Good question ! The short answer is – for close mics you shouldn’t need to worry too much. For overheads, try to keep the distance to the snare the same for each mic. If this isn’t possible, you may be able to use delays to achieve the same result. Listen carefully, and check often in mono.

For more detail I need to get around to writing that other post !

Ian

If you have the mics and channels free, it’s worth a try ! It depends if it’s a good-sounding space. If it’s really dead you may find you just get a “roomy” dead sound rather than a live one.

The suggestion in point #10 might help – if it sounds too dead, try adding some reflective surfaces around the kit to splash the sound back a bit. A table on it’s side, some large panels of board if you can find them – anything to get some more reflection happening.

Just finding the right reverb may work though, especially if you EQ it to be in the bright side. More reverb ideas here:

Ten Top Tips for Reverb You Can Really Relish

Good luck, hope it turns out well !

Ian

I’ve just found your site through a link shared by Steve Lawson.

This is some great advice. I’m about to record my band’s next album and we’re going to be doing some testing on the weekend with micing up the drums.

We’re going to record in the ‘live’ room of our local recording/rehearsal studio which is actually pretty much a dead room. I’m gonna use a couple of kit mics and a close snare and kick mic as well.

Do you think using a room mic as well and adding reverb to that would be a good way of getting a live room sound rather than just having a fairly ‘dead’ drum sound?

Let’s say your overheads are uneven distances from the snare – this may cause it to sound undefined. In theory you can fix this in the mix with a delay, but in my experience it’s much easier to get a tape measure out and move the mics. I’ve found dialing in the right delay later can be a lot trickier than it sounds.

Or, say the phase on one of the toms is wrong – you could spend ages moving the mic trying to find a good position to fix the problem, when just flicking a switch will do the trick.

I don’t obsess about it – if it sounds good I’m happy, but it’s a simple test so worth doing as soon as possible, imo.

I like to mix the beater side of the kick, in addition to the resonant side. If you’re getting too much snare rattle, which you probably will, set up a compressor on the beater mic, keyed from the snare mic.

Also, if the snare sounds killer in the room mics, but the cymbals are killing it, try gating or expanding the room mics, keyed off the snare.

If I might suggest a future topic, I’d really like to read something about live recordings (how to place the audience mix, how to mix it all together, etc.).

All the best from Germany
Daniel

PS. I’m a big fan of hot rods : )

Fans who know the music from performances respond really favourably to the song they know and love recorded quite with different instrumentation but which accurately captures the spirit of the tune.