There is a video that has been floating around on the web that is fairly interesting – especially if you are somewhat new to miking and recording acoustic drums.
The link is:
The idea as it appears in the video is to use two microphones to record the entire drum kit and to utilize a length of string to measure the distances from the kick and snare drums to the microphones. With the addition of a kick drum microphone, this could be an interesting three-microphone setup as well.
It’s a great idea if you are limited on microphone preamps. Based on numerous discussions that I’ve seen posted on other recording sites, it seems to be pretty well received. You can find a string of some of those discussions here.
One thing to remember is that much of the success of this technique – or any drum miking technique for that matter - is going to be based on how the drummer actually plays: Some drummers have pretty stable dynamics and they hit all their drums with equal intensity, while others are pretty heavy hitters on the snare, lighter on their toms but brutal in the way they hit the crash cymbals. So the key to making any microphone positioning work is to listen to the way the drummer plays and move the microphones to adapt to their style – moving your overheads higher or farther back from the cymbals if the drummer is really brutal on his crashes etc.
If you are working alone and don’t have an assistant to move your mics for you, get a really long headphone extension cord and really crank your headphones while you are setting up the mics so you can actually hear what the microphone is hearing. Don’ do this long enough to fry your ears though.
We will be talking much more extensively about drum miking in later segments, but this is a good place to start. If you have not already read them, check out the articles on microphone PHASE in the TRICKS section of this blog - and also - review the section on Flutter Echo in the NOT section.
Remember, drums will sound bad if they are not tuned well and if they are in a room that has acoustic problems, and no amount of mic technique or mixing can fix that.
Many thanks to the guys at Recorderman for making this video available on line to everyone.
