Miking Drums with One SM58

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Royston

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I have been miking my whole drum kit with one sm58 and pointing it at the kick-drum, it actually picks up pretty well and gives a reasonable sound. Are there any tips for getting a better sound just using the one mic?
 
Two overhead mics that were most likely condensors and did a whole better job at picking up everything then a dynamic vocal mic. Best bet with only the one mic - sell it and buy a really cheap drum machine, cause one mic don't cut it. Just my thoughts.
Jake
 
I'm not saying that you will be able to get a good sound with one mic, but you certainly will be able to learn a lot about mic placement if you mess around with it a bit, play with different positions in the room, miking at different angles to the drums, different distances etc. Common sense rules apply, the closer you are to one drum the louder it will be, the more directly the mic points at something the more high end it will pick up from it. Moving the mic back will usually give you a more realistic sound up to a point and then it becomes very 'ambient'.
 
one mic

I applaud your nerve at asking the question and opening yourself to criticism 'cause ' the logical (and conservative) thing to do is save a million bucks and buy a box 'o' mics and hire Manu whatsisname... however Chuck Berry changed the face of pop music with tracks where drums were recorded on a cardboard box. If it works...bombs away. It might also be cool to experiment with rooms. A friend on a budget put a kit in a live room in his house (all plaster and hardwood) , room was 8'wd x10'lg with a 10' ceiling and put drums facing door. Mic (AT Condenser) was waist high at door and it sounded fabulous. All the drums sort of saturated the space and got all the air moving at once. Might work But the other guys are right that it will be a tough go with only one and the dynamic mics will lose a lot of top and bottom that the condenser naturally has.
 
Hey Royston, I've used just one mic for drums lots of times - mics of a lower class than a 58, too - and got a lot of mixed results. Sometimes I could do better thumping a finger against a mic, but other times I've been pleasantly surprised. Try that thing in ever position you can imagine and see what happens. I don't doubt you've had some pretty good results in front of the kick, but try raising it up couple feet and see what happens.
 
Hey- I've used one mic on several occasions myself - Keep moving that mic around and see what you get. If your mic pics up too much cymbal move it the other way - if you don't hear enough of this and that - change it. Try to work on getting at least one more mic, and it will probably help you a lot(even if it is a low end mic). I have found that drums by nature are just hard instruments to record especially if you don't have the right equipment. So don't get discouraged - I still stuggle with drums alot too. The recording life is a MAD MAD WORLD - but hobbies are meant to give us something to do even if they drive us up a wall. If I didn't record, I don't know what I would do with myself on a day to day basis.
 
Whatever you do, don't listen to the advice above and resort to drum machines! Any real drum track immediately adds interest, colour and feel - I pootled around for years with drum machines, always wondering why the mixes were lacking something. Eventually bought a cheap drum kit and learned a few simple patterns, miked it up, and Wow! What a difference! (just edit out the duff bits)
 
if you really are limited, stick some headphones on and move the mic around till you get a good sound. thing is, an SM58 isn't really a great choice for an overhead, you kinda wanna have a look at something like the C1000 for cheap and excellent overheads. however, for some alternative sounding drums, ive recorded them in real small drum booths with a pair of sm57s as overheads (in addition to individual drum mics)and the overheads actually sounded pretty good. i only used the 57's cus it was a real small booth and i thought i could get a punchy sound. turned out wicked:-).

but honestly, get a condensor, or two.
 
In HomeRecording magazine's 100 tips and tricks, they suggest positioning the single mic just above the bass drum pointed toward the snare, with a touch of added compression....
 
But if I were you, Id use that technique combined with two WalMart 10 buck cheapos for overheads....Royston, is this a recording setup or a live setup?....
 
I heard a drum track a friend of mine did with just one $50 Radio Shack PZM mic. Sounded great! With just one mic though....no stereo image.

I'm recording now with 4 dynamics (no condensers yet) on bass drum, snare and two overheads. I really like the results so far. My advice is get another mic.
 
A friend of mine suggested, strangely, putting the mic Behind the kit and up, but then point it downwards, towards the heads, and maybe below the cymbals...
It actually captured the whole kit better better then you'd think...and it seemed to get more of the attack sound on the heads, rather than say the boom you get under a drum....
 
The beauty of learning to record is trying the strangest of things and finding out it acually works....while there are some tried and true basics and starting points, innovation is the mother of invention.....
 
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