Recording drums for the first time - Tech help please

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weemena

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Hi
Im new to this awesome forum . I am a guitarist who is setting up recording equipment to record with a band im playing with . Im pretty farmiliar with recording guitars , but drums , i have never done before . I have researched some of the older threads on here as regarding this topic , and found some stuff that will come in handy , but need some more advice to what i have for equipment , and what to use , and where to put it , for recording drums.
Ok , i have a Korg d3200 DAW , and i have 4 Shure SM 58 'S , and i Rode Nt 1000 A , cardiod , and 1 sterio pair of cardoid pencil micz . Now i have plenty of tracks and enough mikes . Any Advice on how many i need to use for a decent recording , and where i should use them ( sm 58 - bass and snare , Cardoid pair behind drummer etc ) for best effect , would be greatly appreciated ! We do mostly classic rock - 60's type stuff .

thanks , and what an awesome forum !
 
You'll want to close mic as many drums as possible. The SM58's should get the job done for the snare and tom. Probably for the kick too, assuming a 4-piece kit. The stereo pair of condensers for overheads. Try to find a sweet spot in the room to use the Rode as a room mic or if you want to try it out as a kick mic, start about 2-3 in front of the kick drum, you might get lucky and dig the sound, picking up some low end.

There's plenty of options, that's where I'd start anyways, given your gear list. Maybe see how well the overheads pick up the toms and free up some of your dynamics for the kick.
 
As much as i read... i didnt really get any good sounds untill i just did it and learned as i went... your first few times are gonna suck.. your gonna have to retrack several times untill you get the flow of things...

get over it :P
 
It depends more on the drums than on the mics. Do you have great sounding drums with new (or pretty new) skins tuned exactly as you want them to sound? I'd spend as much time as possible working on that before going anywhere near a mic. Next, find the best place in the room to place the kit.

If you're happy with all that, you should be able to put up 3 mics and sound good: A pair of overheads and a kik mic. That should bring you about 80% of the way there (or 83%, maybe 87% for those who are anal about their numbers). Adding a snare mic to that should bring you almost all the way to a good drum recording.

From there, if you want to add tom mics, etc....that should just be icing on the cake.
 
Bisson820 said:
your gonna have to retrack several times untill you get the flow of things...
Click to expand...

Or just take some time before tracking and figure out a good mic setup with a few trial runs. No sense going through the whole shebangybang on a wing and a prayer. Have your drummer run through a few bars and see how you like the tracks. Don't wait until he's tracked the entire tune and then realize the overheads were in a bad spot.
 
RAMI said:
It depends more on the drums than on the mics. Do you have great sounding drums with new (or pretty new) skins tuned exactly as you want them to sound? I'd spend as much time as possible working on that before going anywhere near a mic. Next, find the best place in the room to place the kit.

If you're happy with all that, you should be able to put up 3 mics and sound good: A pair of overheads and a kik mic. That should bring you about 80% of the way there (or 83%, maybe 87% for those who are anal about their numbers). Adding a snare mic to that should bring you almost all the way to a good drum recording.

From there, if you want to add tom mics, etc....that should just be icing on the cake.
Click to expand...
Thanks , this will be a real help , everybody's info is greatly appreciated !
 
Thanks guys . really appreciate all the info . i will research all of the above
 
RAMI said:
It depends more on the drums than on the mics. Do you have great sounding drums with new (or pretty new) skins tuned exactly as you want them to sound? I'd spend as much time as possible working on that before going anywhere near a mic. Next, find the best place in the room to place the kit.
Click to expand...

+1 just remember your recording can only be as good as the weakest link. If you have a bad sounding kit, cheap mics, cheap preamp, cheap monitors, your gong to get a less than expectation recording.
 
Weemena,

I didn't get the grasp on drum capturing until I actually dove into it. I especially enjoyed the read on the beginners guide to drum recording which can be found on this site. However, tracking and using a critical ear to what you want in sound will be your best bet. You have way more mics than I do when I started tracking drums.

Good luck to you and your quest.
 
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