Recording drums with 2 mics

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Koekenbakker

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Hello everybody, this is my first visit to this lovely forum, and I'm looking for advice and tips on how to record drums with just 2 mics. I've looked up a few good tutorials about the 'recorderman'-technique, which is great, but I'm asking this just so that I'm not running into any unexpected surprises (me and my band are just musicians, and not audio-engineers). :)

The device I'm going to use is a Line 6 TonePort UX2, which has two 48v phantompower inputs. The sound that we are going for with our band is heavy metal / hard rock.

My plan is to place the mics (AKG mics, the one's that are shaped like sticks... I forgot the product code, haha) and have a bandmember move the overhead mic around while I listen for the 'sweet spot' on my headphones. After that, I place a mic in front of the bassdrum.

I do have a question though; is it better to record the bassdrum from the front (traditionally I guess) or from the back (where the drummer is sitting)? Because I've seen articles on the 'recorderman'-technique that specifically say to mic the kick from the back and not the front. Which method would work the best according to you? Keep in mind: I can only use two mics. :P

I look forward to any helpfull replies, and posting more stuff about my homerecording in the future.


Cheers,
 
If you only have the option to record drums with two mics I would try to get the best spot to pick up the sound of the room. The bigger the room the better. Try to capture it as a stereo image or not. Then use a drum replacement program to put in a kick and snare sound. Blend accordingly and you could end up with a pretty good sound. Idealy close micing all drums and a room and overheads are the way to go but try out things with what you have and im sure you could get a decent sound. Blending just a kick and snare with a room miced sound will help tremendously. It won't be a typical metal sound but experiment . Adding a kick and snare can be time consuming but it'll work.
 
As for the kick. It depends on what sound you going for. I always Mic inside but there are a lot that do both. The outside will pick up a lot of the beater sound if miced by the pedal if that's what you mean.
 
You're not gonna be happy with 2 mics for heavy metal/hard rock. Even with sample replacement. The drums are not gonna sonically keep up with the guitars and bass in the mix.

If there's no chance of you finding a way to use more mics, then mic the inside of the kick and use the other mic as an overhead - looking for the right balance of snare, toms, and cymbals. You've got your work cut out for you.
 
Greg_L said:
You're not gonna be happy with 2 mics for heavy metal/hard rock. Even with sample replacement. The drums are not gonna sonically keep up with the guitars and bass in the mix.

If there's no chance of you finding a way to use more mics, then mic the inside of the kick and use the other mic as an overhead - looking for the right balance of snare, toms, and cymbals. You've got your work cut out for you.
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Nope, I can't use more then two mics unfortunately. Me and my band are on a very tight budget, so we cannot afford big studio equipment or anything, so thats why we choose to do it this way. I am aware that we won't get a great sound with just two microphones, but seeing as its just for our first demo we would be happy if it sounds good or at least 'okay'.

Does anyone of you have previous experience with the 'recorderman'-technique?

Thanks alot for the tips, to both of you!
 
I've used recorderman a million times. It works, but you won't get a great kick presence. Don't get married to the technique though. Try other two mic setups as well. Watch for snare phasing. Whatever you do, try to keep the two mics equidistant from the snare. Again, two mics isn't gonna be great for hard rock, but for a demo you should do fine. Make sure the drums are tuned properly and not overmuffled. Tell your drummer that he might need to alter his playing style for best results.
 
Gonna sound like a super rough recording but if your happy then I guess whatever.

At least your expectations are in the right area.
 
Greg_L said:
I've used recorderman a million times. It works, but you won't get a great kick presence. Don't get married to the technique though. Try other two mic setups as well. Watch for snare phasing. Whatever you do, try to keep the two mics equidistant from the snare. Again, two mics isn't gonna be great for hard rock, but for a demo you should do fine. Make sure the drums are tuned properly and not overmuffled. Tell your drummer that he might need to alter his playing style for best results.
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Again, thanks alot for the advice! I will definately keep them in mind.

I'm using Reason/Record for recording, so I'm obviously going to do some EQ'ing and such when the recording is done, so that might 'clean' it up a little as well. :)

Guitargodgt said:
Gonna sound like a super rough recording but if your happy then I guess whatever.

At least your expectations are in the right area.
Click to expand...

Hehe, yeah I know that this is probably a audio-engineer's nightmare. I would definately go for a better recording-setup if we were recording a full-length album, but seeing as we are on a very tight budget we have to make the best of it, right?
 
Just use the two mics that you have as overheads. Then go through and add snare, kick, and tom samples throughout. Its a pain in the ass but for metal the drums are VERY significant. I would use Superior Drummer or Steven Slate Drums for the samples.
 
Like Greg advised, move the mics around to get the best sound possible from the kit. The room will also play a big part in your recording so place the drums in the best sounding area of the room and then work the mics. Last thing.....make sure the drums are tuned and have fun.
 
Will do. :) Thanks for your time!

If there is enough interest, I'll post the result in this thread.
 
Also if you would decide to try samples, just sample your own snare, kick and toms. It will help to keep your drums sounding more natural and cohesive. You can get into a lot more advanced ways of doing this like sampling multiple hits of your drums at different velocities so all of your drum attacks don't sound the same but just experimentYoud be suprised what you could come up with as long as you put the work in. .
 
I used to have to do this, I used 1 over set to get a decent snare/hat because the crash and toms are bangy enough to show up and sparse enough that it isnt the focal point... and 1 kick to get the um... kick. It ends up mono which I have been chastized for by other forum people occasionally, but to me its "just" the drum part, and the song matters more than buying a ton of gear to get nice stereo drums. Eventually though I got better (and got more tracks and inputs)

Other way I tried that worked is to set a pair of mics up a bit away, like a few (3-4?) feet way, set low, and facing the set so you get a stereo thing and the direct presence of the kick firing at them balances it pretty well with the overriding crash saturation of the cymbals being diffused through the air instead of going right at the mic like the kick is. I use a very bangy big snare drum though so it can cut through too where if I had a smaller one it would get kind of diminished by all the rest of the stuff the mics aren't aiming at. Problem with this, although its stereo and the "snap" of the kick is very clear, the kick tone itself isnt very low endy because of the distance.
 
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Okay, so we had a go at drumrecording yesterday. Me and the other guitarist got all my computer and equipment down to our rehearselroom, and we got somebody to help us out by letting us borrow two mics (one AKG, and one bassdrum-mic that I don't know the name of).

We lost about 2 hours because of my sounddriver that kept crashing on me for some reason. After alót of fiddling around, I figured out that Gearbox, the Line 6 program that you supposedly need to 'activate' the mics on my TonePort was the problem. Then I found out that Record (the software I'm working with) can record the mics fine without that stupid Gearbox-program, so everything was fine and dandy after that.

I already listened to my tracks at home, and I have to say it sounds really good. Especially the kick has alot of that 'punch' that you want in a good hardrock-song. The overhead mic isn't réally precise, but it captured every part of the drum pretty good, including all the toms, ride, hi-hat and crash. Overall its too early to say too much about it since I still need to mix and master the drums with the rest, but for now I'm pretty happy with the results. I think two mics can be a pretty effective way to record a demo, although I do look forward to having the luxery of recording in a professional studio, haha.

If anybody's still interested, I can post the link to one of our songs when I'm done mixing.
 
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