Where's the "sweet spot" for close micing drums?

[Plugger]

Where's the "sweet spot" for close micing drums with a cardioid dynamic mic (say a SM57 or similar)? How close do you want the mic from the head, and where do you point them? Because of proximity effect, is it different for toms (mounted and floor) and the snare?

I appreciate the ultimate answer will necessarily be of the "use your ears" type, but just some ideas of where to get started for placement would be useful. To give some idea, I'm currently mounting the tom mics so they are 1 - 2" from the drum head, and pointing about 2/3 of the way out from the centre (just so they are more tucked in and out of the way.) Also, I've got them angled away from the snare as much as possible, just to (vainly) attempt to limit the bleed through from that drum. Don't know if this is a good idea though... everything gets lots of snare anyway.

-Mark

[Gravity Jim]

Yu're right on the "use your ears" thing: there are so many variables, the biggest ones being how the drums are tuned (loose and boomy? tight and snappy?), what the room they're in sounds like and how your guy plays them....

I honestly don't know if there even IS a starting point. Fezz knows drum mic'ing better than anyone on the forum, I think... let's see what he has to say.

But my first question would be: why do you want to close mic the drums? Are you hoping to get greater mixing control, a wider stereo image, tight EQ on specific instruments in the kit? In my limited experience, close micing drums is a headache, a tar pit of phase problems, a real good way to acentuate the problems of a given room, and in the end usualy doesn't do what I was hoping for, anyway.

[sliding-tom]

Right, Jim and fezz! I think I have said it in the other thread, but two LDCs behind the drummer at about his shoulders' height and one mic for the kick have worked well for me. I always had one more mic on the snare only to find out later when mixing that I didn't really need it.

[Plugger]

Well, the reason I'm playing around with close micing is just because I can at this stage; I've got lots of mics and recording input channels to play around with, and so I'm playing around. Blame eBay.

The panoply of mics I've got set-up at the moment is a Realistic 33-919 stereo condensor just in front of the kit pointing down towards the drummers head; I've got a Shure PG56 on each tom, and a PG52 on kick; I've got a SM57 on snare, and an old sennhesier SDC on the hat.

Now, I appreciate I certainly don't need all or even most of to get a good sound, but I think it was Fezz who pointed out earlier that if you mic a kit in a 1960s recording style, it's going to sound like a 1960s recording. So my suspicion is that if you want something like the Phil Collins "Something in the Air Tonight" sound, you're going to need to close mic individual drums, and be willing add eq and effects.

So, I'm experimenting and having a bit of fun with the whole thing now. I also appreciate that no matter how many mics you have to play with, it's more about placing the mics than about simply owning the mics.

And that's why I thought I'd ask.

BTW, saw a nice jazz outfit play on the Conservatorium lawn a few weeks ago... I noticed the drummer only had a pair of LDCs overhead in an XY, a snare mic, and kick drum mic. Sounded great through the PA -- everything was balanced nicely. (See, I'm turning into a micing nerd.)

-Mark

[Gravity Jim]

... my suspicion is that if you want something like the Phil Collins "Something in the Air Tonight" sound, you're going to need to close mic individual drums, and be willing add eq and effects.

True. Just remember that back in the 80s, a specialist engineer like Bob Clearmountain would lock out the studio for two weeks before tracking began just to "dial in" the drum micing.

[pc]

but I think it was Fezz who pointed out earlier that if you mic a kit in a 1960s recording style, it's going to sound like a 1960s recording.

No, that was me. I'm not sure Fezz agrees.

I am 100% a fan of individual drum miking. As an audio engineering major in college I worked in the conservatory studio (such as it was then) and was trained by several professional engineers during that time, including the former drummer for Pure Prarie League and a master class with the guy who recorded several Queen albums and the early Cars stuff. I learned a ton about drum miking from him, and we did many recordings over the years where we wanted both kinds of drum sounds--Beatles-esque and modern. Over the years I have probably recorded about two hundred bands with drum kits and several more without.

No matter what mics you use and how good of an engineer you are, you will never get a convincing version of one style by using the other.

However, by the same token, you will NEVER get a bad recording using either method if you know what you're doing, it's just that one doesn't sound like the other. Every session I've done over the years at the pro studios in this area (as a guitarist sideman I mean, not as an engineer) have used individual miking for the drums--it is most certainly the accepted method these days. Again, that doesn't make it cosmically "right" in the grand scheme, but it is what it is.

As tape machines got bigger and capable of more tracks, desks got bigger because of it, and control over each and every possible track became the desired path.

In a way I accept the fact that such control was possibly a misstep in terms of replacing good listening and engineering expertise with the ability to add a whole bunch of unnecessary crap to each track.

In another way, the recordings I listen to with the most frequency, including all of the modern fusion jazz stuff, R&B, Funk, modern Blues/Rock, etc., all use individual miking for kits, so that's the sound I like, and therefore the sound I go for when I record.

To answer your original question, make sure the drums are tuned right first. I.e., tap each head near the rim directly in between each lug, all around the drum. Each tap should yield the same pitch, and if not, tune the lugs so they do.

For Toms, I find that close miked with the screen approximately 1.5 inches from the head sounds best. It won't matter where on the rim you clamp the mic because if properly tuned, the sound will be the same, so generally you'd use the top so it's away from the drummers strokes. My favorite sounds are gotten with the mic angled toward the center but still essentially pointing at a spot nearer the rim than the center.

Kick drums sound best (to me) with a front head in tact but with a small hole cut in somewhere off center about 4 inches from the rim so the LDC can fit inside a little ways. You'll really need to use your ears for that one in terms of damping (towel or pillow inside the drum) or not, placement, etc.

I like my overheads in an XY pattern about two to four feet above the front most cymbals, and essentially directly above the front toms but angled a bit in toward the kit to get the back cymbals/toms.

I like my hi-hat mic right on the hat, near the edge but angled in a bit toward center.

Snare is the biggest variable. Certain drums sound like hell close miked and need a slighly larger-diaphragm dynamic mic angled a bit off the drum (like and AKG 414), whereas others sound great with a close mic attached to the rim.

Hope at least some of that helped.

[sliding-tom]

Great post, pc - thanks!

[nabskater]

Case in point is the latest RHCP album. 90% of the drums were recorded (by the great Mark Linnet) with 3 mics.

No way! Were they really?? That guy must be magic or something...
Whered you find that out anyway? I would love to hear about how he did it

[pc]

I have that album--Stadium Arcadium I assume you mean. I believe you totally, because all you can hear is kick, snare and hi-hat. Every time the guy hits a tom-tom on that record it sounds a mile away. Snare and hat sound fantastic, and there's no question the kick was miked (although the 421 shocks me as a kick mic), because like all other RHCP albums, the kick is compressed to hell and gone and entirely discreet in the mix. One listen to any song on that album will make it clear the kick had its own mic.

The rest makes sense, although again, on most of the tracks, the snare is rock solid in place in the mix. There really aren't a whole lot of other cymbals played, just the occasional crash. As I said though, the tom-toms sound like they weren't miked at all, so now I know why.

As I said, there's nothing at all wrong with that sound, but it is what it is, and it isn't what it isn't. Who says every tom-tom has to be miked? Drummers, of course. But in general, I still say it started with engineers justifying more tracks. We've just gotten really used to hearing individually miked toms whipping across the stereo field, but nothing on earth says you can't have a kick ass track without all that.

Me, I just like the control. It's what I'm used to recording, it's what I'm used to hearing, and what I've come to expect when I go into a studio--I show up two hours after the call because it takes at least that long to mic the drums. I'd love it if the return to simplicity caught on!!!

[pc]

It occurred to me that I didn't mention in my post above that the drums on that album sound freakin' great. Didn't mean to imply anything else. Re-reading my comments about the soft tom-toms, I just meant they were soft in the mix, not that being soft in the mix was a bad thing. And the compressed kick drum sounds amazing. Just saying--didn't mean any of that as negative, just following the few vs. many discussion.

[bonefish]

there's a ton of drum micing threads going on here, so i just sorta picked one to tack this query onto-anyone familiar w/ the drive by truckers? particularly "the dirty south". 'cuz THAT is the drum sound i'm chasing.

[Offshore Angler]

I can't seem to find anything better for drums than ambients in an XY pattern. Gives me stereo and reduces phasing. I'll EQ each channel a little differently to attenuate the kit's sound. Occasionally I'll use 4 channels in a stacked XY and continue with the EQ'ing.

If it's a driving rock sound, I'll add a mic to the kick just to have it when I need it.

I know it's simple, but it works for me.

[Gravity Jim]

Re-reading this thread makes me think of something, having just been through a marathon drum micing session a few weeks back:

I think the real difference in a '60s drum sound or a snappy modern drum sound or a big rock drum sound isn't necessarily the micing pattern. It's more how they're tuned and played, with tuning being foremost.

Full disclosure: we did a slightly more complicated micing deal on this last session: kick, snare, hat, ride, right toms, left toms, left and right overs. But we didn't do it to create any specific sound: Dave did all that with his sticks, really. We were creating a library of grooves that might get used in a wide range of productions, so I just wanted a bit more mixing control. Otherwise, I would have just done it with three mics and asked Dave to play what I wanted: "tight" or "big" or "Motown-y" or whatever. My old pal Gary has much more experience close mic'ing drums, so he came down for the sessions and brought his mic locker, too. Easy for me.

[Wilko]

Here's something abit obvious, but easy to overlook. You can mic a lot the kit with individual mics and have some ambient mics set up too. Just because you record them, doesn't mean you have to use them.

For example: At that RHCP session the performances were great and the producer decided during mixing "ya know... those toms sound great but I'd like to pull them in a little closer...". Had there been a few other mics catching some of that action, they would have had a bit more control.

Mic all you want, maybe you'll only need to use what a few mics caught.

[pc]

That's exactly what I'm doing on the album I'm finishing up. I miked everything, but am really only using the kick, snare and overheads. Because it's so easy with ProTools, I removed every bit of sonic information in all of the other drum tracks except for the actual tom hits so there are no phase issues. The tracks sound really good, IMO.

[chuckocaster]

BTW, saw a nice jazz outfit play on the Conservatorium lawn a few weeks ago... I noticed the drummer only had a pair of LDCs overhead in an XY, a snare mic, and kick drum mic. Sounded great through the PA -- everything was balanced nicely. (See, I'm turning into a micing nerd.)

-Mark

hey mark,

just wanted to add my 2 cents. when i used to do live sound in a club or a somewhat ambient space i'd never use the overhead(s) mic(s) on the drums. i got so much cymbal bleed through on the vocal mics that using another mic was ridiculous.

but for the band you saw, like you said, i'm sure it sounded great. i've found that jazz drummers are more even in their attack of the kit. "rock" drummers seem to just bang them all really hard and never tune them.

i personally never really got the hang of studio recording, i've always felt stronger mixing a live band. for me the "sink or swim" attribute was more appealing.

i guess what i mean to say in all of this is that i've always liked the sounds i got in the studio when i attacked it in a caveman sort of way. 3-4 mics, X-Y stereo pair over the drummer's head with a kick mic, the fourth mic would be a 57 on snare. my trick is to loosen the snares up, i hate a snare that sounds like a tom, YMMV.

fezz, jim, OA, and everyone else have given you some great places to start. you should try them all and see what works for you, and what sounds you make. just like playing guitar, you will always put "your tone" stamp on whatever you do.