HOW should I mic this kit?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Amorican
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Amorican

Amorican

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My band and I are about to record more seriously now and I am the guitarist/recording engineer and all that, things can get tense, haha.

My drummer has an awesome Grestch kit: kick, snare, one tom, floor tom, ride, left cymbal, right cymbal, hi-hat. Pretty standard.

For mics I have:

-2 Radio shack mics, actually pretty good, a bit bassy
-Shure KSM 27 Condensor
-Shure SM 58

In your guys advice, where should I place the mics and how should I set my board or whatever you wanna say to help?

You can visit our site and my solo site to see how I record and how it previously came out. (Both in my sig)

Thanks so much! Any help or advice is great!
 
OK try this, I acheived a pleasing result using this config

SM58 on the kick drum

KSM 27 as a central overhead

finally place the 2 radio shack mics in front of the kit to catch the toms etc etc. about 2 feet from the kit placed like 10 to 2 with a 6 feet gap

so you have R/shack hard left & right along with the SM58 & the KSM 27 central to the mix

good luck
 
I can't wait to try that--thanks man!

Any help on distances of mics to the kit?
 
OK the 2 R/shacks I've explained

the SM58 I would place in the kick just inside the front hoop pointing off to the side of the drum

the KSM27 I would place about 1 1/2-2 feet above your kit, as central to the kit as possible

remember that nothing is written in stone as far as placement goes experiment & have fun you might surprise yourself

using four mics it's essential that the drummer balances the kit to a fair degree I.E. can't hear the toms?? hit em harder

I would recommend if possible a mic on the snare & then it comes down to powering more out of the toms
 
Cool bud, thanks.

Before I had Radios shack mic on kick pulled back cause we want a Bonham sound. other radio shack mic handling left side of kit by ride, KSM 27 handling right side, and shure 58 was on snare and hi-hat.
 
Amorican said:
My band and I are about to record more seriously now
Click to expand...

Not trying top bust balls here at all, but if you really want a decent recording, get some mics with a reasonable chance to help you out there.

Do a search on the "recorderman techinque" it is a great starting point.
but for mics, i think it would be worht a small investment to give yourself a good chance at a nice drum sound. I would reccomend, at the cheapest i can think of:
D112 or beta 52 for kick, used under $150.
audix i5 or sm 57 for snare used $60 - 75 (you could try the sm58, with the grill removed it is a 57)
Use the ksm27 as the overhead as stated below. Or loo9k around for a pair of MXL 603s for about $125 used for overheads.

I could be off base about teh radio shackmics, but the above is very standard and for $200-300 or so, you can have a decent set of drum mics if youwant them.

Daav
 
Thanks and you are right. But I have just recently gotten a new amp and new pedals , and drum mics are just not in the works for me now.

Gotta stick by what I got for now.
 
slidey said:
OK try this, I acheived a pleasing result using this config

SM58 on the kick drum

KSM 27 as a central overhead

finally place the 2 radio shack mics in front of the kit to catch the toms etc etc. about 2 feet from the kit placed like 10 to 2 with a 6 feet gap

so you have R/shack hard left & right along with the SM58 & the KSM 27 central to the mix

good luck
Click to expand...

That should sound great. I might try something like it, instead of using my mxl 604 pair as overheads, put them out in front like slidey says. Might help balance the cymbals-- low ceiling and all.

[goes to add some more rep to slidey]
 
Yeah I'd try the recorderman setup with the Radio-Shack mics as the overheads. I use the recorderman method (with better mics) and it works awesome. Use the 58 in the kick and the other near the snare, but not on top of it. If you just go sticking mics in front of the kit, you can have some serious phase issues. Stereo spacing can be tricky business. Thats not to say it won't work, but the recorderman method takes about 5 minutes to set up and requires very little fine-tuning. Just my 2 cents.
 
slidey said:
finally place the 2 radio shack mics in front of the kit to catch the toms etc etc. about 2 feet from the kit placed like 10 to 2 with a 6 feet gap
Click to expand...


When you say in front of the kit, do you mean at like tom heights 2 feet from the rims of the kit?
 
You could also try this little trick, one mic only. Place the KSM27 Condenser 3 feet in front of the kick, in height with the hihat, pointing at the snare. That should cover more than you'll expect. Add the other mics where you think this technique leaves gaps, maybe the SM58 at the beater side of kick perhaps.
 
hey there, i'm new here. just thought i'd post my two cents.

honestly, i really think it depends on what type of drum sound you're going for. for example, with my project (www.myspace.com/whentidescollide <--- shameless promotion. ha) i use a pretty simple, what i call "almost-triangular" miking technique to get a full, spacious, "ambient" drum sound.

basically i take a Nady cardiod unidirectional condensor microphone to mic out the right area of the kit (ride, floor, crash cymbal) and then i take a generic dynamic condensor mic (not sure of the brand) to mic out the left side (high tom, hi-hat, snare).

i place the Nady about a foot or more away from everything and point it at a 45 degree angle, then i take the condensor, lower it to where it's a bit below the first hi-tom and to where it's in the middle of the hi-hat, in front of the snare.

i run all this through a Mobile Pre USB interface into my Toshiba laptop into Cool Edit Pro and just make sure every hit is nice and solid (especially the kick since it's technically unmiked), add a touch of reverb, and you've got a pretty great sounding "ambient" drum sound (our living room has a high ceiling so we can capture a lot of sound and it already has a bit of natural reverb).

again it depends on what sound you're going for. if you play fast rock music or something that probably is not the way to go. but i guess, you just have to play with it to see what works best.
 
aidan_m said:
When you say in front of the kit, do you mean at like tom heights 2 feet from the rims of the kit?
Click to expand...

yes, moving them up or down untill your happy with the sound
 
Well...in Fact...

I will be trying this today!!! Whole day of getting drums right, then we are recording at night.
 
Well howdy boys...

Hey guys, update. We laid 2 songs down the other night. The drummer and I tried for an entire day all diff. types of mic placements, thanks for all the advice. We made up a few of our own. But the best drums sound we ever got and what were using for nowis this:

-Radio shack mic on kick, placed in the sound hole just a lil' bit.

-Radio shack mic as overhead coming down in middle between cymbals--right over the high tom and floor tom.

-Shure SM58 about 3 in. from snare aimed right down at it.

-Shure KSM 27 Condensor mic 33 & 1/2 in. away--centered, middle of kit, just a lil' above cymbals aimed down.

So that is that. Hopefully in mixdown I can get the final good sound, we all dig it as of now in rough mixes. I've been really worrying about all this stuff, and I'm the only recording dude doing this all, and still the guitarist as well, haha, which so many of us on this board are, most likely.

I've always got real good remarks on my solo recordings, but recording a band is a whole new world, i'm learning as I go...It really gets to me if I can't good results I'm proud of. The 2 songs up on our site now--I am embarresed--recording wise--to have them up...But oh well.

Hope my info. can perhaps help someone. Any other comments or feedback, I'd love to hear.

We plan on doing 2 more tunes this friday or sat.
 
Oh boy...I always do this! I went after class and picked up 2 Shure PG57's with money i do NOT have! ahhhhhhh!!!!

Make me feel better at least....haha....please...
 
So now i gots: pg57 on snare, pg57 on toms, sm58 on kick, ksm 27 condensor on full kit in front.
 
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