Need some general help guys...

[Mike Teezie]

I am about to record a full drum kit for the first time. Here is the setup I plan on running:

Kick: EV RE20
Snare: Shure Beta SM57
Toms(3): Sennheiser MD421's
Overheads: Not sure yet, some form of large condensers.

All mics will run into my Digimax LT.

My questions -

1. What is the best way to set this all up? Should I just open the seven tracks, then make an Aux send for a main compressor for the whole kit? I don't think my PC (AMD 2000XP, 512 megs DDR ram) can handle running 7 C4 compressors, 7 REQ's, and a RVerb not to mention the rest of the tracks' plugins.

2. Should I put a gate on the tom mics? I have never used gates before, the only reason I know about them is I have read about the big studios using them. Since the MD421's are dynamic mics, should I even worry about gates? If so, what is a good general setting to start with?

3. Kick drum mic placement - if the kick drum's resonant head has a hole for a mic cut in it, should I stick the mic inside and point it at the beater? If not, where should I consider putting it?

I understand all of this is trial and error, but I want to be as pro as I can be going in there doing this for the first time. I am very familiar with Pro Tools, but I have never recorded a drum kit. I usually just record acoustic guitars, vocals, electric rock guitars, stuff like that, and use reason for drums. Anyways, thanks for reading this super long post, and thanks in advance for any help.

[J. FO]

sorry, but you're never going to be "as pro as possible" when trying to record a drum kit for the first time. some say engineers are measured in the drum sounds they can capture. you've got the mics, but a lot of it is placement. placing the kick mic inside the drum will cut down a little on bleed, and it will give you more attack. placing it outside will add bleed and will give you more low end thump.
about the plugs, why do you need to run 7 C4's? you don't need a multi band comp on every track. i'd say that's more a mastering tool anyway. just use the C1. and at that, if you've never recorded drums before, you're probably not going to know exactly what to do with the compressor. there's just way to much to cover here. do a search, you'll find lots. do a searh on google, you'll find lots. go to your public library, you'll find lots.

[da BaSsTaRd!]

i'm no drum recording expert, but i've done some mixing on drums. one thing i discovered is how incredibly important a room mic is. its the difference between dead and alive. use a large diaphram condensor at one end of the room.

the other thing i learned is that toms really like to resonate. i could never make a gate work properly on tom tracks so i manually chopped out the unwanted stuff. i start with strip silence, then use the smart tool to edit those regions. short fade in, long fade out...

[Travis Mitchell]

Hellody, I’m going to fire off some answers. If you need further elaboration, feel free to ask.
1. What kind of drum sound are you wanting? Room sound? or close miced sound? both? eep!?
If you are working in a nice room, you can always try the 4 mic trick. 2>overhead, 1>snare, 1>kick.
This method has provided a desirable drum sound for me in the past.

"Naw.....hell naw"
Ok than, here is a method I use for close micing.
Open up those 7 tracks you where talking about, and record those drums. Hit studiocovers.com up if you need some mic placement advice.

Now for the drum mangling.
I like a big nasty "drums of death" sound, so this is going to require alot of CPU if the processing is done entirely within Protools.
But never fear, sub mixing is hear! Check it out, toss you're eq, compressor, limiter, flanger...whatever-er onto each of the tracks. Than, throw spatial enhancers, multband eqs etc. onto your master fader. Now check you're system resources....ouch huh? Time to sub mix!

Massage/molest everything to you're liking. Now bounce the mess to disk. Create a new session or open an existing session and import the drums.
Remove any pre-existing drum tracks from the session. (unless you have a masochistic tendency towards phasing). Save this as a different session.

You can also try sub mixing any reverb, cymbals etc. Let you're mind run wild bro.

2. Gating toms is a good practice in my book. however I always leave this to RTAS.
Setting are kind of a “what you’re dealing with” situation. How hot the levels are etc.
Some quick pointers though. Put it last in the signal chain, set the attacks fast and the decays slow.
Wow, number 2 was nowhere near the diatribe number 1 turned out to be!

Hope this helps. Let me know how things go.

-Travis