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I typically work in the digital realm frequently recording from anologue sources and acoustic instruments. Recently I was asked to be the recording engineer for an alternative rock style band...which is great. However, micing a full drum kit is a little new to me.

Is there a standard way, or maybe a preferred method or technique for doing this? Another sound tech I keep in contact with recommended using several SM57s as overheads and a PG52 for the kick. His specialty is live sound though.

Any suggestions or tips? I am open to anything, provided you actually have experience in the field.

Thanks

Hello Joshua, :)

I'm no expert by any means. But I can give you the basics to get you started. There are lots of ways to record drums, and no one way is perfect or correct. For a rock style band, generally the basic set up is a large diaphragm dynamic microphone for the kick drum like the Shure PG52 you mentioned. A dynamic microphone for the snare and each tom.(Meaning each drum gets a microhphone) The SM57's will work fine assuming you have enough of them. With the snare and tom channels panned somewhat to give some stereo spread. And two overhead condenser microphones hanging down over the kit left and right. And these channels panned left and right to give some stereo spread to the cymbals and whatever else it picks up.

Beyond that microphone selection is what sounds good to you, and also realistically what you have available or can afford to purchase.

Peace & Love

@Livingtolove I Thanks for advice!

I have 4 or 5 57's and several Audio Technica equivalents. I have enough mics from the PG series to mic a full kit too. From the sound of it, I should be set mic wise.

How important is room reverb...My guess is an acoustic drum needs time to resonate but all my treated rooms would be a pretty tight fit for drums.

Enjoyed Rain Trance BTW. I've been studying my gospel music theory lately and have naturally branched off into the bluesy side of things.

Hello Joshua, :)

“I have 4 or 5 57's and several Audio Technica equivalents. I have enough mics from the PG series to mic a full kit too. From the sound of it, I should be set mic wise.”

Yep, sounds good. Oh by the way... I forgot to mention that the two overhead condenser microphones are to pickup the cymbals and hi-hat, if you hadn't already figured that out. In a recording situation, generally the hi-hat does not get it's own microphone. As it has the potential to be too harsh sounding mic'd a few inches away. But you may have to experiment if you find that the hi-hat is not loud enough with just the two overheads.

“How important is room reverb...My guess is an acoustic drum needs time to resonate but all my treated rooms would be a pretty tight fit for drums.”

For rock music, ideally you want as much control as possible, meaning as little room noise as possible. And then add in any reverb and/or effects electronically after tracking. But there is no hard and set rules besides what your ears tell you. What you are trying to avoid is some sort of room noise on the original dry tracks that you cannot work with, sounds bad, or interferes with the rest of the mix that you cannot remove, as it is a part of the track. I hesitate to say you want a completely dry environment to record them in. As I suspect that the overheads may add some depth to the whole kit sound in a room that complements it. Much like in any studio, you are going to have to experiment with microphone types, microphone placement, instrument placement, and/or different rooms and sound baffling. It's more an art than a science.

And yes, a well made and well tuned drum will resonate very nicely. :) But like I said previously, if track it in a live room, and for some reason you cannot work with that sound in the mixdown, you're looking at tracking all over again. You may also want to see if you can use some gates on the kick, snare, and toms to prevent bleed through with each drum microphone. Make sure you are not chopping off the attack or decay of the drum sound. If you like that unnaturally gated drum sound you can do it later in the mixdown. But it's best to leave your options open in the tracking by having the drums sound as natural as possible.

Peace & Love

There are two philosophies in recording live drums. Either put a well tuned kit in a large room and be sure to mic the room with a large diaphragm condenser mic a few feet away from the kit or if your room is small, place some 'Deadringers' on all your drum heads to stop the overring of the drums. This will give a tighter sound to the kit, then you can add reverb or whatever you want later in the mix. For the more experienced, drum tuning is crucial for a good mix, I mean tuning the drums to the song.

I use two dynamic mics, one panned left, one right. These are placed above the kit about one foot away from the tallest part of the kit, and three feet apart. I use an SM57 in side the bass drum, another on the pedal and another on the snare. Hope that helps. :)

(this should work great in a decent studio room, by the way. It sounds good in our school studio which is beyond rubbish)

All good ideas. Particularly Gil'Wayne's about drum tuning in general, and to the key of the song. I totally forgot about that aspect. Just keep in mind that if you end up mic'ing two sides of one drum like Stella mentioned with the kick, that you need to have a mixer that can put one of the channel's 180 degrees out of phase. Otherwise both channels for the same drum will cancel each other out making for a very weak sound.