Mic placement for recording drums with 3 or 4 mics

This placement only needs three or four channels and mics and sounds great. You will need a condenser microphone for each kick drum and two overheads. Two are placed over head. One is between the snare and hi hat and the other over the floor tom. The kick mics are placed 17-18 inches from the kicks and pointed at the direct center of the head.

There are no triggers in this video. This is the method for recording acoustic drum sounds that I use. This is a simple solution to a complicated task.
This method is great if you are limited to a few mics or channels.

I would like to note that I use kick drum triggers for most metal recordings.

Condenser mics offer excellent frequency response. I don't specifically recommend the exact mics I am using in this video. When it comes to cheap condenser mics I prefer he Audio Technica AT-2020. It has an incredibly flat response and has a frequency response of 20hz-20Khz. And they are only $99!

No compression or eq were used in the audio demonstration.

I don't use compression for anything because it sucks.

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• kick
• drum
• drums
• acoustic
• double
• bass
• axis
• tama
• superstar
• metalworks
• metal
• remo
• powerstroke
• head
• iron
• cobra
• beater
• mxl
• 993
• condenser
• mic
• microphone
• recording
• set
• compression
• eq
• equalization
• good
• sound
• sounding

[blandbrothers]

this helpful considering i have similar mics. why'd you choose to keep the bass mics outside instead of inside?

[andy15m374l]

@blandbrothers With a lot of mics it doesn't sound like a drum from the inside. It sounds like beating on a can or something. You would want to put dynamic mics closer that what I have those condensers. 

[NINJAX2X2X]

what are you using to record this as far as programs go?

[andy15m374l]

@NINJAX2X2X I used a box recorder for this because it was before I got a DAW setup and interface. I use FL studio producer edition now though. I use that because the full version is cheap, it has a great piano roll for programming and it's east to use.

[CanadianMuscleJym]

Man, how do you tune your kick like that? Do you have something like a pillow or towel inside it?

[andy15m374l]

@CanadianMuscleJym There is on medium tshirt against the front head and that's it. I have a video about how I tune my kicks.

[andy15m374l]

@dismaus82 Nope. Most everything I listen to has about 4db of compression or less on it. And what does a gate have to do with anything? Most records have silences edited out manually.

[strangersound]

Compression is just a tool, just like anything else. It only sucks in the wrong hands. In the right hands, it is a extremely valuable audio tool. I'd say that triggers on the kick drums suck far more than any compressor. I'm sorry, but you can't say compression sucks when it's been used to wonderful effect on a million classic recordings. Take your drum recording and tastefully run it through an LA-2A and come back and tell me compression sucks.

[ScrapBrainMusic]

Our most recent track (the video's on our channel) was recorded in a classroom in a college, with some clip ons and two SM57s for overheads. That wasn't fucking fun.

The kicks in this sound absolutely sweet.

[teogajsek]

is that sound changewith EQ, or is it original, raw sound??

[DrumsOfAPredator]

If you trigger your kick, is it wise to still use 3 or 4 mic? Or would 2 overheads be enough?

[Daiphantus]

dont you get unwanted sounds from your floor microphones? like for example i think the reason your crashes are so long is cuz your floor condensers are meant for over heads and they are capturing signals from your cymbals, but still good job

[JesseTorresrules]

@starwarsfreak1997 Tama metalworks snare 6 1/2x13

[LATURBAN]

That was sweet as fuck