EQ settings for micing the drums

[pchorman]

A general question which may have been covered at some point:

Please tell me whether any of you bother to adjust the EQ or tone controls of your PA or mixing boards for the different mics placed on a drum set. In other words do you, for example, cut the highs and boost the lows for the kick drum mic, and maybe do the opposite for a high-frequency cymbal mic, or do you usually flatten the EQ so as not to color the sound?

I'm a guitarplayer with little experience recording the drummer, which is why I ask.

Thanks for any inputs.

 

[Emeric]

Do you have the option of EQ'ing after recording and are you mulitracking the kit, or submixing? If your sub-mixing then yeah you may need to do some EQ adjustments to whatever your submixing - whatever is needed. This may take a few run throughs. If your not submixing and are tracking to individual tracks, then play around with the EQ on mixdown.

The EQ settings are vaste. Depends on the song, and what sound your after. The room your recording in, the drum kit tuning and mic placement are as usual, the first concern. Garbage in Garbage out. Sometimes that works to though. I don't adjust EQ while tracking, but I do on mixdown. On the overheads, cut some of lows, all depending, maybe a boost in the upper freq range. For kick, usually some drop in the 250 - 400Hz, and maybe high cut, or some boost depending on the song.

Drums are a lot of fun to record, but can be very aggravating. Get the kit sounding good in the room as best you can and your half way done.

Little more info as to what your tracking to, what mic's you have etc and maybe others can offer some help.

 

[pchorman]

Thanks Emeric. using SM57s all around and am submixing to a single channel of the analog 4-track. I'm mainly concerned about the EQ while tracking.

I need to get my drummer to get his drums tuned - they're far from optimum sounding.