I’m about to record some drums, help me not screw it up

[Jitters]

I have 4 tracks in progress, all with ez drummer tracks that I am having a drummer replace. His room is treated and pretty dead, except for the typical low ceiling that I don’t believe has been treated at all. The material is all over the place, two tracks will feature acoustic guitar, and eventually mandolin and fiddle, although fairly rocking. The third track has an updated 50’s slow dance vibe, and the last is a shameless Rolling Stones knock off.

My current plan is as follies:

Mono overhead - m160

Front of kit - WA-47 - close capture, not necessarily a ‘room mic’ (cardioid, omnidirectional, figure 8, plus 6 mixed patterns to chose from)

(At this point some of your are thinking ‘No, do mid-side overs instead’ and I’m definitely listening)

Snare - Telefunken m80 on the shell (I would really like to be able to use this more than I can can usually get away with, what with always getting plenty of snare in the overhead(s)

Kick - Sennheiser e902 - inside on a pillow

Toms - two md421s with an m88 on the floor Tom. We might end up using his stage mics that clip onto the shells, depending on how many stands we can russle up between now and then, even though that’s obviously less than optimal.

Stunt mic - WA-47jr in the corner. I recently read an article by SOS that mentioned putting a mic in the corner to pick up room with a lot of bass and then low passing it. The clips accompanying the article added a lovely dimension to the kick.

Note: the WA-47 and WA-47jr are very different sounding mics and aren’t a pair.

[Nick Sevilla]

Try to spend as much time as possible placing the microphones, and checking their relationship to each other.

Nothing you do is more important than this. Don't rush it. Once you get it close, don't be afraid of EQing a little, and of flipping the phase on mics, to listen to how that sounds all together, especially if one mic is giving you too much low and or high end, which it does not need to (toms giving you too much cymbals for example.) Try to use no compression if possible. Get a nice clean recording, once that all 8 mics work well together, otherwise you'll be sorry, and spend too much time later on trying to fix phase and bleed and blend issues. Get it right before pressing record!

Ask yourself: What do the 3 tom mics do when only they are in play? Do they sound better without the mono overhead? Why is that? You want to end up with an 8 mic setup that sounds great TOGETHER, and that you can use less mics as well for certain parts of the song, where you might not want as much mono overhead, for example, and still have it sound great.

If the drummer can do 1-3 takes per song, that means what, 15 minutes per song actually recording! That's 15x4 = 1 hour of actual recording. the rest of the time should be spent getting the drumkit sounding great.

I've done records where we took 1-2 entire days doing the drum mic setup. But once we were done, that was THE SOUND, and it needed little afterwards to finish it up in the mix. You could put the faders at unity on the drumkit, and it sounded 95% like the final mix. Well worth the absurd amount of time.

[A.David.MacKinnon]

+1 on everything Nick has said above.
The only thing I'd add is that once you've got the mics up and patched, record a bit audio and then listen back to each mic, one at a time against the OH. Listen in mono (on one speaker if possible) while hitting the polarity/phase button. This will help you quickly zero in on problems.

Seeing as you're using one OH and a front of kit mic I'd start by getting those perfect and then move on to the close mics. You'll want to repeat the above process and check the close mics against the front of kit mic as well.

Then repeat, repeat, repeat until everything sounds amazing.

[digitaldrummer]

make sure the drums sound good, that they are tuned well, and if necessary use some dampening (or not). If they sound good in the room, then chances of the mics liking them are better. One thing is for sure, if they sound like crap, the mics won't change that. All the above about checking phase is great advice. The room is a huge factor too because every mic will likely be getting the direct signal and reflections (unless you are in one of those huge rooms i.e. Abbey Road, Ocean Way...). if possible, move the drums as far away from walls to minimize this (if the walls don't have any absorption). Cymbals are the worst. if the ceiling is very low, you may find you don't want an overhead at all and that putting mics in front, or behind the kit get a better sound (with less immediate reflections). Like was said above, you may have to experiment a bit until you get the sounds you like and can work with.

[drumsound]

I'd put digitaldrummer's post in front of Nick and Dave's and then you've got the recipe for success.

You mention an untreated ceiling and an M160. The M160 is hypercardioid, so it has some pickup at the rear, but pretty good nulls and 240 and 120 degrees. You should try to get the ceiling in the null by angling the mic, so it isn't pointed straight down, parallel with the floor.

[MoreSpaceEcho]

All great advice so far. If you can get *something* on the ceiling right over the kit, try and do that, reflections off a low ceiling are a killer. Can make for terrible cymbal sounds that are basically impossible to fix.

Can't remember if I mentioned this in your other thread, but my default spot for mono 160 overhead is by the drummer's right shoulder, aimed at the snare. It sounds better to me there than straight overhead, gets a good picture of the whole kit but most importantly, the snare sounds good AND in that spot you get a really nice low mid thump from the kick.

One thing to watch out for with the front of kit mic....IME using a mono OH and a FOK mic, I found it was tough getting the phase to work out between those two and the close mics. Meaning if I got the close kick and snare mics in phase with the OH, one of them (usually the snare) was out of phase in the FOK mic.

[Jitters]

This is all gold so far, thanks y’all. Maybe mid/side low in front of the kit is a better option so that I can avoid more of the ceiling reflections? It might even allow me to work in more of the snare mic.

[A.David.MacKinnon]

Try everything and then decide (as per Nick's instructions). If you do go M/S out front remember that the center line of the kit is not through the middle of the kick. It's from the edge of the kick on the floor tom side through towards the inside edge of the kick on the snare side, centered on the snare. That'll keep the kick and snare in the middle of the image. The ride might end up louder than the rest of the cymbals.

This whole record is mid/side front of kit (plus close mics) - https://open.spotify.com/album/171i2Va0 ... Q9Daft7sxQ

Half of it was tracked in a huge, beautiful, amazing sounding room way out in the woods. The other half was tracked in a basement.

[Jitters]

Would it be worth it to angle the kit in the room to keep the reflections of narrow walls equidistant, or is that overthinking it?

I like that drum sound a lot, and the music is great! Is this one of yours?

Listen in mono (on one speaker if possible)

I can do that, but out of curiosity, why is is one speaker better than two?

[Jitters]

It looks like I was wrong about the untreated ceiling! You can see though that we have one treated wall opposing an untreated cement wall. Could this mess up a the side mic in an m/s setup?

[drumsound]

Would it be worth it to angle the kit in the room to keep the reflections of narrow walls equidistant, or is that overthinking it?

I like that drum sound a lot, and the music is great! Is this one of yours?

Listen in mono (on one speaker if possible)

I can do that, but out of curiosity, why is is one speaker better than two?

Single point source makes hearing phase anomalies much easier.

[A.David.MacKinnon]

I like that drum sound a lot, and the music is great! Is this one of yours?

That's me circa 2008. I sound older and uglier now.

[Jitters]

Nice! I just listened to the new stuff too. Older and uglier suits you well.

[Snarl 12/8]

I would just add, be careful not to place any mics equidistant between floor and ceiling or between walls. I've found it really hard to get a good sound there.

[Jitters]

I would just add, be careful not to place any mics equidistant between floor and ceiling or between walls. I've found it really hard to get a good sound there.

That’s very interesting, I’ve never heard that before.