Your drum sound is one of the most important aspects of your mix. Mixing drums is therefore a number one priority for laying that solid foundation to your tracks, guaranteeing you a solid rhythm section.
Drums can be one of the most problematic instruments to get right in a mix.
If you did a great job recording the drum kit, then mixing your drums can only be a pleasurable experience.
BUT WHERE TO START?
Kick Drum Sound
Mixing drums starts with the foundation of the kick drum. The sound of the kick drum, along with the snare will be the defining factors of your drum sound. If you leave the kick drum sounding bad, the whole foundation of the song will lose its footing. The kick drum needs to be tight and punchy, with enough low end to fill up the bass range and enough mids to cut through the mix.
EQ
A boomy kick drum can also cloud up the clarity of your kick drum sound, so it's normally a good idea to cut around 200 - 250 Hz if you feel there is too much muddiness in your kick drum sound. A boxy kick drum sound is also a common nuisance, which can be fixed with Eq'ing out the boxiness that resides in the aread around 300 - 600Hz or so.
If your kick drum is all thump and no snap then we need to bring out the sound of the beater. We can usually find it around the 2 - 4 Khz area. Depending on the genre of the song, and the type of beater used, different frequency boosts in the beater area generate different sounds. A boost at 2.5 Khz is more of a typical rock sound as opposed to a narrower boost at around 4 Khz, which results in a Hardcore Metal type snap.
EQ is very important to me, which is why I spend a considerable time educating my email subscribers on the topic. From getting rid of muddiness to EQ'ing your kick and snare effectively, my newsletter subscribers get exclusive articles that help them get better at using EQ to create separation in your mixes. Take a quick second to subscribe right here.
Compression
When mixing drums, along with everything else, using compression is a subjective subject and everyone has an opinion on how things should be compressed. That said, there are a few guidelines you can follow to get a steadier kick drum sound.
How much gain reduction you want from the compressor depends on the genre, the steadiness of the drummer and the feel of the song. I usually start with a ratio of 4:1 or 6:1 and lower the threshold down until I'm compressing around 6 dBs.
Then I adjust the attack and release depending on what sort of sound I want. A fast attack clamps down on the transient of the kick drum, dulling the initial attack down somewhat, but a slower attack lets the attack of the beater break through before the compressor starts working.
I try to time the release in time with the beat, so that the compressor has stopped compressing before the next hit. It's easy to do this in modern DAWs because you are able to see the gain reduction meter working, enabling you to tweak the release perfectly in sync with the song.
EQ and Compression are the fundamental processors for any mix session. If you understand how these two processors work, then you've solved at least 80% of your mixing problems.
Snare Drum Sound
Partner in crime with the kick drum, the snare drum is the other defining rhythmic factor to the song. It's all about the snare” an experienced engineer once told me, because it's what supplies the song with that steady backbeat. Since it's such an important aspect of mixing drums, there needs to be a lot of care taken with getting the best sound possible.
EQ
EQ-wise, there is not an awful lot you need below 100 Hz, so you can start by high-pass filtering all the low end away.
The body of the snare can be brought forward with a little boost at around 150Hz, if you feel like it's lacking some thickness.
I like thick snares so I often catch myself adding a little weight to the snare around that area.
If your snare has ringing frequencies that you find annoying you can try pinpointing them by boosting a specific frequency band with a high Q and sweeping the spectrum until they pop out. I find that sometimes the snare needs a little cut in the mids, either resulting from boxiness at 500 - 800 Hz or too much of a nasally attack from the area around 1 Khz.
Enhance the attack of the snare with a broad boost around 2 - 4 Khz and search for the sizzle of the snares in the higher frequencies.
Compression
Like I do with the bass drum, I try to make the snare compress in time with the song. By timing the attack and release I can get a nice steady snare sound that breathes with each hit. I normally leave the attack at a medium to slow setting so that the snap of the snare is unaffected, and time the release so that it stops compressing just in time for the next hit.
I start with a ratio of 3:1, often going way higher as it depends on the genre how hard I want the compressor to be pumping. You can adjust the threshold so that it is only lightly compressing the peaks for a subtle sound, or you can push the threshold down harder for a heavily compressed sound.
Snare compression is perhaps one of the most argued about subjects in audio production. Every engineer has a certain method to mixing drums, and I think it's up to you to experiment and get acquainted with the knobs and sliders on your audio compressor so that you can create the sound that you want.
REVERB
You can create a completely different snare sound by just applying an interesting reverb to it. Whether that's a rock arena reverb, subdued room or even a spring reverb, different reverbs can transform the sound of your snare drum.
Go through your reverbs and see what type of reverb sounds best with the song you're mixing. Are you going to add a bright plate reverb to make it stand out, or will you be mixing it into a specific room with a small room sound? If you are in a particularly adventurous mood, you can try adding some gated reverb to your snare.
Mixing the Toms
EQ'ing
If the toms are playing a big part in your drum sound, mixing them so that they sound punchy and powerful is crucial to a great drum sound.
Get them punchy with EQ. The best way to EQ toms is to find the unflattering frequencies with your equalizer. Normally, these are the middle frequencies, from 300 - 800 Khz or so.
Find the boxy and unwanted frequencies, cut them out and then add low end power and high end punch as needed.
When mixing drums like toms, sometimes you need to finely cut a few adjacent frequencies instead of scooping out a big portion of the frequency spectrum.
Compressing
By adding a generous amount of compression to your toms you can get a larger than life sound out of them. You can fatten them up considerably with some tight compression, and with the addition of a little reverb you can make them sound huge and powerful. If that's what you want to go for.
The same rule of subtle compression applies as well to toms if you only want to control the peaks and lightly color their signal.
Overheads
The overheads might be the most important microphones on the kit. The overheads are the microphones that are supposed to pick up every drum and give a complete sound to your drum kit.
There are two ways of mixing drums with the overheads; you can either use them as the primary sound, sculpting every drum around the overhead sound or you can use them to primarily accent the cymbals and air around the kit.
By adding the overheads to the mix early on, you can get a better sense of the full sound of the kit, making your drum mixing easier.
Just notice how different a snare drum microphone sounds compared to a snare that's coming from the overhead mics.
By adjusting the overheads with the rest of the close miked drums you can get a different sound.
By focusing on the overheads you can get a roomier sound, but if you want a close in-your-face drum sound you would rather use the overheads as complimentary to the rest of the drums, mainly using them to accent the cymbal sounds.
The Hi-Hat
Mixing drums is a selective process, meaning that certain elements of the drum-kit only need specific frequency ranges.
You only need a specific frequency range from the hi-hat. Considering that the hi-hat microphone is probably picking up a lot of bleed from other drums, some heavy high-pass filtering is in order. Filter up to 250 Hz at least, even higher if you feel that you aren't losing anything from the hi-hat sound with higher filtering.
Now if you feel that there is something lacking from the hi-hat, or that you want to bring out the gong sound, you can find it in the 200 Hz area. So if your hi-hat needs a little more gong to it, you will have to sacrifice that aggressive filtering. Like everything else, just filter until you start hearing the sound becoming compromised and then back off a little bit.
Cutting at 1Khz can reduce the cheap jangly sound from the hi-hat, but you can enhance and give it some sparkle with a boost from 7 Khz or so. Use a high shelving EQ if you want to enhance the high end with some air, but a parametric bell EQ if you just want to accent a specific frequency area.
Room Mics
Room microphones give a different sound to the drum kit than the regular overhead mics.
Due to the distant miking technique most room mics are recorded with, we get a full sound of the drum-kit as well as a great amount of the reverb of the room it was recorded in.
Which, depending on the sound of the room, can either sound amazing or horrible.
Mixing Drums With a Roomy Sound
But let's assume our recording room is great. With a nice room mic picking up the complete kit we can try a few different techniques. We can apply some heavy compression to the room mics to get an even punchier sound.
We can EQ the kit as to draw out the most important elements, such as kick and snare and we can add it underneath an already great drum sound for that final touch.
Mixing Drums Into a Room
If the drums weren't recorded in a nice sounding room and sound quite dead when they come from the recording stage, it's time to add some space to our drum tracks.
A good way to add some ambience to our drum tracks is to add a 0.5 second drum room reverb. You can add a a nice amount to the overhead tracks, and maybe even a slightly different reverb to the snare to make it stand out. Go through your reverbs to try to find the best sound to your particular track.
I actually want to stop the article here and give it up for my buddy David Glenn of David Glenn Recording. He has a really cool video on mixing acoustic drums, especially when it comes to creating space and reverb using some nice plug-ins:
He actually has a cool video series on Mixing Drums if you want a complete, 7 hour in-depth tutorial on the matter.
Conclusion
Mixing drums is a challenging but enjoyable aspect of audio production. Since there are so many different ways of getting the drums to sound with EQ, compression and other mixing tricks there is no actual right way of mixing drums.
The only solid piece of advice I can give you for mixing drums is to experiment with all the tools you have on hand. Get every element to sound as good as possible and then try to mold them together to make them sound like a complete whole.
As always, there are trends in the music industry as to what sounds good right now, but being able to get whatever sound you want, whether it's huge 80's toms or a 90's arena rock snare is an important aspect of being a well rounded mixing engineer.
We've gone through quite a long journey on the different aspects of mixing drums, which I hope you enjoyed.
Showing posts with label guide. Show all posts
Showing posts with label guide. Show all posts
Saturday, 5 November 2016
Friday, 9 September 2016
Guide To The Recording Equipment And Instruments Featured On The Beatles Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts
In many ways, 1966 had been a watershed for the Beatles. They had broken from the two-albums-per-year formula that had brought their record company, EMI, so much money, but which had occasionally depleted the group's well of creativity.
Revolver was the only full-length record they'd released that year, and it had been an artistically satisfying album, made at a more leisurely pace and with greater creative latitude.
Revolver was also the first time they'd worked with engineer Geoff Emerick, whose gift for creating sounds had helped them see new possibilities—and opportunities—in the recording process. Importantly, too, it was the last album for which they would tour, putting an end to the relentless performance schedule that had occupied much of their time between albums.
As 1966 came to a conclusion, the Beatles were officially a studio group, and with Sgt. Pepper's they would indulge their new-found freedom in ways that made other artists begin to think of the recording studio as a creative tool in and of itself.
Emerick would play an essential role in this, as he had on Revolver. But ironically, the 21-year-old audio engineer had not a single new idea when the sessions began. Martin and the Beatles had agreed that they wouldn't repeat techniques used in the past: no vocals through Leslie rotary cabinets, no Tomorrow Never Knows”-style tape loops and no backward vocals or guitars.
But unfortunately, I had used everything at my disposal on Revolver,” Emerick says. On Pepper, it was like starting over from scratch, getting down to the individual tonalities of the instruments and changing them. They didn't want a guitar to sound like a guitar anymore. They didn't want anything to sound like what it was.”
Emerick's situation was complicated by the fact that nothing had changed at Abbey Road in the few months since Revolver had been completed: there were no new effects or innovations for him to exploit. For that matter, apart from the Mellotron keyboard used on Strawberry Fields Forever” (the first song to be tackled at the sessions), the Beatles' gear had hardly changed from what they previously used.
On Sgt. Pepper's, as on Revolver, Lennon and Harrison played their Epiphone Casinos, Sonic Blue Fender Strats and Gibson J-160E acoustic guitars; Harrison also played his Gibson SG. McCartney's Rickenbacker 4001S was his main bass, and he used his Casino and Fender Esquire for rhythm and lead work.
As for amplification, the Beatles had at their disposal in 1967 a Fender Showman and a Bassman head with a 2x12 cabinet, a Selmer Thunderbird Twin 50 MkII, a Vox Conqueror and the Vox UL730, 7120 and 4120 bass amp used on Revolver.
And yet, despite the basic similarities in studio gear and equipment, Revolver and Sgt. Pepper's sound distinctly different. Whereas Revolver sounds like a rock and roll album, with its crunchy guitars and warm, fizzy ambience, Sgt. Pepper's is decidedly refined, lacking the low-midrange tones that gave Revolver much of its propulsive power.
Emerick puts the difference down to the choice of studio. Revolver was done in Number Three studio, which is a smaller room. It was a dirtier-sounding studio acoustically.”
Sgt. Pepper's was recorded in Abbey Road's fabled Studio Two, a large room well suited to handling the volume and frequencies produced by pop and rock bands. Number Two is a brighter studio, and you can get cleaner tones,” he says.
In addition, Emerick began refining the recording techniques he had initiated on Revolver, finding new applications for them or applying subtle twists on familiar methods. The only way to approach Sgt. Pepper's was to use some of those techniques and sounds from Revolver in a more controlled way,” he says. It wasn't as brash—more fine tuned.”
He also took advantage of an external equalization device built by Abbey Road's engineering department: the RS127 Presence Box.” We didn't have much in the way of EQ controls on the console,” he says. In the high-frequency range, you could adjust 5k, and that was it.” Built both in rack and stand-alone versions, the RS127 gave engineers control over three high frequencies—2.7kHz, 3.5kHz and 10kHz—with up to 10dB of boost or cut.
It had been used on Beatles tracks long before Emerick began engineering the group's sessions, but never in the way that he employed it. Often I'd put those in series, and I'd have like 30dBs of 2.7 on the vocals, to really screw them up,” he says. 'Cause the Beatles didn't want voices to even sound like voices. It wasn't a question of a little bit of treble; we just went overboard."
That's what it was about, especially for the guitars. I mean, with the tube equipment and those guitars, that 2.7k was just magic. Plus the Fairchild 660 limiter added so much presence to the guitar, it was unbelievable. It made it sound like a different guitar than it was.”
Much of Emerick's time was spent working on guitar tones. Because we were still mixing to mono in those days, I had to work out the details with the two guitars. It's easy to get definition in stereo, when you're putting one guitar left and one right,” he says. But when they're coming from one sound source, to actually make each one have its own spot and be able to hear every note of each guitar takes a long time.”
For that matter, the EQ controls on the Beatles' Vox amps of the period were as limited as the controls on Abbey Road's mixing consoles. So it would sometimes take an hour and a half to two hours to get that sound worked out. I would spend a lot of time moving the mics”—specifically Neumann U47 large-condense tube microphones—a short distance from the amps just to hear the slight difference in sound and get it absolutely right.”
Emerick's magic was especially evident on McCartney's bass tracks. In the months prior to making Sgt. Pepper's, McCartney had fallen under the spell of the Beach Boys' 1966 release, Pet Sounds. He was particularly enamored of Brian Wilson's melodic bass work, which is especially prominent on the album. The thing that really made me sit up and take notice was the bass lines,” McCartney says. That, I think, was probably the big influence that set me thinking when we recorded Pepper.”
On previous albums, McCartney always laid down his bass parts with the rest of the group, but on Sgt. Pepper's, Emerick gave him his own track, onto which he would record his bass parts, usually at the end of the long session day, when the others had left. We'd pull his amp out into the middle of the studio,” Emerick says. We'd put the mic about six feet away. We used to use the AKG C12 on the figure-of-eight omnidirectional setting to grab a bit of studio ambience.”
Devoting one of four available tape tracks to bass would have been an impossible luxury had Emerick and Martin not decided to bounce” tracks from one four-track machine to another. When the tracks of one tape were filled, they would be mixed and recorded—premixed” is the word typically used—onto one or two tracks of another four-track tape running on a second machine. New recordings would be added to this second tape, and if the recording required it, the process would be repeated yet again.
Since no one knew at any stage what additional instruments would be added to a song, Emerick had to use his best judgment when creating the premixes. I did it as if I was mixing the final record,” he says. Once we'd done the premix and transferred it to a new tape, that was it; there was no going back and no way to change the mix on that track. So everything we added from that point on had to complement it. The benefit to that is that we immediately knew whether an overdub fit or not, because if it didn't work with the premix, then it wasn't going on.”
Though numerous important psychedelic albums were released prior to it—including the Yardbirds' Roger the Engineer, Jefferson Airplane's Surrealistic Pillow and the Who's A Quick One—Sgt. Pepper's defined the genre and became the soundtrack to the Summer of Love.
Everywhere you went that summer,” Emerick recalls, you would hear it being played. It was a great time of experimentation. There were no time limits, and as far as cost—the Beatles' attitude was, ‘Sod the cost! We're making a masterpiece.' Every day was groundbreaking.”
Revolver was the only full-length record they'd released that year, and it had been an artistically satisfying album, made at a more leisurely pace and with greater creative latitude.
Revolver was also the first time they'd worked with engineer Geoff Emerick, whose gift for creating sounds had helped them see new possibilities—and opportunities—in the recording process. Importantly, too, it was the last album for which they would tour, putting an end to the relentless performance schedule that had occupied much of their time between albums.
As 1966 came to a conclusion, the Beatles were officially a studio group, and with Sgt. Pepper's they would indulge their new-found freedom in ways that made other artists begin to think of the recording studio as a creative tool in and of itself.
Emerick would play an essential role in this, as he had on Revolver. But ironically, the 21-year-old audio engineer had not a single new idea when the sessions began. Martin and the Beatles had agreed that they wouldn't repeat techniques used in the past: no vocals through Leslie rotary cabinets, no Tomorrow Never Knows”-style tape loops and no backward vocals or guitars.
But unfortunately, I had used everything at my disposal on Revolver,” Emerick says. On Pepper, it was like starting over from scratch, getting down to the individual tonalities of the instruments and changing them. They didn't want a guitar to sound like a guitar anymore. They didn't want anything to sound like what it was.”
Emerick's situation was complicated by the fact that nothing had changed at Abbey Road in the few months since Revolver had been completed: there were no new effects or innovations for him to exploit. For that matter, apart from the Mellotron keyboard used on Strawberry Fields Forever” (the first song to be tackled at the sessions), the Beatles' gear had hardly changed from what they previously used.
On Sgt. Pepper's, as on Revolver, Lennon and Harrison played their Epiphone Casinos, Sonic Blue Fender Strats and Gibson J-160E acoustic guitars; Harrison also played his Gibson SG. McCartney's Rickenbacker 4001S was his main bass, and he used his Casino and Fender Esquire for rhythm and lead work.
As for amplification, the Beatles had at their disposal in 1967 a Fender Showman and a Bassman head with a 2x12 cabinet, a Selmer Thunderbird Twin 50 MkII, a Vox Conqueror and the Vox UL730, 7120 and 4120 bass amp used on Revolver.
And yet, despite the basic similarities in studio gear and equipment, Revolver and Sgt. Pepper's sound distinctly different. Whereas Revolver sounds like a rock and roll album, with its crunchy guitars and warm, fizzy ambience, Sgt. Pepper's is decidedly refined, lacking the low-midrange tones that gave Revolver much of its propulsive power.
Emerick puts the difference down to the choice of studio. Revolver was done in Number Three studio, which is a smaller room. It was a dirtier-sounding studio acoustically.”
Sgt. Pepper's was recorded in Abbey Road's fabled Studio Two, a large room well suited to handling the volume and frequencies produced by pop and rock bands. Number Two is a brighter studio, and you can get cleaner tones,” he says.
In addition, Emerick began refining the recording techniques he had initiated on Revolver, finding new applications for them or applying subtle twists on familiar methods. The only way to approach Sgt. Pepper's was to use some of those techniques and sounds from Revolver in a more controlled way,” he says. It wasn't as brash—more fine tuned.”
He also took advantage of an external equalization device built by Abbey Road's engineering department: the RS127 Presence Box.” We didn't have much in the way of EQ controls on the console,” he says. In the high-frequency range, you could adjust 5k, and that was it.” Built both in rack and stand-alone versions, the RS127 gave engineers control over three high frequencies—2.7kHz, 3.5kHz and 10kHz—with up to 10dB of boost or cut.
It had been used on Beatles tracks long before Emerick began engineering the group's sessions, but never in the way that he employed it. Often I'd put those in series, and I'd have like 30dBs of 2.7 on the vocals, to really screw them up,” he says. 'Cause the Beatles didn't want voices to even sound like voices. It wasn't a question of a little bit of treble; we just went overboard."
That's what it was about, especially for the guitars. I mean, with the tube equipment and those guitars, that 2.7k was just magic. Plus the Fairchild 660 limiter added so much presence to the guitar, it was unbelievable. It made it sound like a different guitar than it was.”
Much of Emerick's time was spent working on guitar tones. Because we were still mixing to mono in those days, I had to work out the details with the two guitars. It's easy to get definition in stereo, when you're putting one guitar left and one right,” he says. But when they're coming from one sound source, to actually make each one have its own spot and be able to hear every note of each guitar takes a long time.”
For that matter, the EQ controls on the Beatles' Vox amps of the period were as limited as the controls on Abbey Road's mixing consoles. So it would sometimes take an hour and a half to two hours to get that sound worked out. I would spend a lot of time moving the mics”—specifically Neumann U47 large-condense tube microphones—a short distance from the amps just to hear the slight difference in sound and get it absolutely right.”
Emerick's magic was especially evident on McCartney's bass tracks. In the months prior to making Sgt. Pepper's, McCartney had fallen under the spell of the Beach Boys' 1966 release, Pet Sounds. He was particularly enamored of Brian Wilson's melodic bass work, which is especially prominent on the album. The thing that really made me sit up and take notice was the bass lines,” McCartney says. That, I think, was probably the big influence that set me thinking when we recorded Pepper.”
On previous albums, McCartney always laid down his bass parts with the rest of the group, but on Sgt. Pepper's, Emerick gave him his own track, onto which he would record his bass parts, usually at the end of the long session day, when the others had left. We'd pull his amp out into the middle of the studio,” Emerick says. We'd put the mic about six feet away. We used to use the AKG C12 on the figure-of-eight omnidirectional setting to grab a bit of studio ambience.”
Devoting one of four available tape tracks to bass would have been an impossible luxury had Emerick and Martin not decided to bounce” tracks from one four-track machine to another. When the tracks of one tape were filled, they would be mixed and recorded—premixed” is the word typically used—onto one or two tracks of another four-track tape running on a second machine. New recordings would be added to this second tape, and if the recording required it, the process would be repeated yet again.
Since no one knew at any stage what additional instruments would be added to a song, Emerick had to use his best judgment when creating the premixes. I did it as if I was mixing the final record,” he says. Once we'd done the premix and transferred it to a new tape, that was it; there was no going back and no way to change the mix on that track. So everything we added from that point on had to complement it. The benefit to that is that we immediately knew whether an overdub fit or not, because if it didn't work with the premix, then it wasn't going on.”
Though numerous important psychedelic albums were released prior to it—including the Yardbirds' Roger the Engineer, Jefferson Airplane's Surrealistic Pillow and the Who's A Quick One—Sgt. Pepper's defined the genre and became the soundtrack to the Summer of Love.
Everywhere you went that summer,” Emerick recalls, you would hear it being played. It was a great time of experimentation. There were no time limits, and as far as cost—the Beatles' attitude was, ‘Sod the cost! We're making a masterpiece.' Every day was groundbreaking.”
Friday, 12 August 2016
Complete Guide To Recording Drums In Your Home Studio
For home studio owners, one of the hardest things to record is a drum set.
There are so many questions that come up. How many mics should I use? What kinds of mics are best? Where are the best places to put them?
The good news is this: if you already do some recording, you probably have what you need to get a good drum recording.
In this article, we're going to dive into detail on how to get a great drumset recording in your home studio. Whether you have 16 microphones or just one, after reading this you will have the tools you need to get started.
Remember, as with recording anything, recording drums takes practice. So the sooner you start practicing, the better!
Important Preparation
Before you set up a single microphone, you need to understand this fact:
You cannot get a good recording of a bad sounding drumset.
This isn't to say that you shouldn't bother recording if your drumset doesn't sound as good as you'd like.
But it does mean that you shouldn't expect to record your poor sounding drumset and then make it sound great later in the mix. It doesn't work that way.
So before you even touch a microphone, here are some important things you should do to get that drumset sounding as good as possible:
Use nice sounding drums and cymbals. Again, you're not going to be able to make them sound different when you're mixing. Sometimes you can replace them with samples, but the goal here should be to use the best sounding kit you can get your hands on.
Get good drum heads. Old heads eventually start to sound dull and lifeless. Getting some nice new heads can make a huge difference in the sound, even for a less-then-stellar drumset.
For heaven's sake, tune the drums! Drum heads do fall out of tune over time. Spend some time on getting the drums to sound good individually, and getting them to sound good relative to each other.
Another important part of getting the drums to sound good is choosing a good room to record them in.
In a home studio, this can be difficult. Your house almost certainly doesn't have a room that's designed to sound good, and probably the space you have available to you is pretty small.
If you do have some flexibility though, keep the following guidelines in mind:
Bigger is usually better. Drums often sound better in a bigger space. So if you have a larger room available to you, it might be more effective than a small bedroom.
Minimize noise. As with recording anything, if you're in a room with a lot of noise (HVAC system, lawn mower outside the window, etc.) you will quickly run into problems. Particularly in quieter parts of the song.
Treat the room. Bare walls can cause slapback, flutter echo, and comb filtering. If possible, put some acoustic treatment on the walls. Even hanging a few blankets will make a difference.
Get to the point where the drums sound good in the room, and you'll be all set to get a great recording.
Step 1: Overheads
Overheads mics are arguably the most important microphones on the kit. If you can get them to sound good, the rest will fall into place nicely.
In fact, if you need to record the drums with only one or two mics, your best bet is probably to use overheads.
The overheads tend to capture the natural sound of the kit. Think about how you listen to a drumset with your ears. You listen to the whole thing, not each drum individually.
Typically we use condenser mics for overheads. Condensers pick up the detail of the kit and the sparkle of the cymbals. There are no rules, of course, but they are at least a good starting point.
As for techniques, there are many ways to set up your overheads.
First of all, we normally use two microphones, because it allows you to capture the stereo image of the drumset.
However, you can get a great drum recording with a single mono overhead mic. Graham Cochrane from The Recording Revolution has often used a mono overhead.
In fact, Graham created a great video in his $300 Studio Challenge series demonstrating how to record a drumset with only a single microphone This microphone was strategically placed as a mono overhead mic. You should definitely check out that video if you haven't already.
As for techniques with two microphones, there are several patterns that you can use. In a previous article, I wrote about four common Stereo Microphone Techniques , all of which may be used for drum overheads:
A/B Pair (or Spaced Pair): Two microphones, spaced apart. Really good stereo width, but creates potential for phase issues.
X/Y Pair (or Coincident Pair): Two microphones at a 90-degree angle to each other with their pickup locations in the same place. The stereo width isn't as good, but there are no phase issues.
ORTF: A pattern that models how human ears are spaced apart.
Mid-Side: Another pattern which avoids phase issues. Uses one unidirectional and one bidirectional microphone.
A/B Overhead Mics
The most common of these techniques are A/B and X/Y. Feel free to check out the article linked above for more details.
However, there are two other popular overhead techniques worth mentioning. These were developed specifically for drum overheads. Both of these are variants of the A/B technique, but the two microphones are placed in specific locations.
The first is the Glyn Johns technique. This technique uses two microphones. One microphone is positioned directly above the snare drum. The other is positioned to the drummer's right (assuming a typical right-handed setup) past the floor tom.
The key is to ensure that both microphones are the same distance from the snare drum. This way, you avoid phase issues in the snare.
X/Y Overhead Mics
For a much deeper explanation, I'll defer again to Graham from The Recording Revolution. He wrote an in-depth article on The Glyn Johns Technique If you'd like to try it out, I would highly suggest reading his article.
The second technique is called the Recorderman Technique. It's very similar to Glyn Johns, but the difference is in the positioning of the second microphone.
Instead of positioning it to the right past the floor tom, instead it is positioned over the drummer's right shoulder (again, assuming a typical right-handed setup).
As with Glyn Johns, you want to be sure that both microphones are the same distance from the snare drum in order to avoid phase issues.
The idea of the Recorderman technique is that the over-the-shoulder microphone hears what the drummer is hearing, which should make the recording sound more natural.
If you want to try this out, once again, Graham has done a fantastic job describing how to do it. Check out his video on The Recorderman Technique
Mixing Guidelines
In the mix, stereo overheads are usually panned hard left and right. This isn't always the case, but it is typical of the A/B and X/Y setups.
When I started with recording drums, I didn't know which way I was supposed to pan them. Should they be panned so the floor tom is on the right, as the drummer hears it? Or should it be panned the other way, to model the perspective of the listener?
As it turns out, it doesn't matter. Different mix engineers prefer different panning methods. Pick the one that works for you.
Personally, I'm a drummer, so I like panning them the way I hear them as a drummer. That's a perfectly fine way to do it. But panning them the other way is perfectly fine too.
Step 2: Kick Drum
After the overheads, the kick drum is usually the most important drum to get a microphone in front of.
The kick drum (obviously) has a lot of low end. Often this low end is picked up better by a specific kick drum mic, rather than the overheads. Particularly if you use a microphone that's optimized for it.
If you can only use two microphones for your kit, you may want to consider opting for a mono overhead so that you can put a mic on the kick drum.
Typically we use a dynamic microphone for the kick drum. Kick drums are loud and move a lot of air. We need something that will handle it without clipping or being damaged.
There are a few places to try when micing a kick drum:
In front of the resonant head
This is the typical place to start. Try moving it around to find the optimal sound.
Different distances from the drum can have very different sounds. Further away from the drum may give you more low-end, as it takes some space for the low frequencies to develop.
If you do this, you may want to create a tunnel” from the kick drum to the microphone in order to reduce bleed from the rest of the kit.
Inside the drum
Placing the microphone inside the drum is also popular. This may be done through a hole in the resonant head.
Alternatively, the resonant head can be removed entirely. Just remember the very first rule: make sure the drumset sounds good. If the kit sounds better with that resonant head on, then don't remove it just to get the microphone in a good spot.
Putting the mic inside the drum will get you more attack from the beater. Often, engineers will use two microphones on the kick, one inside and one outside. Then the two recordings can be blended to get a good amount of attack and low end.
In front of the beater head
It may be worth trying to mic the drum on the beater head. You'll get lots of attack, and get closer to what the drummer is hearing. However, keep in mind that you'll probably get more bleed this way.
Step 3: Snare Drum
If you want to record with 4 microphones, a popular solution is to use two overheads, a kick drum mic, and a snare drum mic.
Snare Drum Mic With Clip
The most common place to mic the snare is on top. This can be done with a clip that attaches to the drum (as shown in the image), or with a regular mic stand.
Distance and direction are the tools for tone shaping here. The mic can be placed a few inches away, or very close to the head. It can point very close to the edge of the drum, or right in the center. It's worth trying a few different placements.
It's also common to mic the bottom on the snare as an additional mic for blending. This mic tends to get more of the snare rattle. Keep in mind that you'll need to flip the polarity of one of the recorded tracks, since they will be 180-degrees out of phase.
Step 4: Room Mics
This is something I didn't do for a long time. But it's a technique that can give your drum recording a lot of energy and life.
Essentially, you just place a microphone in the room. You might want to point it at the kit, but often you may want to try pointing it at a wall or the ceiling. You could even place it outside the room in a hallway while leaving the door ajar.
The point of this mic is to capture some natural ambiance and reverb. In the mix, it is common to heavily compress this track and blend it in to give an energetic feel to the drums.
The sky is the limit here. You can use a single room mic, or you can use several. They can be different distances from the kit, different types of mics, different heights, cardioid, omnidirectional, etc.
If you're just starting out, I would recommend keeping it simple. A single room mic would be best. But feel free to experiment.
Step 5: Toms
If you have enough mics and inputs, it can be beneficial to mic the toms.
There's a wide variety of mics to choose from. Some engineers use dynamic mics, others use condensers.
For placement, it's the same idea as the snare drum. Distance and direction are what you want to play with. Typically they are placed consistently across the toms, i.e. the same distance from the edge or center of the drum. But there are no rules.
Mixing tips
Often the toms are panned across the stereo spectrum to give a sense of travel from the leftmost tom to the rightmost tom.
Really hard panning in some cases can sound unnatural. On the other hand, having them all too close together may sound boring. Try to strike a balance that sounds good to you.
Step 6: Hi-Hats
The hi-hats are often recorded with a condenser mic to pick up the detail and sparkle.
Many people use a hi-hat mic. I personally don't. I find that I get plenty of the hi-hat in the overhead mics.
But if you have enough mics and inputs, it's worth trying.
Conclusion
There are many different ways to mic a drumkit. And the only way to get good at it is practice.
You can get a good drum recording with a single microphone. You can also get a good drum recording with 16 microphones.
Remember: the most important thing is to make sure that the drumset sounds good in the room where it's being played. All the rest will follow from that.
There are so many questions that come up. How many mics should I use? What kinds of mics are best? Where are the best places to put them?
The good news is this: if you already do some recording, you probably have what you need to get a good drum recording.
In this article, we're going to dive into detail on how to get a great drumset recording in your home studio. Whether you have 16 microphones or just one, after reading this you will have the tools you need to get started.
Remember, as with recording anything, recording drums takes practice. So the sooner you start practicing, the better!
Important Preparation
Before you set up a single microphone, you need to understand this fact:
You cannot get a good recording of a bad sounding drumset.
This isn't to say that you shouldn't bother recording if your drumset doesn't sound as good as you'd like.
But it does mean that you shouldn't expect to record your poor sounding drumset and then make it sound great later in the mix. It doesn't work that way.
So before you even touch a microphone, here are some important things you should do to get that drumset sounding as good as possible:
Use nice sounding drums and cymbals. Again, you're not going to be able to make them sound different when you're mixing. Sometimes you can replace them with samples, but the goal here should be to use the best sounding kit you can get your hands on.
Get good drum heads. Old heads eventually start to sound dull and lifeless. Getting some nice new heads can make a huge difference in the sound, even for a less-then-stellar drumset.
For heaven's sake, tune the drums! Drum heads do fall out of tune over time. Spend some time on getting the drums to sound good individually, and getting them to sound good relative to each other.
Another important part of getting the drums to sound good is choosing a good room to record them in.
In a home studio, this can be difficult. Your house almost certainly doesn't have a room that's designed to sound good, and probably the space you have available to you is pretty small.
If you do have some flexibility though, keep the following guidelines in mind:
Bigger is usually better. Drums often sound better in a bigger space. So if you have a larger room available to you, it might be more effective than a small bedroom.
Minimize noise. As with recording anything, if you're in a room with a lot of noise (HVAC system, lawn mower outside the window, etc.) you will quickly run into problems. Particularly in quieter parts of the song.
Treat the room. Bare walls can cause slapback, flutter echo, and comb filtering. If possible, put some acoustic treatment on the walls. Even hanging a few blankets will make a difference.
Get to the point where the drums sound good in the room, and you'll be all set to get a great recording.
Step 1: Overheads
Overheads mics are arguably the most important microphones on the kit. If you can get them to sound good, the rest will fall into place nicely.
In fact, if you need to record the drums with only one or two mics, your best bet is probably to use overheads.
The overheads tend to capture the natural sound of the kit. Think about how you listen to a drumset with your ears. You listen to the whole thing, not each drum individually.
Typically we use condenser mics for overheads. Condensers pick up the detail of the kit and the sparkle of the cymbals. There are no rules, of course, but they are at least a good starting point.
As for techniques, there are many ways to set up your overheads.
First of all, we normally use two microphones, because it allows you to capture the stereo image of the drumset.
However, you can get a great drum recording with a single mono overhead mic. Graham Cochrane from The Recording Revolution has often used a mono overhead.
In fact, Graham created a great video in his $300 Studio Challenge series demonstrating how to record a drumset with only a single microphone This microphone was strategically placed as a mono overhead mic. You should definitely check out that video if you haven't already.
As for techniques with two microphones, there are several patterns that you can use. In a previous article, I wrote about four common Stereo Microphone Techniques , all of which may be used for drum overheads:
A/B Pair (or Spaced Pair): Two microphones, spaced apart. Really good stereo width, but creates potential for phase issues.
X/Y Pair (or Coincident Pair): Two microphones at a 90-degree angle to each other with their pickup locations in the same place. The stereo width isn't as good, but there are no phase issues.
ORTF: A pattern that models how human ears are spaced apart.
Mid-Side: Another pattern which avoids phase issues. Uses one unidirectional and one bidirectional microphone.
A/B Overhead Mics
The most common of these techniques are A/B and X/Y. Feel free to check out the article linked above for more details.
However, there are two other popular overhead techniques worth mentioning. These were developed specifically for drum overheads. Both of these are variants of the A/B technique, but the two microphones are placed in specific locations.
The first is the Glyn Johns technique. This technique uses two microphones. One microphone is positioned directly above the snare drum. The other is positioned to the drummer's right (assuming a typical right-handed setup) past the floor tom.
The key is to ensure that both microphones are the same distance from the snare drum. This way, you avoid phase issues in the snare.
X/Y Overhead Mics
For a much deeper explanation, I'll defer again to Graham from The Recording Revolution. He wrote an in-depth article on The Glyn Johns Technique If you'd like to try it out, I would highly suggest reading his article.
The second technique is called the Recorderman Technique. It's very similar to Glyn Johns, but the difference is in the positioning of the second microphone.
Instead of positioning it to the right past the floor tom, instead it is positioned over the drummer's right shoulder (again, assuming a typical right-handed setup).
As with Glyn Johns, you want to be sure that both microphones are the same distance from the snare drum in order to avoid phase issues.
The idea of the Recorderman technique is that the over-the-shoulder microphone hears what the drummer is hearing, which should make the recording sound more natural.
If you want to try this out, once again, Graham has done a fantastic job describing how to do it. Check out his video on The Recorderman Technique
Mixing Guidelines
In the mix, stereo overheads are usually panned hard left and right. This isn't always the case, but it is typical of the A/B and X/Y setups.
When I started with recording drums, I didn't know which way I was supposed to pan them. Should they be panned so the floor tom is on the right, as the drummer hears it? Or should it be panned the other way, to model the perspective of the listener?
As it turns out, it doesn't matter. Different mix engineers prefer different panning methods. Pick the one that works for you.
Personally, I'm a drummer, so I like panning them the way I hear them as a drummer. That's a perfectly fine way to do it. But panning them the other way is perfectly fine too.
Step 2: Kick Drum
After the overheads, the kick drum is usually the most important drum to get a microphone in front of.
The kick drum (obviously) has a lot of low end. Often this low end is picked up better by a specific kick drum mic, rather than the overheads. Particularly if you use a microphone that's optimized for it.
If you can only use two microphones for your kit, you may want to consider opting for a mono overhead so that you can put a mic on the kick drum.
Typically we use a dynamic microphone for the kick drum. Kick drums are loud and move a lot of air. We need something that will handle it without clipping or being damaged.
There are a few places to try when micing a kick drum:
In front of the resonant head
This is the typical place to start. Try moving it around to find the optimal sound.
Different distances from the drum can have very different sounds. Further away from the drum may give you more low-end, as it takes some space for the low frequencies to develop.
If you do this, you may want to create a tunnel” from the kick drum to the microphone in order to reduce bleed from the rest of the kit.
Inside the drum
Placing the microphone inside the drum is also popular. This may be done through a hole in the resonant head.
Alternatively, the resonant head can be removed entirely. Just remember the very first rule: make sure the drumset sounds good. If the kit sounds better with that resonant head on, then don't remove it just to get the microphone in a good spot.
Putting the mic inside the drum will get you more attack from the beater. Often, engineers will use two microphones on the kick, one inside and one outside. Then the two recordings can be blended to get a good amount of attack and low end.
In front of the beater head
It may be worth trying to mic the drum on the beater head. You'll get lots of attack, and get closer to what the drummer is hearing. However, keep in mind that you'll probably get more bleed this way.
Step 3: Snare Drum
If you want to record with 4 microphones, a popular solution is to use two overheads, a kick drum mic, and a snare drum mic.
Snare Drum Mic With Clip
The most common place to mic the snare is on top. This can be done with a clip that attaches to the drum (as shown in the image), or with a regular mic stand.
Distance and direction are the tools for tone shaping here. The mic can be placed a few inches away, or very close to the head. It can point very close to the edge of the drum, or right in the center. It's worth trying a few different placements.
It's also common to mic the bottom on the snare as an additional mic for blending. This mic tends to get more of the snare rattle. Keep in mind that you'll need to flip the polarity of one of the recorded tracks, since they will be 180-degrees out of phase.
Step 4: Room Mics
This is something I didn't do for a long time. But it's a technique that can give your drum recording a lot of energy and life.
Essentially, you just place a microphone in the room. You might want to point it at the kit, but often you may want to try pointing it at a wall or the ceiling. You could even place it outside the room in a hallway while leaving the door ajar.
The point of this mic is to capture some natural ambiance and reverb. In the mix, it is common to heavily compress this track and blend it in to give an energetic feel to the drums.
The sky is the limit here. You can use a single room mic, or you can use several. They can be different distances from the kit, different types of mics, different heights, cardioid, omnidirectional, etc.
If you're just starting out, I would recommend keeping it simple. A single room mic would be best. But feel free to experiment.
Step 5: Toms
If you have enough mics and inputs, it can be beneficial to mic the toms.
There's a wide variety of mics to choose from. Some engineers use dynamic mics, others use condensers.
For placement, it's the same idea as the snare drum. Distance and direction are what you want to play with. Typically they are placed consistently across the toms, i.e. the same distance from the edge or center of the drum. But there are no rules.
Mixing tips
Often the toms are panned across the stereo spectrum to give a sense of travel from the leftmost tom to the rightmost tom.
Really hard panning in some cases can sound unnatural. On the other hand, having them all too close together may sound boring. Try to strike a balance that sounds good to you.
Step 6: Hi-Hats
The hi-hats are often recorded with a condenser mic to pick up the detail and sparkle.
Many people use a hi-hat mic. I personally don't. I find that I get plenty of the hi-hat in the overhead mics.
But if you have enough mics and inputs, it's worth trying.
Conclusion
There are many different ways to mic a drumkit. And the only way to get good at it is practice.
You can get a good drum recording with a single microphone. You can also get a good drum recording with 16 microphones.
Remember: the most important thing is to make sure that the drumset sounds good in the room where it's being played. All the rest will follow from that.
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