Drums with 3 mics

[jaguarundi]

The long awaited sequel to the topic below "Drums with 2 mics". My rock band is recording this weekend at a friends garage studio setup and we have 3 mics to play with. Suggestions, advice? We were thinkin probably 2 overheads and a kick.

I have a pair of AT 4040's that we were maybe going to try for overheads (good/bad idea?).

Thanks in advance!

Adam

[kslight]

I have had good luck with kick, snare, and mono overhead. Actually even better I've added a bottom snare to that and it really sounded nice and gave me everything I needed in drums.

[MoreSpaceEcho]

4040s will work fine.

i'd go 2 oh's and a kick if your drummer really hits the snare like it's supposed to be hit. actually, no if that was the case, i'd go mono overhead and use the other one as a room mic.

if your drummer doesn't hit the snare in near-perfect fashion, i'd put a mic on the snare and use the other as an overhead.

[Dan Rosato]

Another cool option...

One kick, one condenser overhead, and one mic in front of the kit placed to the side in between the hi hat and rack tom at the snare height about 1 to 2 ft. off the kit. Cool far away snare/room sound...

[Gebo]

Another cool option...

One kick, one condenser overhead, and one mic in front of the kit placed to the side in between the hi hat and rack tom at the snare height about 1 to 2 ft. off the kit. Cool far away snare/room sound...

I do something very similar. A mic inside the kick, a mic over the drummers ringht shoulder aiming at the drummers knee, and one about two feet away from the kit aiming at the area between the snare and rack tom. I pan the snare mic and the overhead left and right. The snare ends up being weighted more to one side, but I find that once I drop guitars in and stuff you can balance the mix well. This technique has worked well for lofi punk stuff, but should work on whatever.

[ymjon]

I tried a 3 mic technique I read in tapeop that I quite liked.

2 LDC overheads
one in front and above the kit pointed towards the snare.
Measure the distance from the snare to the face of the mic and place the other overhead behind the drummer over their right shoulder (sort of shadowed by the drummers body) the same distance away from the snare. pan them left and right.

and a mic on the kick.

When the drummer came in to listen to the playback, he and a couple other drummers that were there really liked the drum sound.

[jaguarundi]

great, we're definitely going to experiment with these suggestions tomorrow, thanks guys!

[Lost on side]

I have been getting some nice results with an SM58 about 6" off the floor, and about 1 1/2 ft. away from the bass drum pointed at the drummer (10:30 to the drummer). On the other side of the bass drum, I have an SM7 in the reverse position (about 1:30, I can't think in degrees!), pointed at the drummer again. Both of these mics should be far enough back to peek into the bass drum a little.

Overhead, I use an AT4050 at about 5 ft, above the bass drum pedal, but angled a bit towards the snare. I sometimes use a Sennheiser 902 in the bass drum.

The key to this is the early reflections off the floor, so in my carpeted space, I have 4x8 plywood board that I put in front of the kit and under the mics. This method controls excessive high end from the cymbals. It sounds good without the overhead too, and really the sound is captured by the 2 outside mics.

Try it out!

[{}]

A good way to make the most of the "overheads" is to start with one of them, put on some headphones, and move it around to see where it balances best. If the drummer is too loud to tell what's going on, try recording some snippets with him playing the full kit and different mic positions (again, with ONE mic). Try to find the place where the kit sounds the most balanced and nice to you, experiment. Once you've got that figured out, use the other mic to fill in any areas of the kit that might be missing -perhaps somewhere near the floor tom, or use it to add ambience. You might want to record kick and snare mics as well as a form of insurance in case there isn't enough of 'em come mix time or if the drummer isn't so balanced across the kit [usually cymbal bashing overpowering drums].

Seriously, try putting the mics a bunch of places, especially places you wouldn't expect them to sound good. I promise you'll learn a lot.

[jaguarundi]

We ended up going with the two overheads, one over the right shoulder and other pointed at the snare + a kick approach, worked really well! everyone, even the drummer seemed happy with the sound.
thanks again for the great ideas!

[CedarSound]

That's basically what is called the "Recorderman" set up for drum micing... I use it all the time, sometimes a hybrid of that and the Glyn John's technique.

Just thought i'd mention it, cause if you google "recorderman" you can find lots of info about it out there on the interwebz..

[Gregg Juke]

Just did this last week as an experiment. Hope it worked out for you. We used two Shure sdc's as overheads, and an Audio Technica (forget the model numbers) on b.d.; came out pretty good.

The issues of course are eq on overheads effecting snare, and not enough snare vs. too much cymbal wash; also not enough consistency and separation from toms. Also, the room has more of an effect, because you have more of it and less control over it than with close miking. But it's certainly possible and can work well if you're limited by either mic availability or tracks.

GJ

[Gregg Juke]

BTW, there's a nice article on minimal drum miking in the latest issue of Drum! Magazine.

GJ

[cjogo]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62_KgwExgmo


We use a U 89 for overhead -- AKG 3600b on the kick -- and a small AKG condenser between the hat/snare

[drumsound]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62_KgwExgmo


We use a U 89 for overhead -- AKG 3600b on the kick -- and a small AKG condenser between the hat/snare

Tires as bass trap?