Recording Drums - Which Mics In Which Places on the kit??

  • Thread starter Thread starter King Rex Rey
  • Start date Start date
K

King Rex Rey

New member
Hey I'm recording drums this coming week. I have these following mics and I'm wondering what the best use of them would be on the drum kit. I only have enough room for max 7 at a time for the inputs on my computer set up...

Royer R-121, Blue Mouse, Blue Baby Bottle, AKG C214, Sterling ST79, HEIL PR - Dynamic, also a Sure 57, AKG C1000

I also have a A Design Pacifica so I was gonna put the Royer through that and possible the AKG C214

At the moment I was gonna put the Heil on the toms, the Royer as an overhead... Baby Bottle on the top of snare... Mouse - kick drum... Sterling as a room mic in the omni position... the AKG C214 on the high hat.

I'm sure there might be a better use for the mics... any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!
 
Which Heil do you have, PR20, PR30, PR35, PR40?

My default is to put dynamics on skins and condensers on metal, but I've recorded kits with all dynamics with great results. It all depends on the sound of the particular kit and what mics happen to complement each part.

If your Heil is the PR40 I'd put it on bass drum, then the (SM?)57 would go on the snare. After that you'd just have to try different combinations.
 
Yeah, it's PR 40 ... you think that would be better for the kick than the Blue mouse? Maybe use the mouse as an overhead? I only have the sure as a dynamic mic... the royer being a ribbon and the rest are cardiod.Thanks for your advice!
 
If you have a good sounding room use the Royer as a room microphone.



:cool:
 
King Rex Rey said:
Yeah, it's PR 40 ... you think that would be better for the kick than the Blue mouse? Maybe use the mouse as an overhead? I only have the sure as a dynamic mic... the royer being a ribbon and the rest are cardiod.Thanks for your advice!
Click to expand...

I haven't actually used either the PR40 or Mouse, but both are good candidates. The Mouse is a condenser which is a little unusual for kick, but it's designed for low frequency instruments so it's worth a try. The PR40 comes highly recommended for kick by people I trust. You just have to experiment and find the sound you like best.
 
Thanks for all the advice... just for curiosity this is a video of the drum setup... this is my drummer playing.. this was recorded with one room mic the Sterling ST79 going xlr into my hi def camera

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uB1mlOUUNPs

I'm gonna be recording on that set... and although I've recorded drums before... I wanna get it as good as I can. The space is a rehearsal space... not too many bands practice around. The room goes back a long way from how the camera is set up.

Thanks again!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top