Mic up drum kit using 003 rack

[ASTR]

Hi
I'm moving from midi drums to acoustic for my home recordings. What recommendations do you have when it comes to mic'ing up the kit in terms of placement - or even if a mixer is required?
cheers

[dr_daw]

ASTR,

There is actually another forum within DUC specifically for Drums, your question may be better suited there.

I personally have never used a 003 rack, but it should be more than capable of handling your drum mic setup. Unless you want to get crazy, then you may not have enough inputs. But the ole k, snr, t1, t2, ft, OH L, OH R leaves you with one extra for a Bass during beds or Snare bottom, HH, or room mic.

My suggestion with regards to placement is that it's subjective. There are guidelines and phase considerations that can be found online. The one thing I will say is DON"T cheap out on your mic kit, good mics are never a bad investment. One of the standards on snare and toms has been the SM57 for a long time, and the old fashioned D112 on Kick. But, there are many options out there. If you have a place that you can rent mics from, try different mics and try different techniques until you find what works for the sound you're looking for.

Most importantly, learn how to tune drums properly. Good luck.

[WombatStudio.Org]

I think the minimum when it comes to mic'ing drums is one mic. I seem to recall Paul McCartney doing this for his solo albums when he borrowed a 4 track. He'd record the drums then think it needed a little more of something and he'd move the mic closer to that something and try again.

Next up would be "The RecorderMan" set up. 3 mics. Kick and two overheads basically.

I use around 13 and I'm sure there's others who use more (room mics) and less.

My drum input list:
01. SubKick (homemade)
02. Kick [front hole] (Beta52)
03. Kick [rear by beater] (Audix D4)
04. Snare Top (SM57)
05. Snare Bottom (SM57)
06. Hat (SM81)
07. Rack 1 (Senn E604)
08. Rack 2 (Senn E604)
09. Floor (Senn E604)
10. SR OH (AKG C1000S)
11. SL OH (AKG C1000S)
12. Ride (MXL 601)
13. Room (dbx RTA mic)

Not the greatest mics, not the worst but get a great sound. I don't always use a beater mic. Use it when there's no hole cut in the kick drum front head.

When I win the lottery I'm going for Sennheiser 421s and the Shure overheads ... KSM32 something or others?

[Jacksonland]

I'm going to do you a favor. If you are starting from scratch, get an Octopre Dynamic and connect to your 003 with an optical cable. This will give you 8 extra mic pre's. Get one of the Audix drum mic kits. The DP7 is amazing for the money, and you can add other mics, if you have them and need more coverage. As far as technique, that's hard to put into words - play around until it sounds like you want it.

[JFreak]

Originally Posted by Jacksonland

I'm going to do you a favor. If you are starting from scratch, get an Octopre Dynamic and connect to your 003 with an optical cable.

Even better; try to find old used original Octopre Platinum, it sounds much better than the new cheapo. But all of those original versions do not have digital card installed so be sure you buy one with digital option. Or prepare to look for one after the purchase. (there are two different cards available, with AES or without, obviously AES card is more expensive).

That said, the new Octopre Dynamic is a reasonable solution and already has digital connections built in. However I don't like that analog outputs are TRS, it is much more trouble than connecting a single DB25 connector. Don't have any idea why they changed that. Anyway, you should really consider this (upping your track count) if you have the budget.

[Ben Jenssen]

A prosedure that has always worked well for me is put much work into the overheads before I even begin mic'ing the close ones. I work the distance, spacing, direction until I'm shure I have the best stereo image of the whole set that I can. Then the close mics will boost and enhance that image. Works for me.

This good image in the overheads also is very useful if you want to use few mics and tracks. 2 OH's and a kick and a snare mic f.ex. 4 mic setup.

I usually end up with the OH's quite close each side and bit above the drummers head. And I make shure that I have the same distance from the center of the snare to each mic. Important to avoid phase cancellation on the snare.

I never had very good drum rooms, so I never used much room mics. Don't feel you have to have it just beacause people say so, unless you have very good acoustics. Dry recording and a plugin reverb will do fine. IMHO

[JFreak]

Originally Posted by Ben Jenssen

And I make shure that I have the same distance from the center of the snare to each mic. Important to avoid phase cancellation on the snare.

This is VERY VERY VERY important !!!

[P,B,S]

If for some reason you end up with phase issues on the snare reverse the polarity on the bottom mic. If you do have timing issue,s with multiple mics on snare just gate them individually and the time align them. Use the nudge feature and sync them to sample accuracy. Not very difficult to do

I personally put a mic top and bottom on everything.
Then overheads and sometimes spot mic cymbals and hi hat and ride as well
This helps to bring out a little attack and help the stereo imaging.

[EGS]

To reduce phase issues (and after years of experimentation), I use fewer mics rather than more:

kik: AKG D112
snare: Shure SM81
oh: Neumann U87

...but I also like to add...

1 mic on each tom: CAD E100's

If its a 4-piece set, then that's 5 mics; easily done with a 003 rack.

Yes, that's a single OH, positioned over knee of drummer's kik leg, not too high up. This single OH mic idea only works if the cymbals are nicely balanced acoustically. The snare mic will have hi-hat bleed; since it's a quality condenser mic, the off-axis-frequency-coloration is not an issue & this hat bleed is useful. Pan to taste, but too much panning can sound un-natural. In PTools, edit between tom hits. When the toms are not played, the drums are heard only by the kik/snr/OH mics; it's very powerful and phase coherent. In PTools clone the kik track and drop pitch an octave to create a sub-kik track. Use great drums, new heads, new sticks, and a great room. Carefully tune the set. EQ/compress/limit/efx to taste. There are a million different ways to get drum sounds; it's all personal preference !!!

[tams]

Originally Posted by JFreak

Even better; try to find old used original Octopre Platinum, it sounds much better than the new cheapo.

Wow the new one must be really bad.