixer the from the mixer to the sound card input,
Any ideas Jimmy

 

[pdadda]

The kick mic and 2 overheads sounds like a decent way to do it. What mics are you using for each position? If you want a good way to do it with three mics (this may be the way you are already doing it) do a search for "recorderman" or something like "drums and 3 mics."
It's gonna be hard to do too much with EQ if you are only on one channel, so try to get it as good as you can on the way in. Make sure snare and kick are loud enough. For any weak spots, you could try filling in with decent sampled drums (although they will probably be tuned differently). It might be a better idea to find the parts in your recording with the best hits (for each drum) and sample them.
I feel your pain man. For my first demo, I used a single input soundcard. Its not gonna sound great, but you'll learn a lot.

 

[Jimmy2002]

cheers bud i do hve room for 4 mics but i carnt seem to find a decent place to put the 4th Iv tried to mic the snare with it but its really hard to get the right levels on the way with only being able to use 1 track

 

[LRosario]

Sounds like a tough spot. It's not hard to do, but it'll probably take some experimenting on your part to get the right sound you want.

I guess in a situation like this you have to consider whats important to you. Do you want more snare and bass drum? Sharp toms? Different combinations will give you different sounds.

You said you have 4 mics...


You can try 1 mic on the beater side of the bass drum, 2 over head and one aimed at the snare.

Or 1 mic on the resonant side of the bass drum, 1 over head (in direct center of all the drums), one aimed at the snare and the last one for an ambient mic (place a few feet ahead of your drums).

This configuration won't give you much stereo to work with, but could be worth a shot.

Those are just examples of what you can try...hope it helps.

 

[gumplunger]

I would go with the 4th mic on the snare as well, just close mic it at an angle of about 50-60 degrees or whatever sounds good to your ears and try to avoid clipping etc.