TASCAM 388 recording drums

[yawnjones]

Recording drums
best way to record drums on tascam 388
mike placement using 2 tracks any suggestions?

Thanks in advance!!
YJ

 

[themaddog]

If you have only two mics, then sure, stick to two channels/tracks.

However, if you have more than two mics, I'd go for three, or even better, four channels.

I understand why you'd want to stick to only two drum tracks in order to have six tracks for other purposes, but if you get the levels right, you can kind of "cheat" this and still only use two tracks.

Put a mic on the kick drum and the snare drum. Experiment with the best placement and the levels until you get the sound you like. I would do some extensive work with just these two drums and tracks until you get it to sound exactly how you want. Concern yourself more with adjusting the placement and the levels than the EQ, and listen to the playback carefully until the tone is perfect.

After this is set, try overhead mic placements with a pair of microphones, hopefully of the same type. There is a ton of detailed information in the microphones forum on this. Pan hard left and right until experiment with these two tracks until everything is gravy.

Once you're happy with your separate results, you could bounce from four tracks to two, but I wouldn't recommend doing that because of the time it would take to bounce, the generation loss you would suffer from the bounce, and the lack of "live" instruments you would have to give up in order to have enough free tracks in the end to perform a bounce. Instead, using four channels of the 388's mixer, assign all four drum mics to only two tracks. Again, you will need to experiment now with the levels being sent to tape in order to get everything sounding just how you want it to. It will take some experimenting, but depending upon the consistency of your drummer's playing and the style (or styles) of music you are recording you should be able to achieve pretty good results. Hopefully, you have a nice, live sounding room, in which case you may only need to add just a little bit of reverb afterwards in order to mix well with the other instruments. If you don't have such a good sounding room, you may need to experiment more and record some of the channels (like the snare channel) with reverb to tape during the performance.

I hope this offers you a few things to consider. The 388 is a great machine! We'd love to hear what you accomplish once you've got a few songs going.

-MD

 

[A Reel Person]

same here.

try one kick mic and one overhead that's centered but pointing toward snare, kinda low and in the pocket, but be careful not to strike it with a stick!

 

[ofajen]

try one kick mic and one overhead that's centered but pointing toward snare, kinda low and in the pocket, but be careful not to strike it with a stick!

Totally agree. That's actually my most common way of recording drums. One mike in the kick, one mike overhead, centered and pointing toward the snare, or maybe between snare and floor tom, if there is one. Just try it out different ways and see what gets the best balance. I find the floor tom tends to sound weaker than the mounted tom and snare, so I cheat the mike over toward the floor tom a bit.

BTW, I have a funny way of miking the kick. It's a drum I made from scratch (i.e., lumber, plywood and standard hardware from the hardware store) back in about 1985 and I recently modded it by cutting a hole in the side. The hold is big enough to sneak an axial mike and mike stand boom arm into the kick. I can position it right up by the head while the boom arm and cable comes out through the hole, and neither mike, cable nor boom arm touches any part of the drum. That way I don't have to cut a hole in the resonant head. Very handy and sounds just fine.

Cheers,

Otto