Recording Drums - Advice needed

theindian

Senior Member
I am going to do some recording this week for the demo on my bands press kit.
I would like some advice on mic placement in the room & mics placement as in what mic to use on what drum. General advice on eq/compression/effects etc.

I am gonna use the standard drum kit.
5 piece Ludwig Classic Maple with a Supra & 5 cymbals. (Paiste 2002 crashes, Zildjian hats ride, splash).
Drums Sizes: 10,12,16, 14x6.5 snare 22x14 kick.

Here is what I am working with
Mics: Shure Beta 52, 3 SM57, 1 SM58,& 1 Beta 58,
I can use either Garage Band or Audacity recording software.
12 channel mixer with eq, rack compression/effects.

We are recording in a storage unit that 20'x8' that has been covered in carpet.

I know there are a ton of threads on recording but I would like some input on my specific situation.
I have done some home recording before but I would like to some input to speed along the process.
Thanks.
 
use garage band, its seen as inferior but for your situation its reliable and the compression and EQ's ect. are decent enough.

put you beta in the kick, if you have a hole put it right in there. also you can put it at a 45 degree angle on the batter head if your having a problem with attack. its a press kit demo so just make sure they can hear everything. boost around 100 to 150 hz to help with bass drum attack. also i would put a low pass filter around 8,000 to 10,000 hz for the bass drum.

for your snare put an sm 57 on the batter head at a 45 degree angle facing the center of the drum. but the actual mic should not come out far past the rim. i would not worry to much about EQing the snare unless you have some good parametric EQ's it should cut through enough for the demo with a bit of compression (later)

put one sm 57 between the 2 mounted toms about 3 to 5 inches above the rim at a 45 degree angle in relation to the tom heads not the ground. you can boost around 200 hz if you have the capacity but a well placed 57 should be decent.

mic the floor tom with the other 57 the same way you did the snare drum. you can run the floor tom through the same eq you have on the bass drum.

then put your other mic directly above the snare drum about 1 and 1/2 feel above you cymbals and keep the volume on it low. just enough to pic up the cymbals and snare space noise. (really you need a pair of condensers for over heads but hey you got what you got).

now compress it all with a fast attack, like .01 seconds

remember if you can get a clean loud sound for all your instruments then you can work magic in mixing.
 
Beta 52 on the kick, SM 57 on the snare. I wouldn't even close mic anything else, just put a stereo pair XY up top. I would just drop it into Garageband as those four tracks (two mono and the stereo overheads) and get comfortable recording like that to start with. You can add more close mics from there on out, as needed. You should be able to get an amazing sound with just those four mics though, just wait and see!
 
Thanks for the help everyone. I hope to have my drum tracks done by wednesday. It seems like the general concensus is to capture as much sound with as few mics as needed. I know I need some condensers but those probably won't happen until a few more gigs.
 
I hope you post the recordings in the "my playing" section. I, and I'm sure everyone else, would love to hear them! We (and by "we", i mean the recording gurus here, which i am not lol) might also be able to help analyze the sound and re-advise on mic placement and recording techniques.
 
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