Miking drums

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geekgurl

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Perhaps I'm seeking a new answer to an old question. Mine's a 2-part question:

1. What have you found to be the most effective yet simple way to mic drums? (Probably not enough control with one distance mic in the room for example, but maybe you like one kick mic + one ambient, or 2 overheads, or you can't really get away without miking each drum + 2 overheads ...)

2. If you were starting from scratch acquiring mics for this purpose, what would you buy (I can't give a price range because some of you may have gotten excellent results with all 57s, and you will have different numbers of mics used in your method)?

Let's say the set consists of 1 kick, 2 rack toms, 1 floor, hi hat, 1 22" ride, and 2 crashes (I dunno, I'm making this up). The room is small, like 10' x 14'. The music is pop/rock (I don't want to say "lite rock" cuz that makes me cringe), some jazz.

Thank you in advance for replying.

gg
 
Least expensive would probably be two Behringer ECM8000 as overheads for toms and cymbals, a Shure SM57 for the snare, and an Audio Technica ATM25 for the kick. If you needed a little more on the toms, try the Radio Shack 33-3032 clip-ons for the toms. That should get you as good a recording as anything you hear on the radio - for rock bottom prices.
 
Thanks, Harvey. I really appreciate your input on this BBS.

-gg
 
Harvey + anyone who wants to chime in:

The ECMs are recommended for overheads, and those are omni, right? Are omnis generally a better choice than a cardioid mic like the AT 4041 for overheads? I'm concerned about phase cancellation (had that problem in the past and haven't had the oppt'y to try the 120-degree X-Y to see if that mitigates my problem) and don't know if one of these types is trickier than the other regarding phase.
 
Yes, they're omni, but they shouldn't cause you any problems once you place them correctly. If it's a concern, then the MXL-603S would be the next step up, and possibly the Oktava MK012 with the cardioid capsules.
 
Harvey
Obviously ,you can't follow the 3/1 rule (or 4/1 if you prefer...) on overhead mic placement.So,what is the thinking about overhead placement and bearing possible phase issues in mind?
Tom
 
For what they are the ECMs are great.

Last week I used em for overheads. More toms and less cymbols than the Oktavas which I've used before. Which is good if you can only run four channels of drums They worked better in our terrible sounding practice space too.

I used a 57 on kick which worked out ok. Couldn't bear to spring for a ATM just to mic our drummer.

I used an Oktava on snare, which got a sharper crack than the 57 I compared with before. (Some days I prefer the 57 sometimes I don't. )

There was a lot of bleed but not bad bleed.

With Harvey's advice mics won't be the limiting factor. Less than three hundred for four mics.

Good luck.

-Jett
 
Tom Hicks said:
Harvey
Obviously ,you can't follow the 3/1 rule (or 4/1 if you prefer...) on overhead mic placement.So,what is the thinking about overhead placement and bearing possible phase issues in mind?
Tom
Click to expand...
I space them very wide apart and relatively close to the cymbals (about 18" above and 6' apart), so I do kinda follow the 3:1 rule.
 
Harvey (or anyone), are the capsules on the ECM's pointed down(perpendicular to the floor)? Also, I did some recording this weekend and found the cymbals were sizzle-y sounding (like distortion) even though my mixer and my software were not clipping. I thought I read somewhere that overheads need to be less hot than other sound sources. True?:confused:
 
that's interesting, i used a pair of mxl 603 in a drum tracking test last weekend, and they were REALLY hot. since i was still learning the soundcard's interface, i didn't manage to set optimum levels (i do now) for the overheads, and they came out sounding good, but really really loud, with lots of toms and lots of cymbals, but not as much snare and almost no kick, which is great, of course.
i was distracted by the mixing board at a given moment, and when i checked the meters in the computer screen, they were clipping like hell. we didn't have any more time to do another take, and it was just a test anyway. but when i went mess with the recording later that day, there was no audible clipping in the recording, even though the wave graphs show some parts clipped heavily. how odd is that?

adriano
 
Not too odd, from what I've seen. Sometimes the waveforms max out for me too, with no audible distortion. Not sure how/why.

Seems like shorter trasients that exceed the viewable wave get crunchier most of the time.

I'm still working on using digital distortion as a musical tool. Since even the distortion that we like today was once a no-no!
 
but the strangest thing is it did clip when i played it back immediately after recording. it just didn't clip when i got home, and listened again?!
as for digital distortion, a lot of techno, drum & bass, electronica whatever acts are actually using digital distortion, and clipped sounds in their music, aren't they?

adriano
 
Oh well, I guess that the digital distortion idea was the first idea I've ever had that wasn't totally original.

You're probably right, I'm just kind of a 'musician-with-instrument' type of guy, so I'm naive to those styles of music. To give you an idea, I just started playing with midi for the first time last week!
And I must say...frikkin awesome!!
 
Are you using a Soundblaster, Adriano? I ask because I thought the same thing - more distortion right after recording. My problem, though is not visible clipping on the waveform. They are nowhere near clipping. I'm blaming the sound card, but I'm also going to try recording at a lower level in the future.
 
trew,

midi is great, even though i myself am not big on keyboard stuff in general. i'm a guitar man.:)

chucku,

i have a soundblaster but i only use it for midi. my audio card is an aardvark. i never use the soundblaster for audio, except for listening to cds, so i don't know if that's the problem, but you won't have any trouble finding out, since i know there are many people using the soundblaster in this forum. you could also check all the links in the chain, like cables, monitors, anything that could be inducing some distortion.
as for the distortion, i thought i was tracking at reasonable levels, but they ended clipping really hard both in the meters and in the waveform, but i can't hear anything now.
one possible explanation might be that when i edited out the bleed from the snare and kick tracks, the overall volume was reduced, and so was clipping. i don't know.

adriano
 
ChuckU said:
Harvey (or anyone), are the capsules on the ECM's pointed down(perpendicular to the floor)? Also, I did some recording this weekend and found the cymbals were sizzle-y sounding (like distortion) even though my mixer and my software were not clipping. I thought I read somewhere that overheads need to be less hot than other sound sources. True?:confused:
Click to expand...
Generally they point down, but I'll sometimes angle them to point at a particular cymbal. On any percussion, I usually try to keep the peaks between -6dB and -10dB when going to digital. Preamps can be clipped very easily by percussive peaks that won't show up on your meters.
 
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