I'll post it here instead...

  • Thread starter Thread starter Meshuggah
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Meshuggah

Meshuggah

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Drummers aren't too bright as we all know. So I post this question here instead..

umm.. has anyone tried to mic drums like this?

Your ordinary favv snare and kick mics
2 overheads (whatever you have)
1 mic *under* each tom (sm57, atm25, pro25, whatever)

If you tried it, how was it?
 
If my memory server me right........ U get a darker/bassy sound from micin the bottom of the tom tom, U lose the snap and some brighness of the hit a bit, and it doesn't sound as defined as when miced from over the tom.

and do these tom toms have 1 skin or 2????

Sabith
 
Well..... that will make the sound even more bassy, but it will still sound a lot better than if U didn't mic them at all, plus the overheads can help get the hit of the tom from overtop of em for a more deffined sound.

I'd say if U have the mic's to mic each tom, and enough tracks to record, go for it.

Sabith
 
Don't you think the bassyness can be worked around with a little experimenting with position / direction of the mic.. Maybe by pointing it more a the rim...uh.. or something. I got this idea at a clinic with Meshuggah-drummer Tomas Haake. He said they used trigger-mics to mic the heads (they do make a little clicking sound when used as a mic), and then put a mic under each tom, so I thought I should try the same, but use the overheads to pick up the attack..

well well.. I'll get to try it soon enough :D

cya
 
ya I'm just saying the it will be a bit more bassy than a 1 skin tom would be....... it can be worked around, but U just need to make sure U have the crisp attack of the tom, and that can be taken from the overheads......

but the reason your micin the toms is to get a little more ooomph from each hit, and the bass will give that too ya, so as long as the attack on the overheads is clear, U will have some thicker soundin toms =)

Good luck,

Sabith
 
I just did a demo for a blues band and here's how I mic'd the drums.... (using 3 SM57's and an AKG C3000)

First, the SM57's...

One mic on a mini-stand, pointed toward the sound hole of the bass drum, about 3 inches back fom the outer skin.

One mic on a regular mic-stand, pointed between the snare and the hi-hat, about 5 or 6 inches back from the gap between them. (about 1 inch above rim level)

One mic on a regular stand, pointed between the 2nd tom and the floor tom, about 5 or 6 inches back from the gap between them. (about 1 inch above rim level of the floor tom)

Lastly, I put the C3000 condenser mic on an overhead mount, at approximately 6 and 1/2 feet from the floor, and ran that mic through a Mindprint Envoice... running the compression at :5 , and the threshhold at -12 .
This cut down on the bleed-over from the live bass track that was also playing simultaneously with the drummer... and I also used a partition with auralex foam.

The drum tracks, and the entire recording for that matter, came out sounding quite excellent. There wasn't a single thing you couldn't "cleanly" pick out on that drum track.
And when I panned the snare/hi-hat mic out left, and the tom-tom mic out to the right, it gave the drum track some real nice dynamics.

I hope this helped. :)

........Buck
 
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