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Recording Drums
Drums are probably the most difficult instrument to record, and nobody can agree on what is the best method. In this lesson, we explain the common methods.
Drums are probably the most difficult instrument to record. You need good acoustics, Several input channels, and a bunch of microphones.
I’m covering this in 2 lessons. This first lesson is if you have no limitations on available channels and microphones, we’ll go over getting the best sounding drums without limitations. The next lesson is if you are limited on your input channels, or microphones, and want to use less microphones to capture the kit.
So what situations would you want more microphones or less microphones? Well, the advantage of having more microphones is to capture some of the more subtle elements of the kit, and give the mixing engineer more control to blend these in. This is more important in a dense mix that has lots of tracks, or heavy guitars, where these elements can get drowned out.
If it is a soft song, or doesn’t have a lot of parts competing to be heard, then less mics are just fine.
There’s basically 2 schools of thought for recording drums, and most engineers will have a preference for one of these.
1- Overheads capture the main sound of the kit. Close mic’s are used to supplement the low frequencies.
2- Overheads capture the cymbals, close mics capture the other elements.
It is also possible to do something in between these 2, where the overheads capture the whole kit, but mostly cymbals, and the spot mics fill in the entire sound of it’s element, not just the low frequencies. There’s no right or wrong… just what works for different people.
Both methods use 2 overheads, and spot mics, so they’re quite similar. When I record drums, I use 15 microphones. That’s a bit overkill, and I probably don’t even use them all in the mix, but I like having options.
Here’s what I do
-2 condensers as overheads in an xy right above the drummer. These can be large diaphragm or small diaphragm, what’s important to me is that they can handle high spl.
-2 ribbons as overheads, placed with the condensers. Sometimes I can’t decide if I like the sound of the condensers better, or the ribbons better. I place the ribbon mics as close as possible to the corresponding condenser so that they are in phase with each other, and I can blend them all together.
-2 room microphones. I use a stereo xy pair of ribbon microphones
-2 kick mics- I use an AKG D112 together with an iSK Pearl. The D112 captures the punch, and the midrange frequencies, and the iSK Pearl captures the low frequencies really well. I like to place both microphones right inside the kick, facing the beater, about 4” away. Being inside the kick has the added benefit of shielding the microphones from bleed from the rest of the kit.
-Snare Top- My preferred mic for this is the iSK ICDM
-Snare Bottom- I use the iSK ICDM. I normally don’t use this in the mix.
-3 Tom close mic’s- However many tom drums there are, I’ll have one mic on each. Usually 2-3. I like the iSK ICDM.
-Hi Hat- iSK ICDM
-Ride- iSK ICDM
My preferred strategy is the first one. I like to capture the full sound of the kit with the overheads, and use this as the predominant sound of the drums.
I place a stereo pair of microphones, either condensers or ribbon mics, in an XY configuration as low as possible, right above the drummers head, and slightly in front. The ideal position would actually be where the drummer’s nose is, facing between the snare and the kick. Unfortunately, that pesky drummer’s head is in the way of the optimal position, so I put the mic’s as close to there as possible.
The spot mics are used just a little bit to add low frequencies to their respective elements. As I demonstrate in the next lesson, you can get a great sounding drum recording with just 2 overheads and a kick mic. I like to use this as a starting point, and augment it just a little bit with the spot mics. Since the spot mics will have a cardioid pickup pattern, as we learned in lesson 14 on polar patterns, this will have extra bass response called proximity effect. So I use this proximity effect to get a bigger sound, and I’ll usually put a high pass filter on these channels.
In the mixing process, it’s important to phase align the close mics with the overheads. If you don’t understand the importance of this, check out lesson 8, how sound waves interact. Let’s take your snare for example. From the time the snare is struck, the close mic picks up the sound basically immediately, because it’s only an inch or 2 away. But the overhead mics will pick up the sound a few milliseconds later. Sound travels about 1 foot per millisecond. So if the overheads are 4 feet above the snare, then the snare mic should get a 4 millisecond delay. Also, make sure the spot mics are in phase with the overheads. Some studio engineers skip this phase alignment process because they think it’s not important, and then they wonder why their drums don’t sound good.
The other strategy, using the overheads to capture the cymbals, and the spot mics to capture the individual elements can also get great sounding drums. This seems to be the more popular method among pro recording studios.
The overheads will be placed as a spaced pair, a few feet above the drum kit, pointing down with one on each side.
The Spot mics are placed just a little farther away, which gives a more natural sound, but also picks up more bleed from the rest of the kit.
