Suggestions for close-miking drums

[fsiplas]

Hi guys, I'm new to this forum but not audio engineering in the least bit. I'm a broadcasting student in college, but I'm mostly there for the audio side of things.

ANYWAYS....I am planning on buying a Zoom R16 in the near future to record my band. This is gonna be a HUGE upgrade from my previous gear, which was basically a small behringer mixer going into my 2-input interface that I have (running into Cubase le4 on my 32-bit vista laptop). This way I figure I can record everything onto the machine and then dump it all into Cubase to edit everything.

The R16 allows eight simultaneous tracks to be recorded, so I'm hoping someone can shed some light on the "best" ways of recording a full drum kit onto eight tracks. His setup is as follows:

-Kick
-Snare
-Two rack toms
-Floor tom
-Crash, Crash, Ride, China (left to right)


My idea is to close-mic all five drums with a bottom snare mic, and then two overheads. That, or pick up the two rack toms on one track and use the extra as either a hi-hat or an outside kick drum mic.

Suggestions? I know this kind of thing is very subjective, and I'm open to all sugestions.

Wow, sorry, didn't expect this post to be so long.....

[willjrockstar]

hey fsiplas, Yr on the right track. Obviously be aware of what drums you use the most and the ones that need to sound the best. My favorite is when i spend a bunch of time trying to get the three toms to sound the way i want and then the drummer hits them twice in ten songs.

And once you use all eight trax for the drums, then youll still need an input for a scratch guitar track. And then, it gets kind of embarrassing if yr recording somebody else trying to explain why you cant give them a scratch vocal track. Maybe youve got it all worked out for all i know.

Noticed it was yr first post welcome to RR.

[mindundermatter]

I'd definitely consider the room you're recording in first. Is it a garage/living room/spare bedroom/etc.? Then I'd think about what kind of sound you're going for. Do you want an 'open' sound or a 'tight' sound? This will vary depending on genre. For the 'open' sound, less mics in a bigger space with reflective surfaces (such as a garage) will do the job. For the 'tighter' sound, you'll want a dead/dry room that's been treated and lots of close mics. Your best bet there would be a carpeted living room with uneven/non-parallel walls and ceiling. I'm sure someone else will take this further (or I can later on if you give some more details on what you're after besides "I want to record my buddy's drum kit").

[tylerxfury]

There is, of course, no best way to go about this.
Only trial and error from the mass of suggestions.
My personal suggestion is to start with close mics on kick resonant head (or batter for metal), one on snare top, one on top of each tom, one condensor directed toward the hi-hat but elevated on the righ, and one condensor directed at the ride but elevated on the left of the set. the other input may be for scratch guitar+vocals. i personally dont record scratch tracks, so i would use that input for a snare bottom mic or a single mic as high as possible over the drummers head, or something else creative.
best of luck in finding a technique that works for you.

[paul999]

M.U.M is right. I am curious as to what mic's you have available because that will play a huge part in the decision.

[brandondrury]

It doesn't hurt to plan. However, this is like saying you are going jump into the bad guy layer, kick thug 1 in the face, do a flip and kick thug 2 in the ding ding, and then punch thug 3. It may not work out that way at all.

You have to try things, react, and try them some more. Hell, I spent 5 hours today tweaking a damn vocal. (Don't ask!) You never know what you are going to get yourself into.

With that said, your limited track count does force you into a few corners that may or may not be the end of the world depending on your genre.

Brandon

[fsiplas]

For those who were curious, I'd most likely end up using his drum mic kit that he bought for our earlier recordings - a CAD kit that came with a kick drum mic, three tom mics, a snare mic, and two pencil condensers. I've talked to him about it since my first post, and he seems pretty much dead set on having each tom miked, so I guess I'll use his whole mic kit, and then my trusty SM57 on the bottom of the snare. I was gonna solder myself a phase-reversed mic cable for this, but I forgot you can flip the phase of a track in Cubase. I suppose most of my playing around now will have to be with the overheads, since I won't have a dedicated hi-hat mic. One option I've considered was getting a figure-8 condenser and using that to catch both the top snare and hi-hats. Has anyone tried this before?

Ah well, I'll let you folks know how things go once we get the recorder up and running.

[paul999]

Usually you will get more than enough hats from your over heads. I'd use the 57 on the top of the snare.

[bozmillar]

I'd check out the huge drum recording shootout on here. The important thing when recording drums is to get your overheads sounding good. This means making sure the drums are tuned and in a place in the room where you don't get any strange sounding reflections.

The close mics are there to basically just fill in the rest and provide some beef to the drums, but the bulk of the sound comes from the overheads.

[cheatingatmath]

if you're gonna close mic those 3 toms, i would atleast save an input by running the two mic's for the rack toms (panned center) into the behringer, then into the Zoom.

also, be careful where that china is in relation to your overheads...they are quick, loud, and trashy. maybe have him groove back and forth between the china and ride..making sure you have clear definition on the ride and still get impact from the china. if he has to move the china further away, so be it..the ride is almost always more important. don't sacrifice a good stereo image because clubber lang wants to bash a trash can lid twice a song.