We're in the studio and have a 5 piece shell kit to mic up (Kick, Snare, Tom 1, Tom 2, Tom 3 + cymbals). We can't afford to splash out on 8 odd mic's to capture each component of the drum kit (i.e. Each drum, hi-hat mic and a pair of overheads), that would get very expensive very quickly let alone all the extra outboard we would need to employ in order to keep spill from one mic to the other to a minimum... We're talking thousands!



Solution

It's possible to record great drums with the bare minimum of fuss, and a bare minimum of equipment and here's how. We need to get down to the bare basics and decide what's essential to capture from the drum kit in modern music... what's essential in the mix and what's not so important. Let me tell you now that the key factor that a listener will want in a recording is to be able to distinguish the base of all the rhythm.

The main rhythm composed within modern music is within the Kick and the Snare only anything else is just the extra icing on the cake and is not as relevant. It's important that these two components are dominant in the mix therefore each has it's own microphone. You do not need to splash out on expensive microphones to get a great sound from these two components in the drum kit. There are budget microphones on the market which are brilliant and require very little to make them sound as good as expensive microphones; your common everyday Joe is not going to know the difference between two if you were to have expensive microphones on the kick and snare... the difference is barely audible to the common ear. It takes sound engineers years of training their ears to the subtle nausiances and harmonics within a tone to recognise differences as small as this.

The rest of the kit can be picked up easily too in one go via the use of a single overhead condenser microphone or if your budget can stretch to it and you want a stereo image... two overhead condenser microphones; for the purpose of this article I will refer to them as a pair of condensers. The condensers will pick up all your toms, cymbals and a bit of overspill from the snare etc. but this is the key part of it... the condensers would have already picked up all those sounds and ambience to a level which is not overpowering the rest. You generally do not want the toms high up in the mix, they are subtle additions to any mix which once put together fits perfectly.

Microphone Choice

Kick Drum: JTS NX-2/AKG D112/Shure PG52

Snare Drum: JTS NX-6/Shure PG56

Overheads: JTS NX-9/Shure PG81 or similar back electret small diaphragm condenser

You may notice my favour to the JTS NX range of microphone - They're suburb and are probably one of the cheapest microphones on the market... yet they excel all the other microphones listed. Think Shure Beta series quality but without the price tag and you've got it!

Technique

There is definitely an art behind getting a good drum sound exactly how you want it to sound, a great deal of it is learnt through experimentation but this should get you off to a good start.

Kick Drum:

Place some dampening material into the chamber of the drum to soak up excessive resonance. For a tighter sound place the microphone closer to the batter head, for a more resonant "loose" sound place the microphone further from the batter head. If you're recording a heavy metal sound for instance it is likely you want a "clicky, tight but boomy sound" - to achieve this get the microphone as close to the batter head as possible and aim it towards where the beater head lands on the batter head - you can then process the recorded sound in post-production with a multi-band compressor and get the sound exactly how you want it... tight, crisp but punchy!

Snare Drum:

For a tighter "snappier" sound have the microphone aimed towards the edge of the rim and also closer to the head. For a looser and deeper sound aim the microphone across the head of the drum, distance the microphone more from the top of the skin for further "looseness" and ambience. Experimentation is the key here in particular - play around with microphone positioning until you find a sound which suits you!

Overheads:

The key here is to imagine the drum kit as two squares next to each other so as to form a rectangle. You want to make sure that the microphones are exactly in the centre of these two squares so as to capture their own part of the kit. The higher you raise the overheads the more ambience and sibilance you will capture, the closer to the cymbals the more "beef" and "grunt" you're going to capture from the kit... again... experimentation is the key here until you find what's right for your particular mix.

Conclusion

Regardless of what techniques you employ and how much you have your technique perfected - you can't polish a turd. For instance if the drum kit has not been correctly tuned, and then not even dampened. Before you begin recording it is essential that you listen to all of the drum kit separately in detail, tune it correctly, and apply damping techniques where necessary via the use of moon gel/gaffa tape/tissue. Start with a good sound and then you can take it to the next step.

Good luck and have fun!