Miking Drums

[b0b]

I'm going to record a friend of mine playing some traditional country. We only have 3 channels for drums. What's the best way to mike a drum set for country using just 3 mikes?

Also, how would you pan those 3 channels in the mix?

[Leroy Golden]

AKG D112 on the bass drum & two pencil condenser mics one left, one right about three feet above the whole kit...pan the condensers 9:00 oclock 3:00 oclock in the mix and the bass straight up, I recorded this set up before and it sounds pretty darn good.

[b0b]

That makes sense. Thanks, Leroy.

[Chris Tarrow]

kick and 2 overheads is definitely one way to go, but can make mixing difficult, very hard to get power out of the snare and toms while maintaining the balance on the kit and/or controlling the amount of room sound.

If your drummer is game, take 15 minutes and try one mic in front of the kit, one over the snare, and one looking over the rim of the floor tom towards the snare. Listen in mono and move the mics around to try to get the best sounds (and phase relationships), when you get it right this can be a full, powerful, natural, 3 dimensional sound.

[b0b]

How did they do it in Nashville in the old days? Just curious..

[Mark van Allen]

If you have the mics, a spare mixer and time, you can premix a setup with as many mics as possible (or needed).
It really depends on the type of final sound you want, but a classic country set would not have been miced in stereo- one overhead, one on the snare, and one in the kick will let you fill out the snare with eq/reverb, separately eq the kick, and perhaps pan the overhead and snare slightly off center opposite each other for stereo.
I would always prefer stereo drums myself for space and ambiance, so I'd go with a four-mic submix, stereo overheads, snare and kick. Experiment with the overheads, somebody used to bashing cymbals on a club gig can wash out the sound, you can move them back to a spaced pair a couple of feet above and in front of the kit. A lighter player may sound better with the overheads 6 feet or so up off the kit and above. With a nice pair of condensers you can get a fat natural sound from the overheads that you just augment with kick and snare mics. You won't need tom mics unless it's a big "rock fill" type tune.

[Derrell Stephens]

Bob: KISS this thing, use technology ... use the kick and two over head mics. Then for the rim shot "perfection/verbs", make another track (copy)of the overhead with the best rim/snare level (normalized)and use extreme EQ to get the good sound that will mix. You can do the same thing for cymbals. If you premix everything in a 'drum mix track', you may end up with a track that is untweakable.

JM2CW,
D

[b0b]

I made the recording Saturday, using two overhead condensers and a dynamic on the kick. It sounds pretty good, except that one cymbal is sort of loud sometimes. Now how can I fix that? Compression? What would the settings be?

[Justin Douglas]

Hey Hob,

Compression will react to the peaks, and even though the cymbal may be loud, the snare transient is probably peaking a great deal more than that cymbal that was too close to the overhead mic.

What you can do is put and EQ on it, with a narrow bandwidth (or "Q"), and boost the crap out of it. like 10dB. Loop the section with the loud cymbal and start moving the frequency of that boosted EQ up and down slowly (i'd guess between 1kHz and 6kHz) until the resonate frequency of the cymbal pops out to you. You'll know this when you hit a frequency and it seems twice as loud and annoying as before. I'd estimate this frequency to be between 2.5kHz and 3.5kHz depending on the cymbal (and that's a range of human hearing that's particularly sensitive).

Once you've found that annoying frequency, just cut the EQ there instead of boosting it, and it should help out quite a bit. You'll either have to use a stereo EQ over both your overheads, or the same setting on 2 EQs (one on each) so it doesn't mess with your stereo image or phase much.

But it's a pretty good trick!

[b0b]

Thanks, Justin. I'll try that.

[Brian McGaughey]

b0b,

To build on what Justin said, you might try frequency selective compression if you are using a compressor that has a side chain insert. This would squash the signal on that track when the cymbal's strongest frequencies occur. I pasted a section out of a dbx xl 166 manual. Kinda long but worth the read:



Frequency-Weighted Compression (Sidechain Application)
It is possible to separate certain vocals and instruments from a mix by frequency-weighted compression. With an equalizer
(such as a dbx 20 Series or 30 Series EQ) inline ahead of the SIDECHAIN INSERT (but not in the audio path), the
equalization settings do not shift the timbre or frequency response of the audio signal. They merely alter the threshold
response of the compressor on a Òfrequency-weightedÓ basis.
With this arrangement, raising certain frequencies on the equalizer causes them to be suppressed in the audio signal. A
relatively high THRESHOLD setting can allow normal sounds to be unaffected while solo and very loud sounds are compressed.
(Of course, when compression occurs, the level of the entire program is affected - however, if the 166XLÕs CONTOUR
button is pressed in, even more of the signalÕs lower energy can be preserved.) Depending on the THRESHOLD
setting, lower amplitude fundamentals or harmonics will not cause compression, and the program is not subject to the
phase shift normally caused by program equalization.
Figure 3: Frequency-Weighted Compression
When recording cymbals and tom-toms, a compressor with an equalizer in the Sidechain path can help prevent analog
tape saturation. The equalizer can be adjusted for boost with a peak of about 5kHz, causing the cymbal to be compressed
on a very loud crash, stopping tape saturation at high frequencies, where there is less headroom. However, gentle tapping
of a drumstick or brushing of the cymbal will not be affected. Assuming the tom-tom is a lower frequency instrument and
can be better tolerated by the tape, it has less need for compression. Equalization in the Sidechain circuit means that the
compressor is not triggered as readily by a loud tom-tom beat as by an equally loud cymbal crash.
The converse of the above EQ technique may be used: dipping the equalizer bands causes any sound with dominant
energy in the affected register to pull the level up because the 166XL will detect a need for less compression.



I've been recording my drums a lot recently and have learned to "go easy" on the cymbals. I had the same problem.

I'm going to try what Chris Tarrow mentioned. I've read this can be an effective 3 mic technique but takes time for positioning to avoid phase cancellation.

Don't forget the 3 to 1 rule: to best avoid phase cancellation problems, your mics should be 3 times the distance apart from each other as the distance one of them is from the sound source. This rule doesn't apply to stereo x/y mic placement.

Brian

[b0b]

I don't hear any phase problem.

I think that notching down the EQ frequency of the cymbal is probably the most natural sounding solution. I'm going to try that first.

[Justin Douglas]

The EQ thing is the way to go in my opinion.

I've tried frequency dependent compression on this problem before and although it seems like it should work in theory, the transient on the snare (and toms) can be upwards of 20dB louder than the RMS value (what you would see on a VU meter for instance) and always seems to trigger the compressor no matter what.

Good luck b0b!