The Secret To Recording Drums
One of the biggest problems most people face when recording
a band is trying to get the drums to sound polished. Many
a track ends up sounding like it was recorded on a budget
in someone's basement simply because of the drum sound.
Although this is one of the hardest things for most musicians
to record, it doesn't have to be.
The first step is starting with the proper interface. If
you are using a stand-alone recorder, you want one with
at least eight microphone inputs. Also, phantom power on
two or even three of the mic inputs is recommended. A better
sound can usually be achieved through a computer based recording
setup, using a high quality interface.
Of the recording interfaces, the best bang for the buck
can be found in the form of sound cards with eight quarter
inch inputs and outputs. There are a number of companies
that make these, but I prefer the Hammerfall series made
by RME in Germany. These are a very accurate, stable system
capable of some seriously high quality recording. Most importantly,
they sound good and are very stable, with zero CPU load.
This means that you don't have to rely on the speed of your
processor to record, as it does everything onboard the interface.
I have had great success with these systems even on 550
MHz apple g4 laptops, with only 256 MB of ram. A very portable
system, using their cardbus sound card, and multiface interface.
Although this is a great system for recording drums, there
are many other options available. The main thing you need
is at least eight inputs, and something going through a
dedicated sound card. A firewire interface will work, but
will put more load on the computer's processor. While Firewire
will work, USB is very slow, causing serious delay when
trying to monitor the recording as it happens. Of course,
most USB interfaces are only two channels because of this.
If you are using something with only quarter inch inputs,
you will need microphone preamplifiers. The good news is
that you can choose what quality of mixing board you want
to use for this, depending on your budget. A mixing board
with at least six good quality mic inputs, and inserts or
outputs on every channel will do. You can choose to use
dedicated tube mic preamps for the other two channels, or
use a mixing board with eight microphone preamps, instead
of six.
Some people use more than eight microphones to record drums,
and will probably need a different setup than this. A simple
solution is to purchase another sound card and interface,
or with the RME hammerfall simply buy a second interface
(they are designed so you can daisy chain two of them together
into one sound card). I maintain that with a standard five
piece drum kit, only eight microphones are needed. Some
people will disagree, but with the right microphone choices
and proper placement no more than eight mics are needed.
Here is my method for miking a drum kit. Place two decent
quality condenser microphones over the cymbals and preferably
use tube preamps for them (with phantom power, of course).
Placement is key here, if you don't want the cymbals to
sound tinny and have too much bell sound. They need to be
placed higher than you would normally think to catch more
of the splash sound from the rim of the cymbals. Also, try
to align them so they are above the outside edges of the
cymbals, not the bells of them. Depending on how many cymbals
there are, you may have to split the difference and place
them over the edges of two cymbals. If things don't sound
right after all the mics are in place, rearrange them until
they do.
The other six microphones can be placed as follows: one
microphone on the bass drum, one on each tom (three total),
one on the snare drum and one on the hi hat, or two on the
snare and none on the hi hat. The bass drum microphone should
be a good quality mic dedicated to low frequency instruments.
Less EQ will have to be done that way. Placement should
be on the inside of the drum, with the microphone placed
toward the outside rim of the drum, but pointed toward the
beater. I would recommend using a drum head with a hole
in it to make this possible. If you mic the from the drummer's
side, there is an increased chance of picking up noise from
the beater and pedal.
For the toms most decent quality dynamic microphones will
do, but mics capable of high SPL are recommended. On each
tom, place the microphone above the top head towards the
outer rim of the head, about an inch away. I usually keep
the tom mics inside the rim, with the mic capsule catching
the outside two inches of the head. You can leave the mics
perpendicular to the heads (with the capsule parallel) or
you can angle them ever so slightly. The difference in sound
is slight.
The snare drum is miked similarly to the toms, except I
usually place the mic on the outside of the head just over
the rim. This way, it picks up more of the snare and less
of the midrange ringing. Angling the back of the microphone
about 15-30 degrees away from the drummer usually helps
with this as well. Now, I know a lot of traditionalists
will tell you to use an SM57 mic on the top, and one on
the bottom. They want you to think that this is the best,
and only, way to get a good snare sound. Through my own
experience I can tell you that this is not so. I've never
liked the artificial sound of a Shure SM57, which adds a
definite color to the sound. I much prefer a single Sennheiser
MD421 on the top head for snare. It has a much crisper sound
with less ringing in the mid range. It also requires a lot
less EQ to get the desired sound. However, if you do use
two microphones be sure to switch the phase of the bottom
one so they don't cancel each other out.
If you don't use two microphones on the snare, a condenser
microphone can be used on the hi hats. This can give you
more control over the EQ of the hi hats, and more control
of their placement in the stereo field. This is especially
great if the style of drums is leaning more towards funk
or fusion, where the hi hat is used a lot to emphasize the
syncopation. The best placement is usually with the microphone
beneath the bottom hi hat cymbal just outside of the edge.
If it is too close, or just below the bell it won't sound
crisp enough. Placement can be between eight to fourteen
inches away. It depends on the hi hats and the playing style
of the drummer. You can reduce bleed through from the snare
drum by angling the mic away from the snare.
This is a great sounding eight microphone drum setup that
will work great, with the right attention to microphone
choice and placement. However, the biggest secret is that
a great drum sound doesn't end here. With drums being as
loud as they are, there will be some inevitable bleed through
on all of the mics. You have to mix the drums properly to
get a really crisp sound.
The toms tend to ring whenever the bass drum or snare drum
is hit, creating a sloppy drum sound. You can either cut
before and after every tom attack on each tom track, or
you can gate them. Gating them will keep the track muted
until the tom is hit, and close it after the tom is no longer
ringing. Usually this gets rid of that annoying tom ringing
when the snare or bass is hit, assuming the settings are
correct on the gate.
The snare drum will end up bleeding through on the hi hat
track even if the mic is angled away from the snare. You
can either live with it, or try gating this track as well.
You don't want the snare to be so loud on this track that
the snare sound is effected by the EQ applied on the hi
hat.
Usually, this is not as big of a deal as the hi hat bleeding
through the snare mic. The snare is usually not played as
constantly as the hi hat, making it possibly to gate the
snare track with better results. It also means that unless
you gate it, you will hear the difference in the hi hats
when you EQ the snare. If gating doesn't get you a crisp
enough separation of the two, you can always manually cut
and delete the parts before and after the snare drum hits.
This is much more time consuming, and fortunately is not
usually necessary. A little bleed-through on tracks is to
be expected and usually sounds fine in the overall mix,
so don't worry if you can't completely separate the two
with a gate. The more complicated the part the drummer is
playing, the harder it is to use the gate successfully.
I you use a dedicated bass microphone on the bass drum,
it probably won't need too much mixing. If the drummer's
attack varies on the bass drum, you can compress it to get
a more even sound, or if it varies a lot you can normalize
it. With an experienced drummer this shouldn't be necessary,
but it can fix problems for some inexperienced drummers.
You can also EQ the bass drum to boost some bass if desired,
or boost the high midrange frequency if you want to hear
more click in the attack. Bear in mind that if you boost
the bass too much it will tend to overdrive the output of
the whole mix, so you may need to compress it to get the
levels back under control.
We've covered everything except the overheads, and panning.
Overheads usually only need a little bit of EQ to brighten
the cymbals. A general high frequency boost with a parametric
EQ should help with that. Usually, I boost everything starting
at about 6 to 8 kHz and above. It should have a slope up
to around 10 to 12 kHz then flatten out and boost everything
equally up to 20 kHz. If you adjust the parametric settings
properly, you should be able to do this using just one parametric
point on the EQ. You may also wish to use the same setting
on the hi hats.
Panning is sometimes the first step people do when mixing
drums and it helps to give a sense of space. The bass drum
shouldn't be panned at all. The left cymbal overhead microphone
should be panned all the way left. The right cymbal microphone
should be panned all the way right. The rack toms should
be panned left and right respectively, but only about sixty
percent of the way, or even forty five percent of the way.
The floor tom should be panned about fifteen to twenty percent
farther left than the left rack tom. The snare tom should
be panned about ten percent right of the right rack tom.
Finally, the hi hats should be panned about ten to fifteen
percent right of the snare drum. Or, you could pan the right
cymbal overhead that way, and pan the hi hats all the way
to the right. With panning, you are trying to separate the
drums as they are in real life. Panning the drums this way
should create a realistic space for the drums, because the
cymbal overheads will pick up a little bit of all the drums
and help tie the whole kit together.
Most people also put the drums on a separate sub mix at
this point so they can control the volume of the whole drum
kit at once. This helps to raise or lower the volume of
the kit relative to the mix; great when tracking other instruments.
Also, you can add a bit of reverb to the drum sub mix to
get a fuller sound. They won't sound so up front this way.
Of course, you can tweak the EQ on the other drums to get
the sound you desire, but this should get you in the ballpark.
The real trick is in microphone placement. If you use the
right microphones and pay attention to their placement,
less EQ will be needed to make them sound "better".
EQ can only make up so much difference.
We at Microphone Heaven hope our drum miking technique
has been helpful and informative. Feel free to experiment
with it, and find your own drum sound. The real fun starts
when you apply these techniques to your own drum miking.
As always, call us if you have any questions. Happy recording!
