my drum recording mic set up and your opinions....

[okn]

hello drums experts... i have some questions for recording drums and i want oppinions of yours... my mics: 3x sennheiser md421 for toms, 2x sm57 for snare, 1x akg c451 for hi hat,
2x akg 414xls for overhead, and 1x akg d 112... whats your recommend for room mics??? and how to place the room mics for recording better??? must have second bass drum mic??? if yes which??? sorry for the broken english, i am from greece... thanx....

[Jazzy_Jefferson]

Hello mate

Room mics.... Well, its personal preference really. There is no perfect answer. Any decent boundary mic will sort you out, AKG, sennheiser, shure etc all make these types of mics.
I would place it at a reasonable distance from the kit, to capture the room, rather than the kit, the overheads will obviously deal with that.
Experiment mate!

As for bass drum, 2 mics is good, as long as you have the right sort of mics. Something that captures the higher end and attack from the beater (Shure beta91?) and then something that captures the bottom end and "fat" sound, maybe the D112, personally, i am not a fan, and would rather have an Audix D6, Shure Beta52 or Audio Technica ATM250.

Got any recordings we can hear?

What is your recording set up? You use an interface of some description I presume?
What kit you got?

[okn]

i havent got recordings on internet... maybe i will, i dont know... and how to place the d112?? inside or outside.. the beta 91 will in.. finally i bought presonus studiolive 16.4.2, 2x art tubeopto 8 and a imac 27".... and these mics for drums.. now iam going to buy some mics for guitar amps and acoustic guitar... maybe a sm57 and tlm102 for guitar amp and rode nt5 stereo pair for acoustic guitar.... i am not professional but i will study for studio engineering and i am practicing now with these equipment..... for room mics maybe i can use something like brauner phantom classic.... oppinion please...

[Jazzy_Jefferson]

Place the D112 further out, Beta91 closer to beater.

Since you already have an SM57, why not try a Sennheiser E906 for guitars?

I'm not familiar with Brauner mics, cant help you there.

[Ramirez]

SM57s can be good for some definition on kick, providing you have another mic for the low end.

I've never really liked the D112, but that's just my tastes - I'm very rarely going for the sound it seems to always deliver.

I have the D11, which is pretty much the budget version of the D112 - I think I prefer it, actually - it's the same kind of sound, but less so, if that makes sense.

I also have access to a D12, which I feel is much nicer than both, but then again they're discontinued and very expensive second hand. I also like to stick a ribbon mic 2/3 feet in front of the kick quite often.

Aled

[Jazzy_Jefferson]

No. 1 is to make sure the drum kit is in top condition and that the head are changed a few weeks before the recording and that they are tuned to perfection. Listen to the drums first and make sure they sound like something you want to record.

Put shit in, get shit out

[MrMenturm]

You've got some very nice microphones there, what about preamps? What preamps are you using? Just the ones in your StudioLive? They'll be pretty decent knowing Presonus, but see if you can get some other flavours as well.

For a room microphone, I recently used a Rode K2 in a figure-8 pattern to pickup the front and back of a large warehouse. You can hear that here:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/630473/Satso..._TwoBusses.mp3
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/630473/Satso...els_KickEQ.mp3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNHDjEe4xbE

It fills out the snare quite nicely and imparts a washy character onto the cymbals, which for our music was quite necessary.

I'm personally more of a fan of the Audix D6 over the D112. The D112 is a little too smooth sounding for my tastes, but it depends on what you want to capture.

Microphone placement AND kit placement in the room are both the key things to look out for here. You want to watch out for the following things:

Cymbal bleed into the tom microphones - Ride bleeding into the floor tom microphone is especially dangerous, as is hi-hat bleed into the snare top microphone.

Early reflections from the rear wall. Throw up some thick breathable blankets or matresses behind the kit, and slightly to the sides too depending on the room. You want to calm down the reflections coming back into the direct microphones on the kit.

Make sure you do a couple of test takes - don't just put the microphones up and hit record. Test out a variety of positions and configurations, making notes all the way. Then settle on a final setup.

I don't rigidly stick to this, but if it's taken me less than an hour to get stuff setup, I am suspicious of the microphone positions. If it takes me more than three hours to get stuff setup, I am suspicious of the kit, the player, or the room.

And yes... tuning is very important!

edit: fixed a typo.

[Ramirez]

Early reflections from the rear wall. Throw up some thick non-breathable blankets or matresses behind the kit, and slightly to the sides too depending on the room. You want to calm down the reflections coming back into the direct microphones on the kit.

Doesn't it need to be breathable in order to absorb any frequencies?

[MrMenturm]

Doesn't it need to be breathable in order to absorb any frequencies?

Sorry yes, typo there.

[Noobshire]

Put shit in, get shit out

Ye cannae polish a turd