Tips needed - 7 mics - no bottom heads

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Zinc

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Our metal band is going to do some DIY recording with a friend of ours. Our drummer plays a five piece, with no bottom heads on his three toms(pinstripe heads, and foam rings). Our friend recommends going with a kick, a snare, three mics for the toms and two overheads. We are renting the mics, but he already has two sm57s, and we have two sm48s(which are probably good for nothing)...

What I'm looking for are tips on setting up the mics(especially with the toms), how we should use the mics we already have(sm57s for snare? toms?), and what mics we should rent for the rest...
 
Zinc, there are lots of posts here about micing drums. if you do a search in the "drums forum" for "micing" you'll find lots of answers.

With so many mics, you may run into phasing troubles. You might consider a smaller mic setup: one 57 on the snare, a kick mic, and two condensor overheads. A good budget kick mic is the ATM pro 25, and fantastic budget overheads are the MXL 603s. You could pick up all 3 for a little over $200. If you do want to close mic all the toms, the SM48 might actually sound ok. If not, I'd rent two mre 57s and use one on each tom. Lots of professional drum recordings use the 57 on toms and snare, and you really can't go wrong using them.

That drum kit sounds like it will sound terrible! No bottom heads, pinstripes AND faom muffle rings?!? They will probably sound like cardboard boxes. At very least, lose the muffle rings - pinstripes have muffing built in, and I doubt you'd want much more muffling than that.
 
if you rent 2 good condensers to use as overheads, you can get away with kick, snare, and 2 overheads....

I would definitely put one 57 on the snare. if you're going to close mic the toms - the other 57 could go on one (or 2) of those. you could put that between the two rack toms and rent one more for the floor tom...then you would need a decent bass drum mic (if you're renting look at either the AKG D112 or the Shure Beta52). as for those SM48s...save 'em for another project

agree with neirbo, though - regarding the toms!! single head AND muffling rings - ouch!! just make sure that they are tuned well for recording....the first step to a good drum sound is a good sounding kit.

neirbo - wouldn't phasing issues really only come into play if he were micing the same piece (eg. top and bottom of snare) with 2 mics?? maybe from overheads...but I can't see close mic'ing snare, toms, and bass drum as causing any phase issues???
 
heehee...:D I knew I'd catch some flack for describing his tom set up.
I'm going to save face and not say what kind of kit it is. But it really is amazing how cool this kit sounds in a live situation when tuned properly. Very deep and full sounding(I wish he'd get a new snare. but what can you do?)

I've read many of the posts I found, but nothing to the specific issue of only one head on the toms. Would the best positioning still be on top, about two inches in from the rim?
I don't really understand phasing, but let me see if this is right...In the case of the overheads, is it basically the sound of, say the snare, being recorded by the snare mic before the sound reaches the overheads mics and is recorded there? I may be way off here, so could someone explain what phasing problems are?

Also, we aren't buying the mics, just renting, so what would be good overheads to use, that aren't budget oriented?
 
hey man - regarding cheap drums....as long as the shell is round and the bearing edges are good...you can generally get a good sound out of most drums with good heads and tuning...I've heard some complete piece o' crap kits sound great live and even greater recorded....

re: mic'ing the toms - I think that you might want to experiement a bit to see how you can get the sound that you want....mic'ing the top head (as you described) would probably work...maybe rent enough mics to mic the top and bottom (top for stick response/attack; bottom for tone)...maybe you'll be able to get a killer sound without mic'ing the toms?....

some good overheads that you can rent = shure sm81's sound great as overheads...I use a pair of NT3s and they sound good...
I'm sure some other folks can throw in some ideas here...

re: phase - check out this page:
http://www.saecollege.de/reference_material/pages/Microphones.htm

near the bottom is a good explanation of phase/phase problems....it's not quite what you described

:D :D
 
I've used both the MXL 603 and the Rode NT3 and liked them both a lot as overheads.

Phasing makes sense when you remember that any sound is just a wave, with peaks and valleys. Let's take a simple example of one drum with two mics. If both mics are equidistance from the drum, the wave forms for both mics will be in sync, with both peaking at the same time. If you move one mic a little further away, the sound wave reaches that mic a few milliseconds later so that you could get a situation where one waveform is at its peak when the other is at its valley. Play these two waves back in mono, and they cancel each other out, resulting in no sound (acutally, both mics will also pick up some reflected sound, so you'll still hear something, but it will be weak and sound crappy).

A problem you can run into with overheads and close micing is that the tom mics can be out of phase with the overheads. This can be true for the snare too, which is why many guys will make sure their overheads are equally distant from the snare. The more mics you have, the greater the odds of phasing somewhere. It is not a terrible thing, it just means you may have to spend a while moving mics before everyhting sounds good. On the other hand, you may just set it up and get lucky right away.

Many folks, including me, find they can get a great sound with no tom mics, just overheads. So, they find the exa hassle of close micing everything just isn't worth it.
 
I just had a post on this subject on the mic thread. 5 pc kit live recording. I have 3 tracks for this and the best suggestion for me was 3 mics. I tried this and it worked great . BTW for the rental price you could probably own this set up. An AT pro 25 in the kick. Right now you can get this for $69 http://www.musiciansfriend.com/srs7...9044021399/search/g=home/detail/base_id/59940 And 2 MXL 603s for overhead. I think they are $79 each at 8thstreet.com Place the 603s not so much overhead but more over the shoulder of the drummer. I take two drum sticks end to end from the center of the snare drum toward each shoulder and set the mics there. It does the job!!
 
Zinc, I really have to agree with Zbert. I have a 5pc Tama Swingstar that I mic with just 2 SM-57s overhead X-Y and a Radio-Shack Kick drum mic (don't laugh : RS is a not-quite-to-spec Shure). Anyway, no problems with phasing and it picks up everything in stereo. I record 3 tracks to the Korg and have a pretty good sound.

Neirbo : My kit has the bottom heads and lugs removed and sounds great IMHO. Check out my post on Tama Recommended Heads thread for the specifics.

Rock On!
 
PaulBritt said:
Neirbo : My kit has the bottom heads and lugs removed and sounds great IMHO.
Click to expand...

I agree! I've played with no bottom heads before and you can get a great sound. But, the combination of no bottom heads, pinstripes and muffling I think would be too much. But, if the result is a sound that you are going for then all is good. :)
 
I think you guys missed something in the original post. He said that he's in a metal band. Minimal micing (ie kick, snare, overheads) is fantastic and I use it all the time, but I'm not trying to make my drums or music sound like metal. Generally, the drum sounds in heavy metal music are done with close micing and gating. You are simply not going to be able to make your drums sound like Metallica with stereo overheads, kick and snare. Gating (or editing on a DAW) of the individual tom mics and the kick and snare will pretty much eliminate any phase issues. Also, the overheads are usually set up further away to capture mainly the cymbals and mixed in to taste with most of the sound coming from the close-mics. If you want metal-sounding drums, this is really the way to go. Personally, I don't like gated heavy metal sounds and use more minimal techniques and rely on the overheads for most of the sound.
 
Oh, some ideas for mic suggestions if you're renting:
Overheads: Neumann KM184s
Kick: AKG D112
Snare: SM57 or try a condenser with a tight pattern and pad
Toms: SM57s or E604s
 
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