Mic placement of MXL 603s for drums

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diverdavid

New member
I have been playing around with placement (mostly 2-4 feet in front of drums) and have been getting a fairly good sound. As I am using an MBox I am limited to 2 mics. The room is carpeted and has a pretty good sound. What other mic placement ideas should I try. I also have a SM57 but the phantom power on MBox is either on or off both inputs and I don't want to damage the mic. Any suggestions?

Thanks
 
Phantom power will not damage an SM57.

You might try using one 603 as an overhead, and the 57 on the snare or kick (although it is not ideal for that).
 
i did something with a pal this weekend with his set up at the band's flop house.

the room was about 15X8X10 - typical 'front room' where the tv is set up. drum set was in the middle of the room.

hung the 603 over top. it was pretty much right in the middle of the set about 6 feet off the floor. the floor was hardwood but there was a rug underneath the set. we hung (staple gunned!) blankets on the walls to cut back on the reflections as the 603 picked up a lot of em along with a good representation of the kit.

snare was a 57 pointed across the snare. D112 on the kick out in front 1 1/2 feet with a blanket over the whole shebang.

the set up worked well. i think you could pretty easily use a 603 for an overhead and have your snare taken care of by it and use the 57 for the kick where ever it sounds good. if the drummer is a heavy and consistant enough hitter - staying out in the room with the 603 may work too...

Mike
 
If you are short on tracks you can use a mixer to combine what you have.

For instance, use the 603's panned hard left and right, and use the 57 on kick in the center.

You might have to record a sample and tweak the relative gain of the three mics to achieve the balance you like.

That way you can use 3 mics for 2 recorded tracks.
 
Thank you for your responses but does anyone else have any suggestions for mic placement using only the 2 MXL 603s?
 
try about two feet over and two feet out pointing towards the smaller toms. In my experience i've gotten decent sounds with this, you can hear the toms, cymbals and snares with no problem, the problem is tweaking the eq's on those you'll only really be able to give it a light touch up with the eq before you start making one part or another sound bad so get the best sound you can work with the placement if you don't get what you want from that. With the secon 603 try it in the kick, be careful with the condensor down there though you can make it clip keep it just in the hole. you may really want to consider using the sm57 if you wanna mic the kick. another option is to mic the beater where is strikes the head, you'll get less thud but more click. Another way to use both 603's is to do one of the many overhead setups, i prefer xy but i've experimented with a lot of different ways. micing with both as overheads is going to give you a stereo sound so you can pan the cymbals left and right, which IMO gives you a better sound. Pretty much man you just need to practice as many different styles of micing as possible til you get a sound that works for you.
 
If all you have are two mics, then I would stick one out in front of the kit about 2-3 feet, level with the kick drum. Then I'd stick another one right over the drummer's head, pointed at the snare.

I wouldn't get cute and try to pan them or anything, but you might need to flip the phase/polarity on one of them.
 
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