How to Mic Drums
* Written by Eli L Higginbotham: "I love mixing live sound, tracking in a recording studio, and I love to make happy music. ...What is happy music? ...Well in my opinion making music happy is making music sound great!"
One of the most difficult things for inexperienced audio engineers and music producers to do is get a great drum sound. Drum kits can be very tough to deal with just simply due to how many mics are needed, how many moving parts they have, and how frustrating drummer personalities can be.
Believe it or not, microphone placement is the single most important aspect of the getting a great drum sound regardless of the equipment you have at your disposal. Drums, microphones, preamps, eq's, compressors, and speakers can only sound as good as they are made. However the biggest variable in the entire chain is the placement of the microphone. Microphones are input transducers but they are also the first equalizer in the audio signal path.
Don't believe me? Take a look at the eq curve on your favorite microphone! If you put a microphone in front of a kick drum that has a +5dB boost from 100hz to 300hz you just eq'd the kick drum. If you put a microphone on a snare drum that has a -3dB cut from 600hz to 700hz you just eq'd your snare drum. It's important to understand how each microphone you put on the drum kit will perform as well as how it will add or take away the frequency content of the drum, which is exactly what an equalizer does.
Microphone placement on a kick drum will change based on whether or not you're in a recording studio or in a live sound setting. If you're in a recording studio it's highly recommended to take off the drum head on the resonant side of the drum. If it's a live sound environment you'll probably only get a hole cut in the front of the drum and sometimes maybe you won't even have that. If the head is off or if you have a hole in the front head make sure that the front of the microphone is pointing directly at the center of the batter head where the kick drum pedal impacts the head itself. This way the microphone will have a better chance of picking up the attack of the drum.
In the same way when you begin setting up the mics on the other drums on the kit, start with pointing the mics at the center of the drum. This is a great place to start as it's probably where the stick is going to impact the drum most frequently. It's important to remember that the microphone is going to change how the drum sounds based on the placement of the mic. Do not start eq'ing the drum before you consider changing the placement of the mic. As you change the mic placement you will change the eq of the drum as the microphone is in a way, an eq.
Another very important principle to remember is that with microphone placement a small move with a microphone means moving the mic an inch, not inches. This is also important to remember when considering trying to reject unwanted noise from other drums on the kit.
Bleed through is when a microphone picks up unwanted noise from surrounding instruments. Understanding the principles of microphone polar patterns is critical when considering mic placement on any instrument, especially on a drum kit. Dynamic microphones are typically used in the close proximity placement of the mics on the drums themselves and condenser microphones are used when placing overhead microphones. The dynamic mics should have at least a cardiod pattern but a hyper cardiod pattern could be better rejecting unwanted noise. Microphones with a cardiod polar pattern reject unwanted noise best from the rear. So if you are mic'ing the snare drum it's important to put the rear of the mic pointing towards the hihat. That way the microphone will reject the sound of the hihat more effectively.
In the same way you put the snare mic in a place that will allow rejecting the hihat from the head of the snare mic, it's important to do the same type of placement with the rack tom and floor tom microphones. Placing the microphone at the top of the drum will allow you to focus the head of the mic at the center of the drum as well as have the rear of the mic facing the other cymbals set up around the drum kit.
Close mic placement on drums can sometimes be frustrating depending on how the drummer sets up the kit. Many drummers will place the surrounding cymbals so close the to the drums it's almost impossible to get a microphone on the drum. There are several different microphones made for these types of scenarios and the mics are small and easy to clip onto the shell of the drum without having to use a microphone stand.
One of my personal favorites is the Sennheiser E604. This is a great sounding microphone for just about any percussion application and great at getting into tight spaces. Another one is the Shure Beta 98. Either way you go you're still trying to achieve as much isolation on the drum as possible without the use of auxiliary dynamic processors such as gates, eq's, and compressors.
Overhead microphones easy to just throw up above the kit and walk away from but great care should be taken when placing the overhead mics. I highly recommend to mic your kit with a stereo pair of condenser mics for the overheads. The overhead mics give life to your drum sound as well as detail to the cymbal performance from the drummer. Stereo mic placement requires the consideration of phase coherency between both mics.
Use the kick drum as the visual center of the drum kit. Each overhead microphone should be exactly the same width, height, and depth away from the kick drum. The trick here is to try and have the sound of the kick drum hit the microphones head at the exact same time. You'll almost never get it perfect but the better you do this the more open and transparent your drum overhead mics will be, ultimately giving you a natural drum sound that can easily be added to your drum mix creating a great drum sound.
A very popular overhead microphone technique is to criss-cross the heads of the mics directly above the kick drum putting them into what looks like the letter x. This way it's very easy to see the relationship between the microphones in regards to their placement off the kick drum.
In closing, just remember that if you don't like the way the kit sounds there are few things to do before you go tweaking knobs on your mixer or in your software. Make sure the kit is tuned. If the kit is not tuned properly you'll never be able to get a great sound because the drums don't sound great to begin with. If the kit is tuned properly and you don't like the sound you are getting in your live sound mix or your recording, before you tweak anything, go move the mics. You'll be amazed at how well moving the microphones will improve your mics performance.
As with almost every area of music production, education and understanding of the tools audio engineers use to make music is key in producing a great sounding mix.Without formal education many of the most basic elements of audio engineering are overlooked and this creates frustration and poor sounding music.
Take the time to learn the principles dynamic microphones, condenser microphones, how to mic a drum kit, how to use a compressor, how to develop your ear, and many other skills needed to effectively make happy music.
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