Micing my kit with 3 mics

Duck Tape

Platinum Member
Hey,

A guy in my band brought a mixer around and this opens up my options a bit, I can now use all my mics (I only have 3).

I have an Audix D6 bass drum mic and 2x sm57's.

The more I record drumming the more disappointed I get with the sound of 1 room mic and I can now see the importance of micing everything. But I have 4 toms and a snare setup so with the sm57's I could only realistically:

Mic the batter side of the snare and have 1 overhead

Or have 2 overheads.

Do you agree? What would you do?

Is 2 overheads going to improve the situation much? If so are there any rules or techniques for positioning them? I usually have the one sm57 over my right shoulder, about head height and pointed at the snare.

Thank you
 
I think you already understand that - three is better than 1 - but not enough. It's like mic'ing the Jackson Five - with three mic's. You're missing 40% of what you're doing. To me, if you're mic'ing the drums, you need to mic. the drums (and cymbals) - all of them. But, if you're going to try to mic. the remainder of the kit with two mic's, place them overhead and test to see where works best (soundcheck). Two, overhead, will be better than one.
 
What I would do is mic the kick, the snare batter, and one room mic like 3-4 feet in front of the kit, up high, pointing at the center of the snare.
 
Something similar to the picture. Use your SM57's as overheads. Not ideal, but not that bad either. Take a tape measure or cable. Make sure the overheads are equidistant from the centre of the snare drum. Raise them up or down until you achieve a representative recorded balance between your toms & snare. Take the D6 & place it about 18" back from the bass drum reso head. That way it will capture enough weight from the bass drum, but also from the kit in general.
 

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I think you already understand that - three is better than 1 - but not enough. It's like mic'ing the Jackson Five - with three mic's. You're missing 40% of what you're doing. To me, if you're mic'ing the drums, you need to mic. the drums (and cymbals) - all of them. But, if you're going to try to mic. the remainder of the kit with two mic's, place them overhead and test to see where works best (soundcheck). Two, overhead, will be better than one.

Nonsense. Some of the classic drums recordings we all worship were done with the 3. Glyn Johns and his drum micing techniques are as effective as they are legendary as long as you can control your own volume and dynamics from the throne
 
+1 for kick and 2 overheads. While the SM57s aren't ideal for overheading, it's a better option than close-miking the snare and saving the other for a single overhead. You need to ask yourself what parts of the drum kit are most needing volume reinforcement? If you just have bass, toms, snare, cymbals, then that's roughly the order. Mic the kit with overheads to pick up the sounds you want most prominent. Try aiming the overheads at the toms, and you'll pick up plenty of snare sound as well as cymbals.

Or, if you play brushes, you'll need a snare mic, and 1 overhead is a necessary evil at the point.

It you're recording, on the other hand, you'll be better off borrowing/renting/buying some overhead condensers, and perhaps a larger soundboard.
 
Nonsense. Some of the classic drums recordings we all worship were done with the 3. Glyn Johns and his drum micing techniques are as effective as they are legendary as long as you can control your own volume and dynamics from the throne

+1. Mr Johns method is legendary and can produce superb results. It also has the benefit of letting the drums breathe and use some of the sound of the room.
 
Nonsense. Some of the classic drums recordings we all worship were done with the 3. Glyn Johns and his drum micing techniques are as effective as they are legendary as long as you can control your own volume and dynamics from the throne

I'm with audio, the Glyn Johns 3 mic technique works wonders he used large condenser mics though but the 57's shouldn't. be too bad. he recorded Bonham's drums like that on Led-Zeppelin1. google or youtube it very cool technique.

Bonzolead
 
One mic on the bass drum centered, one overhead directly above your head panned hard left and the other overhead over the floor tom panned hard right. That's the Glyn Johns method in a nutshell. As stated before make sure that the SM57's are equidistant from the snare drum. I've had good results with this technique. I also put the bass drum mic about 4 - 6 inches from the front of the resonant head. Experiment with placement.
 
I've been recording for a couple years with just three (or four with dble bass set) mics. The guitarist was using a couple Rodes for overhead and things were serious, man. I could hear the ride cymbal stand vibrating things were so clean and clear. I eventually got a couple Earthworks for overhead on my big set and also started using a Jecklin disk. The sound is incredible. I'm sold on just a minimal approach. The drum set sounds more realistic in its sound field to me.
 
You should really try recorder man sEt up. Position one mic directly over there snare drum pointing directly down at the snare drum 33 inches above the batter head. The other mic goes over the drummer's right shoulder also 33 away from the snare and pointing right at it. Mic the kick and you're done! I'm not very good at explaining but you should do some more research. It gives that full, close mic sound; way better that normal overheads.
 
I'd say kick, snare, overhead. But I'm no sound guy.

I've mixed live bands with this exact set-up at Disneyland and it sounded great. Of course, I have access to really good mics, being plugged into really nice consoles and run through some state of the art processing, amps, and speakers, but it can be done on a budget.

In fact, someone here months ago, posted a YouTube video of what he did with only two mics. He put on in the bass drum, and one over head and it sounded awesome.

As an audio engineer, I agree with the adage of "the more the merrier", but in the learning process, you need to learn how all these things interact before you can just throw up what you have and get a relatively good sound (or get paid to do it on a regular basis).

Like lighting for photographers, always start with one. As you add more one at a time, you see how it affects what you already set-up, and that's where the learning process comes in. I say start with the two (bass drum and overhead) and work hard to get that sounding good, then you will understand what's happening when you add another, and so on.
 
Nonsense. Some of the classic drums recordings we all worship were done with the 3. Glyn Johns and his drum micing techniques are as effective as they are legendary as long as you can control your own volume and dynamics from the throne

+2 Some of the best sounding live drums I've heard recently have been mice'ed the Glyn Johns technique. Never hurts to have a really good FOH engineer on the board either.
 
I would think you could get pretty decent sound with two overheads and a kick, or maybe kick, snare and an overhead. The limiting factor might be the SM57's, I'm not sure they are ideal to be overhead.

I was looking at starting my own recording, initially using two large condenser overheads, and then expanding to a kick and snare mic. That should be plenty for my needs.
 
Glyn Johns or variations thereof. SM57s will actually help balance the cymbals. Wide bandwidth mics work as overheads when everything else is close mic'd as they add some sizzle and clarity to cymbals. Or, if you have a large enough and good sounded room that you can get them off the kit a bit. For most home/garage/bedroom recording a mic with a bit more roll-off will sound better.

You won't get a big immediate sound without close mic'ing if that's what you're looking for. But as folks have said, a lot of great drums sounds have been done this way.

I'm working on a project now where I wanted a scratch pattern as a click. The intent was to also use it in a couple of spots as a low fi alternative to the regular drums, e.g. Maroon 5's Sunday Morning. So I put a single 57 up a few feet in front of the kit around chest high. I was really surprised at how good it sounded. I'm going to have to mess with it to get the low fi effect.
 
I didn't know sm57's weren't ideal for overheads.. are they more a close range type mic are they?

Thanks for all the suggestions, majority says 2 overheads. I like your idea about bass drum mic placement Andy, I thought it should be close to get more attack but I'll give that ago. I do want to hear a bit more low end from my drums.

Reminds me I need to experiment with eq already.
 
I didn't know sm57's weren't ideal for overheads.. are they more a close range type mic are they?

Thanks for all the suggestions, majority says 2 overheads. I like your idea about bass drum mic placement Andy, I thought it should be close to get more attack but I'll give that ago. I do want to hear a bit more low end from my drums.

Reminds me I need to experiment with eq already.
You can pick up quite a bit of attack by moving the overheads about 24" back from the line directly above the snare, then point them towards the toms. This will capture the bass drum head slap quite well, plus the toms & cymbals in a good balance. You'll need to experiment with placement a lot, & the results are also highly room dependent. Get the very best tones you can with mic placement & tuning before resorting to EQ. This will give you the biggest range of options later.

SM57's are primarily instrument mic's. They're a dynamic mic. As such, they don't pick up the clean highs quite as well as a condenser mic, but they do pick up midrange body quite well. As purely an overhead mic when used in combination with a full range of close mic's, they're not ideal, but in a 3 mic situation, they actually have some strengths you can use to your advantage.

Although a different situation, our latest snare video was recorded with the humble SM57 as the primary source. We did this to keep it real, but there is some overhead reinforcement too. Look at the bass drum mic placement on the kit. It's about 18" back from the reso head, & the beater is a Vater lambswool bomb (i.e. about as non attack as you can get). There's still easily enough punch/definition in the bass drum sound, & remember, this is a 12" deep bass drum, & the sound is completely unprocessed. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKMkvmBq3Pw&hd=1
 
You should really try recorder man sEt up. Position one mic directly over there snare drum pointing directly down at the snare drum 33 inches above the batter head. The other mic goes over the drummer's right shoulder also 33 away from the snare and pointing right at it. Mic the kick and you're done! I'm not very good at explaining but you should do some more research. It gives that full, close mic sound; way better that normal overheads.

The recorder man is effective but the 33" measurement has never worked for me. The mics are just way to close and get in the way when playing cymbals and I place my cymbals very low when not close micing. 40" is about the best I have found that keeps the drums present sounding enough while keeping the mics out of the way
 
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