How to mic drums and what to use?

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Thorguitarist

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I need some feedback on some good drum mic packages, like any 5 piece or better mic kits. I own a 5 piece with 2 cymbals (ride, crash) and hi-hat of course. I am currently using a sennheiser e609 for overhead and a sennheiser e835 for bass drum because thats all i have. Also how do you get the bass drums to make that clicking sound that i hear in some metal songs...just wondering
 
First,
Forget those mic packs- they suck.

What I would suggest is the following:

3 ATM Pro-25 mic's. Used for a pair of kicks and the snare.

2 MXL 603 condenser mic's for Stereo Overheads.

2 Boom mic stands for the Overheads.
3 Short booms for the Kicks and the snare.


As far as the clicking kick, most of the Black and Deathmetal drummers actually trigger their drums (electronic Drums). But how you can get a similar sound, is to muffle the kick drums, and aim the mic at the mallet strike spot, then cut the mids, and boost the highs a bit.

Do a lot of reading on this site, because there is a wealth of information here.

You don't need to mic "every single drum". All you need to mic individually are the kicks and snare for fine tuning. A well tuned drumkit in a decent sounding room, through a decent pair of stereo mic's, will yield a killer drumsound.


Tim
 
I'm with ya

Man, I'm in the process of trying to find out the whole "clicking" kick drum thing, too. It always seems as though nobody knows what I'm talking about. Here are a few things to certainly try:

1) Make sure your bass drum is muffled. There's a pillow in mine. It comes in pretty good contact with both drum heads. That's important.

2)My resonant head (non-beater head) is tightened up pretty tight. I would do that. But that's not what matters. What matters is the batter head. Loosen all of those lugs really loose. Then, tighten them until the wrinkle is just barely gone. Or tighten until you feel a little resistance on all of the lugs. It may seem goofey having it so loose, but it definitely plays a big part.

3) Point you mic at the beater!!!! I've experimented with my kick mic being 3" from the beater all the way to having the mic slightly outside the drum. I like it about in the middle. But no matter what, point it directly at the beater.

4) The most important thing is EQ. (Mind you that the previous steps are just primers for EQing. But, they help out so much.) I've been to so many metal shows. Every time, the kick sounds like crap until the sound guys do some EQing. You have to find out what frequencies suit you best but, there are 2 basic steps to EQing for a good clicky kick. A) Drop the cardboard freq. & B) up the clickness of it. For me, I completely cut out 550hz. Just drop it. And I max out 4000hz. It works quite well for me. For recording, I just use a Timeworks EQ plug-in. It lets you set the freq you want to cut/boost. I just tune one in to 550 and the other in to 4000. Drop one, max the other.

Keep searching for answers about it man. Drop me a line if you find out anything. Hope I helped you out.
 
for recording you could just use the drumagog plugin and drop in heavey metal kick sample over the top of your kick?? Drumagog works by replacing realtime hits with samples so I reckon is the easiest way to do what your talking about without having to use extreme eq settings which could stuff up the rest of the mix.
cheers
P.S If most heavey metal drummers use triggered drums then I geuss drumagog is a software-non-midi el cheapo version of that process.
 
Could someone tell me what those see-through glass (don't know the word for it) that you use to place in front a drum set? MIght have to do with the drum sound but want to know make sure.
 
Bass drum click

Here's a trick I learned from the drummer in "Biohazard":

use a wooden beater and tape a coin to the batter head where the beater strikes.

I use a wooden beater and get enough attack without the coin, but I don't play much metal either.
 
iKwak said:
Could someone tell me what those see-through glass (don't know the word for it) that you use to place in front a drum set? MIght have to do with the drum sound but want to know make sure.
Click to expand...

If I understand what you're asking about, I believe they are shields that are intended to control the drums sound from bleeding into other insrument mics. They can also affect the recorded sound by manipulating the reflections. using a tranparent material allows for visual communication between other musicians and the engineer as opposed to more conventional gobos.
 
From Max Weinberg interview in The Big Beat with D.J. Fontana (Elvis' drummer):

...when you were recording in NY in the RCA studios with Elvis, was there any consideration given to getting a drum sound?

Oh, no, just set up and play. One mike over here and that's all we had. Not like today, with drum mikes everywhere.
 
iKwak said:
Could someone tell me what those see-through glass (don't know the word for it) that you use to place in front a drum set? MIght have to do with the drum sound but want to know make sure.
Click to expand...

They have a few names... drum baffles....or gobo(studio term)... Commonly used to keep the kit from bleeding into other instruments mics...

Sorry VT, just seen your reply(after typing this)....good call...
 
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i use either full set recording or the triangle method (like zeppelin used)

Full set
senniesser e602 on kick
sm 57 on snare
2 sm58s on toms
oktava 219 and tascam 125e on over heads

triangle
e602 on kick
oktava 219 and tascam 125 e on over heads
 
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