These 4 mics on a drum kit??

S

Smokepole

New member
Hi guys, here's my scenario.

I usually record alone, 1 track at time. Tomorrow I'm going to record about 4 songs for a bar demo with a group I've been messing around with. When I'm alone, I just use a drum machine. Tomorrow I'm going to enter the nightmare of trying to record a kit.

I understand there is no "correct" configuration and a lot of the variables should be adjusted to taste. Switching mics and moving them around will yeild different results from whtat I've learned here previously. I just don't want to waste all of the time we have set aside by making blatent rookie mistakes that might have been avoided had I asked for help.

Can you please give me a few starting point suggestions as to placement and choices for these 4 mics on a drum kit.

Shure SM57, SM58, KSM 27 and a Marshall MXL V77

Thanks.

Joe
 
Smokepole said:
Shure SM57, SM58, KSM 27 and a Marshall MXL V77

Thanks.

Joe
Click to expand...

I think without a pair of condensors (like 2 MC012s), and without a kick drum mic, you're going to have a hard time getting a good sound.
 
I´d change the 57 and place it on the kick, 58 on the snare. You have to try both condensers as OH, do some placing tests and see which one works well for you.

Tama
 
The above suggestions are good. You could also try just using one of the condensors for an overhead and put the other one on the floor a foot or so away from the kick to get a little more low end. If you have a phase invert switch on your preamps then invert the phase on the kick mic.
 
TexRoadkill said:
The above suggestions are good. You could also try just using one of the condensors for an overhead and put the other one on the floor a foot or so away from the kick to get a little more low end. If you have a phase invert switch on your preamps then invert the phase on the kick mic.
Click to expand...
This is my favorite suggestion so far. I don’t think either the 57 or 58 would do the kick anything close to any justice.
 
It's surprising what can work sometimes. The U2 Pop album drums were done with a SM58 as an overhead! Of course they had a U47 as a kick/room mic which didn't hurt.
 
Great info guys as usual. Nice diagram too! Thank You

My preamp does have a phase switch.

I bought the DMP3 and a FMR RNC as per recommendations a while back. My little 8-track only allows recording of 4 tracks simultaneously, so one of the guys is bringing a small mixer to condense the drum mics down to 1 or 2 tracks. The two mics that require phantom power will have to run through the pre-amp. I'm out of luck with the other 2.

Question #2 would you recommend compressing the kick and snare before they all combine into the mini mixer?? Or.... should I maybe try to bring all 4 mics into the mixer and compress it a little before it hits the deck. Or...neither???

I won't have any isolated control over the final track after it's in the deck.

Joe
 
From Fletchers site:

The reason I do this in mono-1 speaker is to insure that I'm not going to fuck with the bottom of the bass drum because of an inconsistent phase relationship with the front mic.

This is talking about 1 mic 1-6 feet in front of the kick. The second one is above the kit. I'm a little lost at what he means here. Doesn't he invert the phase on these 2 mics like Tex suggested to me to avoid that?? Or is he puposely not inverting the phase.

I'm a little unclear

Joe
 
phase

I think Fletcher means he will listen for any phase anomalies in mono, 1-speaker, and see if there is a problem. Listen for any irregularities, after which you can move a mic or two or flip the phase switch, use a phase-inverted cable, or do whatever it is you feel would be a good solution.

ar.
 
If you put three mics around a drumkit, all three will 'hear' any stroke on the snare for example.

Each frequency has it's own gulf length (Sorry for some bad English, my mother tought me Dutch).

A tone (freq) has positive and negative parts. Imagine you hit the snare and mic 1 captures the positive part of that 'tone' while mic 2 or/and 3 captures the negative part at the same time, then they will 'cancel' each other.

This is called a phase problem and it's best heard in mono on a single speaker.

Listen to the sound of the 3 (or more) mics and mute them one by one, what happens with the sound of the snare and/or kick?

When you mute one of the mics and suddenly the snare or kick sounds alot better, fuller or whatever, you may have a phase problem.

Don't immediately flip the phase of that mic, but move it a little closer or further away.
 
Excellent info guys, thanks for taking the time. I never really new how to determine if there was a phase problem or not.

Thanks

Joe
 
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