Recording drums with one mic

  • Thread starter Thread starter sk8man121
  • Start date Start date
TerraMortim said:
That's what I usually do... don't much like overheads... just a tiny bit hipassed to hell for some sizzle... but I do 90% room mics... a tiny bit of kick tiny bit of snare and depending on the song sometimes mic the toms, but sometimes just use the room mics. It's not always about the "stereo image" of the drums so much... the reflections being in stereo can help to thicken things out... there's no better sound to my ears than a spaced pair in a good room just picking up the natural sound... yum.
Click to expand...

interesting. thanks. that's definitely something i'm going to keep in mind!
 
so your individual drum mics really serve more as spot mics? very cool.
 
sloom said:
It will- it's in you, and you can't stop it from re-surfacing! It's imporant to make a living- this world's rules press upon us and compromise us. But for me, it recently became important to turn and use my life to do something I really want to do, and to not compromise any more of it than I really need to. So I quit all my working bands- no more gigging for bread. I'd rather work at some other trip (banging nails), and save up that good musical energy for something I can be really enthusiastic about!

You've been learning a lot of useful stuff, and it will probably amount to a nice contribution to your own creative work. Just be sure that when that still, small voice of urgency speaks up, you're able to hear it!

Good talking with you, I appreciate the open attitude. Now git outta here! :D
Click to expand...

gigigng for bread can really suck the life out of you. i used to play with a bass player in NYC who had played in a wedding bamd for several years. he said the money was great but he HATED it.
 
Dani Pace said:
Record the drum(s) track twice. Once with the mic above the kit and again with the mic low in front of the bass drum. If the two tracks are tight they can be blended to sound fairly decent. It wont have much of a stereo sound but many people tend to center drums anyway so dont worry too much about this part.
Click to expand...

Is your drummer a mkIII cyborg with micro-level multi-dimensional spacial awareness and motor memory velocity real-time response capabilty? If so, I guess the above suggestion might work. If not, there's a mkII on ebay right now, might do at a pinch.

A variation on Dani's idea, albeit almost as ridiculous, but a bit more feasible, might be to record the top kit/cymbals and record the kick later.
 
A lot of old records have the drums recorded with one mic, and sometimes they even hard-pan the whole kit left or right, which I don't personally care for. I think a stereo setup would be best, but good recordings have been made with just one mic on the kit. If you pan them center though, it might be easier for them to get lost or buried in the mix.
 
danny.guitar said:
A lot of old records have the drums recorded with one mic, and sometimes they even hard-pan the whole kit left or right, which I don't personally care for. I think a stereo setup would be best, but good recordings have been made with just one mic on the kit. If you pan them center though, it might be easier for them to get lost or buried in the mix.
Click to expand...

The Beatles' (yeah, let's start this up again!) Revolver is pretty interesting for panning sections of the track hard one side. It does in fact work. Whether or not you like it is your thing- but it's a great record, and has exerted it's influence upon you, like it or not, by virtue of the fact it's influenced your culture.

Panning the drums, recorded with one mic, a bit to one side might be a novel solution.
 
tremoloking said:
gigigng for bread can really suck the life out of you. i used to play with a bass player in NYC who had played in a wedding bamd for several years. he said the money was great but he HATED it.
Click to expand...

Me too... it's caused more poison to enter my musical life than anything else, I think. Me and my basses are currently in therapy... ;)
 
tremoloking said:
so your individual drum mics really serve more as spot mics? very cool.
Click to expand...

Yeah...I can absolutely agree with the idea to use only a few mics to get a great drum sound... I just like playing devil's advocate =D

That's usually the way I view it.. But then again, I really like the sound of the room I've been doing drums in... it has a very naturally aggressive sound.. so just capturing that can often give me nice results without so much finagling.

Oddly enough, I've found that RE20s as room mics are really interesting...they pick up everything nice (and I can compensate for some of the high frequencies with the OHs. Esp for a REALLY aggressive sound...it picked up the kick and snare beautifully, throw it through a tube compressor...squash...add as parallel compression, gold..
 
tremoloking said:
lord...enough already! do you know how many mikes were used on ringo's kit in the early days of the beatles? that's right!

gene vincent's classic recordings that STILL hold up some sixty years later were done with ONE mic hanging from the ceiling!

what is this obsession with miking every little doodah on a drumkit? now THAT sounds like shit to me!

just about a year ago i did a recording session in my house in new orleans . i used an Oktava LDC, set about two feet in front of the drumkit, at about chest height for the drummer. it sounds GREAT. if i wanted more kick for a song, i'd aim the mike towards the floor.


it obviously depends on the drumkit, the room, the mic AND the drummer. place the drumkit in a good sounding spot in the room. put the kit on a wooden drumriser if you can. put it in a corner. experiment with different mics and different positions. you'll be FINE.

do our ears hear EVERY single drum as a separate whole? of course not. we hear the whole kit. all the overtones of the different drums interacting, plus the way their sounds reflect off walls, ceiling and floor.

so stop belly aching, all of you. less is more. use your ears and your head and your taste. they're WAY more important than your equipment.
Click to expand...

Well put, beautiful. I was looking to hear the same thing for my recording project. Simple is the best way to go! :)
 
TerraMortim said:
That's what I usually do... don't much like overheads... just a tiny bit hipassed to hell for some sizzle... but I do 90% room mics... a tiny bit of kick tiny bit of snare and depending on the song sometimes mic the toms, but sometimes just use the room mics. It's not always about the "stereo image" of the drums so much... the reflections being in stereo can help to thicken things out... there's no better sound to my ears than a spaced pair in a good room just picking up the natural sound... yum.
Click to expand...
Tera, I like the stero mic spred room idea. I'm nearly in the same boat as this guy (Check out my post, the 5 piece punk/garage thing in this forum.), only I have two mics for the drums. However, I have six mics for the whole band. Would you suggest running a five-mic room spread with a sixth mic close to the vocals, supposing I really level the guitar and bass amps correctly?
 
TyphoidHippo said:
So, even if I shared the same views as you, it wouldn't change the fact that I have never once had anybody prefer a natural drum sound over a surreal "amazing, better than perfect" freakin gigantonormous drum sound which is fairly easily attained (provided you have enough mics, I guess...) and consistently attainable through sound replacement of all actual drums
Click to expand...

What kinds of music do you record?
 
personally, i wouldn't.( i know this wasn't adressed to me but i'm responding anyway lol) i'm guessing your room will be fairly small and it probably wouldn't be worth your while to just spread mics across the room. i mean-lol-you want SOMETHING to work with! like i said, close miking( ie about 5 to 10 inches from speaker) will give you a good defined sound from a guitar or bass amp, especially if you use a directional mike like the SM57.
that in combination with a stereo room mike should give you plenty to work with.

on the other hand, if you had oodles of time, experimenting with spreading mics around the room might be very cool. but i'm guessing you don't :)
 
Pretty great- goes nicely with the tune, and the vibe. That kick drum- maybe I'm listening to closely- seems a little dull, thuddy, and maybe it's too loud being in that state. But otherwise it's a nice track, very good sound for the context. In fact it's a whole sound. Good deal.
 
Yeah I would love to go back and re-record the kit with what I have now.
 
pipelineaudio said:
kick drum can never be too loud
Click to expand...

hehehe... sometimes people tell me that my kick is too loud...but then, they magically love how my mixes seem to be very agressive with lots of "punch"...but can we have the guitars a bit louder than the drums please? :P
 
sloom said:
Dude, this is just insane... and no offense!! But you're recording music. When you go hear a live band, you are hearing the drums, etc., and you are hearing the room. The room is important- it's half of what you hear- and you only have one set of ears- not "close ears", and "ambient ears", etc. No, you only have the ones attatched to your head, and they are more than likely far away from the drums. The drums have had extensive experience in that room before the sound has reached your (only one) set of ears. Therefore, the room is exercising a great deal of influence- more than you may realize- on what you are hearing. Let's not be unmindful of where we are- we are in a physical space.

Put the mic where it sounds best, and record the track. You are done.

The guy only has one mic.
Click to expand...

Well said. I agree.

Plus, using just one mic may be challenging but how many ways can the signal be processed? Sounds like fun to me.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top