recording drums using 3 mics

[bongo_x]

IK's CSR (classic studio reverbs) sounds really great, like uh...classic studio reverbs. Not like real spaces. But seriously, 999 people out of 1000 wouldn't know the difference even if you took an hour to explain it to them.

For what your talking about doing I would think about a combination of some tight, close drums and oh's plus one or two really ambient mics in the corner really squashed. In other words, the main drum kit sound dry and some different crazy ambiences to mix with it. Then you can play with different mixes of room and reverb to get what you want. I would try mixing very small amounts of different reverbs and manipulated room sounds. One reverb might sound obvious or cheap, several different things can make a more complex, interesting sound.

Go get one of those Radio Shack PZM mics. For a weird sound use a camcorder or a mini cassette for a room.

Don't forget pre-delays on the reverbs.

If your main rooms are facing the kit and you want them drier, then hang some blankets or something behind and to the sides of the kit, since that's where most of the reflection will come from. That might deaden the sound a little without killing the whole room so you can still get some ambience on the other side of the room. If you have room you can also baffle in front of the kit, but behind the main room mics. Then the mics around the drums will be even dryer but ambient rooms on the other side will have even less direct sound and more ambience.

Or else screw all that and just go for what you got. Embrace the sound of a couple mics in that room with some compressors. It's the in between approach that I don't think is going to work out that well for you. It might just sound "cheap" and worst of all boring. Boring is the biggest sin, but people are often willing to settle for that trying to get "nice" or "correct".

bb

[stewartadam]

Years ago I worked for a remote truck and had the chance to record Joan Armatrading for a live album called Stepping Out. Glynn Johns was the producer/engineer. He used 3 mic’s, 2 87’s over head and a kick mic. I don’t remember the model. The overheads where placed at about 10 o’clock and 4 o’clock based on the drummers perspective and both mics have to be the same distance from the snare. About 4 feet if I remember. He used this technique on some WHO and Led Zeppelin albums check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhfyS_Ej ... re=related

[Phil O]

Hi Stewart. Welcome aboard. You're just down the street from me (relatively speaking). I'm in Scituate. I have a client who needs some old reel-to-reel half tracks transferred. I may be giving you a call.

Phil

[therealbigd]

a good mic pre for you to look at could be a Focusrite Octopre or Octopre LE. they plug into the digital ADAT input on the MOTU, so you get 8 high quality pre-amps without losing any of the analogue inputs on your interface....

i like focusrite for everything though, so have a play!

[resolectric]

Years ago I worked for a remote truck and had the chance to record Joan Armatrading for a live album called Stepping Out. Glynn Johns was the producer/engineer. He used 3 mic’s, 2 87’s over head and a kick mic. I don’t remember the model. The overheads where placed at about 10 o’clock and 4 o’clock based on the drummers perspective and both mics have to be the same distance from the snare. About 4 feet if I remember. He used this technique on some WHO and Led Zeppelin albums check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhfyS_Ej ... re=related

Exactly as i described in the previous page.
A great method.
I get consistently nice results capturing drums like that. Three mics only!
I've tried to add more mics, most of the time to please the drummer, but always find them to be redundant.
That Three Mic setup, often described as "Glyn Johns method", is awesome.

Mic #1: a large condenser with good Low Frequency response, in front of the Kick Drum, at the eight of the top part of the kick, about 3 feet away.
Mic #2: about shoulder height on the right side of the drummer, pointing towards the Snare, about 1ft from the Floor Tom.
Measure the distance from this mic to the center of the Snare.
Mic #3: above the Snare, pointing down towards it at the same distance from the Snare as Mic #2.

Mics #2 and #3 should be similar, if possible.
Large Condensers are usually better for "ambience" drum sound.
All mics cardioid, though i usually get good results with a Figure-Eight on the Kick.

It all depends on your room, of course.
Do not equalize
To maintain the ratio between room and drum sound, do not compress.

[mandobilly64]

The last recording session I did, I tried the 3 mic set-up as described. I loved the ambient sound of the drums but because the drummer used both a regular shell snare and a piccalo snare, it was hard to get those 2 balanced together. If I had it to do over, I would've also thrown in a close mic on the main snare, to blend that one up a bit. I actually think that's the way I will record the next drummer even if just one snare, just to have the ability to bring up the snare by itself a little bit if needed.

Peace,
Billy

[Phil O]

The last recording session I did, I tried the 3 mic set-up as described. I loved the ambient sound of the drums but because the drummer used both a regular shell snare and a piccalo snare, it was hard to get those 2 balanced together. If I had it to do over, I would've also thrown in a close mic on the main snare, to blend that one up a bit. I actually think that's the way I will record the next drummer even if just one snare, just to have the ability to bring up the snare by itself a little bit if needed.

Peace,
Billy

Back in the old days, track count was a big issue. Today it ain't that big a deal. As a result, I've changed my thinking on micing techniques. If I think an additional mic might come in handy, I'll throw one up. There's no rule that says you have to use every track you record. For instance, when micing drums, I'll often use an upper and lower snare mic, but I've only actually used the lower one a few times. But for those few times that I've used it, it made the extra work worth it. Sometimes I don't even use the upper one (the overheads do the job), but I always put up at least one snare mic. If I were discussing this 15 years ago, my view would have been very different.

Phil

[resolectric]

...There's no rule that says you have to use every track you record. ...

Agreed 100%

As for the 3 Mic technique (a la Glyn Johns) i've tried on occasion to add some spot mics, just to be safe, and ended up by not using them. Ever.

[leigh]

I recently recorded a jazz piano trio album (all straight to disk; no overdubs) and learned a new (to me) 3-mic setup. I used two Neumann KM-184s and 1 AKG D-112. The AKG on the kick and the first KM-184 was above and behind the drummer on the ride cymbal side in a standard position. Here's the new variation: he asked me to put the other KM-184 beneath the hi-hat pointing at the snare so that the mic got the hat and the snare. The result was great and he was very happy with the sound. He's a superb drummer so I wasn't worried about the mic.

**Leigh

[mhschmieder]

I'm not quite clear on the original poster's specific limitations (budgetary and track-wise) after so many responses, but if capturing a SPECIFIC room ambience is the goal, along with avoiding overdubs, you're going to have to forfeit having a strong snare presence in the original recording (using the two OH's as distance mics, but perhaps closer in than would be the case with a multiple mic setup on the top kit).

If this is the case, I can offer some advice for how to isolate the snare "in the mix" and bring it out, using some gating/envelope techniques and notch EQ's. I've had to do this before, and though I would never do a 3-mic/track setup again if I could keep from it, you can get a very full sound with this approach.

I'm curious about preamp choices as well, as I will soon need to augment my RME Fireface 800 with an octal mic preamp that can expand its inputs (probably via ADAT). The RME OctaD II is a bit pricey these days and may not be the best preamps in terms of bang-for-buck. That Focusrite suggestion sounds worth looking into, if it too hasn't been affected by the dollar's weakness earlier this year (hopefully European prices will soon get readjusted for the newly strong dollar).