Recording drummer tomorrow with sm57 and kick mic... tips?

[TheShaggyFox]

What are some good tips I could use to make the most of this small recording session? I'm gonna use the headphone out on this practice amp as his "guitar monitor" while he plays and I record. I was thinking mic the kick drum with the cheapy CAD kick I have, then place an sm57 over the top of his head behind him and angled downwards towards the snare/toms/cymbals... however I'm not sure if this would cancel out the phase or just increase the phase issue more? You tell me!

I love recording drums...

[mrufino1]

Should work fine- experiment with that top mic a little on positioning. I just had great results the other day with kick, snare, and single overhead positioned over the ride pointing towards the hihat over the kit. Very balanced, slamming drummer though- he would have sounded great with any mic. It was a live recording, so the kick and snare mics were the house sound mics. I did place the snare mic where I wanted it, the overhead was mine (not in PA), kick was a beta 52 which I don't really like too much, but again- he was such a great drummer I could have miked him with my cellphone and he would have sounded good.

[hiddendriveways]

I've recorded with a 57 in front of the kit, at like chest height, about 3 feet in front of the middle of the kit.

I still stick a mic there sometimes, even when I have a whole kit miked up. The reason is that I like to compare what the whole kit miked up sounds like > with what it sounds like with just a single 57 room mic.

This came about from just recording band practices with a single mic. I would accidentally get awesome drum sounds from just a single 57 in the room.

Just play with what you have at the session. Experiment. Listen.

[percussion boy]

I've recorded to my laptop with a 421 in the kick and a 57 about 2-3 feet above the snare. I was pleasantly surprised how much of the kit the 57 "heard." It reminded me a little of old Al Green records where they used ribbon mics on the kit -- kind of dark, more drums than cymbals.

[spankenstein]

On a 4-piece kit I've stuck a mic in between the two toms, pointing at the snare, but VERY close to the kick. I move it up and down to balance the kick/snare ratio. I've had some really good results with one mic in this layout.

[CraigM]

Nice to know there are others in the same boat as me. I too will be recording a drumkit with just a cheap CAD on the kick, a 57 on snare and probably a Studio Projects C-1 as my lone overhead or front of kit mic. Fortunately it is a noise-punk band so the end result probably won't matter too much anyways.