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Greg_L
Banned
In my psychobilly days all I used was a ride cymbal.
T
thesoundtek
New member
It seems to me that the issue of only four channels and so many drums/ cymbals is not that hard of a fix especially if you are looking for separation/isolation. Simply lay down multiple tracks over 3 or even 4 takes. Kick, snare (under and over) to start. come back and record the toms (one mic each) and hats then on the third pass tom fills with one mic on each. Repeat the same for the crashes and ride. You will get clean tracks with a minimum of bleed. Keep in mind though that the snare bottom mic and the kick mic should be recorded in reverse phase with snare top mic. I've also found that when recording a complete kit with 8 or 9 mics that my overheads also sound better out of phase with the tom and top snare mics. I also use this configuration live. I've also been in situations where I only had a few mics on the drums (2 or 3) and was able to slice and dice the tom hits recorded by one mic and copy and paste them to their own dedicated track where I could separately eq,compress and pan them with some very acceptable results.good luck!
VSpaceBoy
..loading
and it might seem obvious but make sure the toms are tuned up nicely. critical to have them singing into the mic
Todzilla
New member
Allow me to split the difference in this debate: Mic up the kit with 3 or 4 mics, get everything perfect. Then, mic the toms and any other extra micings.
During mix, optimize the minimal mic sound, gate or manually edit out tom tracks to only include tom parts, then pull in the extra mics (including toms) only if they really add something.
During mix, optimize the minimal mic sound, gate or manually edit out tom tracks to only include tom parts, then pull in the extra mics (including toms) only if they really add something.
Beerhunter
Barley Processing Unit
I use... when I can
(2) Snare top and bottom
(2) Kick inside and out
(1) HH
(3) each tom (hi, low, floor)
(2) OH
(2) Room
for a total of 12. The only reason why I wouldn't use 12 mics is that it takes longer to mix
(2) Snare top and bottom
(2) Kick inside and out
(1) HH
(3) each tom (hi, low, floor)
(2) OH
(2) Room
for a total of 12. The only reason why I wouldn't use 12 mics is that it takes longer to mix
Todzilla
New member
The other reason for those of us with finite resources, is that we may not have oodles of nice mics, preamps and AD channels. Sometimes it's better to compromise on the number of tracks rather than pull questionable resources into play.