Old school drum recordings

peritus

peritus

The not fountain head
Okay, so I've read that bands like Led Zeppelin mic'ed drums from afar. I have a stereo clip for two SM57s that I tried last night and this morning on my drum kit. It sounded good, about 12 feet away, but the high hat hits were really loud. I played around with EQ and compression/limiting and found they helped some, but the high hats remained more prominent than I would hope.

Part of me thinks the issue is room treatment, and I want to try other mics and mic positions.

Any thoughts or tricks on how to do this well?
 
There's a lot that goes into this kind of recording: room treatment is one part of it, but that won't really affect the hats being too loud.
Mic placement is obviously critical.
Technique will be one of your biggest hurdles. If the hats are too loud, it's likely they're being hit too hard.

You can also combine room mics with other techniques: close mics and overheads.
 
The hi~hats are often too loud if they're hit too hard and/or if the snare mic is pointing in the hat's direction rather than away from it.
More than anything though, I've come to realize that a well-balanced kit is more to do with how the kit is played than how it is miked. Which is not to say that how it is miked doesn't matter.
 
This makes sense. I'm a beginner on drums, so it's probably an issue with my playing.
 
Also consider where in the room the drums are IOW are the hats closer to a wall than the drums? Walls will splash those high frequencies right back increasing there presence.
 
There seems to be one major issue missing in these discussions about recording drums and that is the kit itself and how it's prepped for recording. Many many times I've had drummers in the room who might be really accomplished live stage drummers but who are ill-prepared for recording duties.

I say this in reference to most home recording situations. In a large well controlled space this is not so much and issue, but in the cramped quarters of the home recording world with iffy sound control, it makes ALL the difference.

Think about it like this. When you are playing live, you need to cover the volume of a stage area packed with amps in places with odd angles and varying amounts of human bodies to dampen things so your kit needs to project with tone and clarity and the cymbals have to be heavy enough in weight to cut through the din of bass and guitars with a lot more db's than they ever need.

In a recording you only have to worry about attack and tone and you only have to cover the distance between the kit and the farthest mic.

Consider a set specifically built to record. It doesnt have to MATCH you're not impressing anyone with the kit, you're trying to get a great recorded drum sound. So find single pieces or a shell pack. They dont even have to be expensive drums, just have decent hardware that doesnt rattle, heads that have tone but not much volume and a good bead cut on the bearing edges for quality tuning.

Find older light cymbals. Smaller drums and brass work great. Choose cymbals that make themselves known on the hit and dont sustain forever.

Learn to tune the drums.

Choose mics that accentuate tone but are a bit insensitive to bleed.
 
Some of the guys already said really important stuff for you. All I'm going to do is to add some more.

I have some degree of experience recording with minimal equipment (I've been recording local bands and myself for 7 years now - not my main profession though, just a home studio guy) and I can say that playing the actual drums harder and the cymbals softer was a game changer for me. I think I can handle myself recording with one mic and a cheap drumkit and still get somewhat of a good drum sound if I follow this philosphy when recording drums.

Of course, learning to tune the drums will only make then sound better as well as getting better cymbals. But I personally wouldnt let this get in the way of trying to get a good drum sound with what you have - the only exception being if you have like a kid drum set, hahaha.

Last but not least, mic placement can be really crucial in this, so try and find a placement where those cymbals sound less harsh.
 
Correct me if I'm wrong, but for a farfield room mic situation, you need condenser mics, not 57s. And it's always cool to additionally record close mics on the kick, snare and toms, whether or not you ultimately mix them in; it gives you options later.
 
His method clearly works for the folk who like it, but in the article much is made of mic placement, and little said of the room. For my taste, the open sound is not something I like for four on the floor rock, but do like for jazz - the opposite of his styles. Like most things drums, the mics in the right place for the job in hand are the key factors. Swapping dynamics for condensers just wouldn't be the same - and Jon Stinson probably would hate it.

I suspect most of us spend far longer on the other instruments and slapping a mic on each drum and cymbal is a fix it later trick. recording drums and grand pianos are the two common instruments that need ears and fiddling before you press record. Jon's technique is perfectly sound - he likes it, and that is the key. It's a good sound that mixes well in that music. I'm not sold on the phase thing at all. We use multiple mics all the time and while phase coherence on the snare is perfectly possible - every other source will be wrong, but only the snare matters? Not the kick, or hats or sharp transient cymbals? Phase alignment with HF sources can really sound bad sometimes - that swooshy noise, but only the snare matters? Hence my own not sold conclusion on that aspect - but - he's made lots of money from it and I haven't, so I'm not qualified to remotely say he's wrong. Clearly, by any method of judgement, he's right!
 
Thru my own long experimentation, I've found that 95% of the drum mics I actually use are a mono overhead and kick mic(s). Depending on the tune, more snare mic if it needs reinforcment . I think the mono overhead sounds more powerful than stereo. A gross generalization I know but it a nutshell I think it's true. If the toms are doing something important in a tune, they're always tight miced and panable to give you "stereo" drums
 
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