Micing/recording a drum kit with nothing special

[Insaneogram]

My band and I are going to try to do some recording at our practice studio next weekend so I'd like at least one of us to kinda know how to set up the drums.

First the kit... it's only a Forum series Pearl kit with three toms, hi-hat, ride, 2 crashs and a splash. I guess we'd set up a mic on the snare, one on the hi-hat, one on the bass (of course) and two overhead mics. What we don't know anything about though is how far to position, say, the snare mic from the snare and technical things like that.

What's even worse though is we don't have a multi track recorder. What we'll try and do is have several computers set up to record 2 tracks each (taking advantage of stereo) and then try and line it all up so that it sounds right. That or buy a sound card with at least 5 lines in - any recommendations for that??

The mics we have available are all just vocal mics with nothing special so I'd assume they're reasonable quality but definately not condenser or anything.

As for the rest of it... we're going for a kind of "A Perfect Circle play your favourite Smashing Pumpkins" songs kinda sound - any tips?

The hardest bit is going to be the drums anyway.

So yeah, whaddaya reckon?

 

[Cloneboy Studio]

The drummer has more to do about the sound than your mic placement. If you want them to sound like a particular band they should PLAY like those drummers do.

Otherwise you'll have to do what the big boys do, which is move the mics around until they sound good as a unit. It can sometimes take a LONG time. My personal record is about 7 hours to tune kit/choose mics/place mics.

IMHO the most efficient way to place mics is to start with the overheads--get a good stereo image going that isn't too wide or narrow, is free of phase issues, and captures the *overall* sound of the kit.

Then place your kick in a manner that compliments what your overheads are doing. Then place your snare. Then the tom mics.

You may not need a high hat mic. The *only* reason I like to have one around is so I can add a little high end gloss on it to seperate it from the cymbals better.