micing drums

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coolsoundman

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Hey folks,

First I would like to list my mic's: 5 sm58, 2 sm57,
and a tama 6 pc set. I'm using my bedroom as my studio and I have a small walk-in closet. The closet is big enough to accomadate (fit) the drums and is also heavily dampened with clothes to make it sound proof. Two questions: would this be a good location to set the drums, and how would I go about micing the drums? One thing I don't have is a mic for my bass drum. Also, do you think it be good to run my mic set-up to my mixer board and then to my recorder?
Thanks for the feedback.
 
not so ideal drum micing experience

wow, that's not the best situation to be recording, but I too have done the bedroom thing so I know that sometimes you just gotta go with what ya got. So here's my suggestion.

58s as overheads, 57s on kick and snare and the other 58s on toms.

I don't know how high your closet ceiling is, but if there's not adequate space to hang overheads, just try to find places that best capture each side of the kit. If you've got an extra mic left over, put it right over the drummer's head (which I assume is you).
Place the kick mic close to the ground inside the drum if you can. I take off the outer head on my kit.
The snare mic you'll have to play around with-- it can be tricky sometimes. Most people put it on the top of the snare facing the center of the head from the rim. You can also try the side or the bottom or what ever sounds best.

Also keep in mind that sometimes, you have to do things to the drums themselves to get desired sound (muffling, dampening, blankets in the kick, tape on toms and snare, etc..).

Otherwise, all I can say is play around with different techniques. I know it took me a long time to find the methods that work best for my setup. Set the mics up, hit record, and listen to it. Change what you think needs to be changed. I know from experience it can get frustrating.

You'll need to use preamps, so most likely you'll have to use your mixer, but whether or not you use eqs and stuff while recording is up to you. You may want to boost the high end on the overheads and the low end on the kick.
 
Here's another question, since I'm using a bedroom as my studio, which in fact is a large room, how bad would you think it would be to try and record my bass guitar and my lead guitar?

I'm thinking of getting the basics of a song down before the vocals.

suggestions?
 
not bad at all. give it a try.

experiment some with putting the kick mic out in front of the kick.

as far as using a mixer first...what are you recording to? If you dont need the mixer, I'd skip it. unless of course it's some sound of which you're fond.

save up for some condensor mics to use as overheads. you'll be happy.

will
 
coolsoundman said:
Hey folks,

First I would like to list my mic's: 5 sm58, 2 sm57,
and a tama 6 pc set. I'm using my bedroom as my studio and I have a small walk-in closet. The closet is big enough to accomadate (fit) the drums and is also heavily dampened with clothes to make it sound proof. Two questions: would this be a good location to set the drums, and how would I go about micing the drums? One thing I don't have is a mic for my bass drum. Also, do you think it be good to run my mic set-up to my mixer board and then to my recorder?
Thanks for the feedback.
Click to expand...



I don't see this working very well. I imagine it will sound like you recorded drums in a closet.

I'd put your bed in the closet and keep the drums in the room.
 
Put down the SM58's and slowly back away.


Pick up a pair of small condenser microphones for OH.
57 on the snare, 57 on the kick.

You will be able to get a workable sound with the above setup.

Recording in the closet will sound.... boxy - like recording in a closet. But the SDCs will get you 10 times better sound as OH mics than the 58.
 
At the risk of getting the same grief as on the microphone forum, I will say this. The best advice I got in recording drums came from Simon Phillips. At the risk of being bashed as a name dropper, he's a good friend of mine and I broke down and asked him what to do one day. His advice was:

1. Make sure the kit is tuned well. If you don't know how, search the internet or find someone who knows how to tune a kit. This is the MOST critical.

2. Throw up a pair of decent condenser mics as overheads. Get a good kick mic, like a shure Beta 52. (If you don't have alot of money a Superlux FK2 can be found on ebay for about $35.00. I use it and like the results. This is NOT Simon's suggestion! It's mine.) If you have a hole in the front head, put the mic just inside the head, pointed at the beater. record the kit. It should sound good with very little EQ and 3 mics. If it sounds dead or off, the room may be too small and too dead. You may need to adjust the room's acoustic treatments. He uses a very big room with ambient mics on the other side. reflective is better than dead.

3. If it sounds good, add mics like an sm-57 to each drum until it sounds nice and full without too much bass. The snare is most important if you don't have alot of tracks. And yes, going to a mixer before the recording device is OK. Don't think that the overheads are just for cymbals. It gets the whole kit. Also low end helps the cymbals, not just the high end. It'll pick up the toms just fine. If the kick needs more lows because of a poor mic you can find a pretty good 8-10" woofer and attach an XLR cable to the leads, making sure the speakers negative is the XLRs positive and opposite for the negative. Screw the XLR sheild to the speakers frame. Mount it about 1-2" from the front head. (Kind of like a Yamaha subkick)

4. If you can afford to track each drum separately, add effects on mix-down. If not, add some to the overheads to give a little ambience. Be very careful. Once you've printed the track, their's no going back.

It may sound too full solo, but once you add the other instruments the highs are what end up standing out. You should need very little EQ. As a rule, too much EQ is destructive. Get the sound right coming in, starting with the right mics. Good preamps are a good idea too. Simon told me a $10,000 mic won't help the sound if you have bad preamps.

I Hope this helps. It's made all the difference in my recordings.
 
If you want to record a band, My suggestion is to buy the Audio-Technica 4 Mic Drum Pack. Its $99.00 and the mics are pretty good. You get 3 tom/snare mics and 1 kick/tom mic.
 
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