Recording Drum Tips

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July 1999

An affordable way to make a recording of your

drums that doesn’t sound so affordableby Daniel Angelo Allocca

DrumSet.Com

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Aug-97: Three DayDrum Intensive inBelgium by Chuck Silverman

Mar-97: RecordingDrums

Jun-97: Success! byChuck Silverman

There is a saying that goes "there is only one way to dosomething, and that is the right way" and I am going to prove toyou that these words aren’t entirely true. A drum set is the mostcomplex of instruments in the entire world. Although seeminglysimple and primitive, their characteristics are like no other instrument known to man.

What microphones to use when recording a drumset

Recording a drum set is the hardest instrument to record on thisearth. There are many variables and things to take intoconsideration when doing so. One thing for instance is whatmicrophone to pick. There is a logical and smart way to pick eachmicrophone for every drum and after reading this article,hopefully you will have a better understanding of what I mean.

Lets start off with the snare drum, shall we? The snare drum is

probably the easiest and most affordable instrument on the drumset to mic. It can be done with a classic and fairly cheapmicrophone, the Shure sm57. About $100.00 in most musicstores. An easy way to mic the snare is to place the mic two tothree inches away from the head at about a 45 degree angle withthe ground. It would be ideal to have the mic in the center of thehead but that wouldn’t be possible because drummers play in thecenter in the head (usually). So it has become some what of astandard to record the snare with the mic about one inch from therim.

Next we’ll move to the tenor or tom drum. This is yet another easy drum to mic, but there are some variables to consider whenrecording toms. The biggest one in my experiences is that thedrums don’t seem to sound the same on the recording as they doto my ear when I’m playing. So I recommend that you tune your drums accordingly and test those out a lot with a good pair of head phones. I have experienced that tuning the toms with a greatdifference in pitch in relationship to each other makes for a better sounding and more articulated sounding setup..especially for rollsdown them and other quick rudiments. A good microphone for the toms would once again be an Shure sm57. Use the same

method for placement for the toms as listed in description for thesnare drum.

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The next drum to mic is the bass drum. This is probably thetoughest drum to individually mic and definitely the mostexpensive. A great mic for the bass drum is the AKG D112. It isabout $220.00 but well worth it if your budget has room for it. Itgives the low pitch of the bass drum but offers a frequency

response that allows for the slight bit of punchiness that lies in atrue bass drum sound. There are no rules for properly placing amicrophone on the bass drum but a good method is right in thecenter... its always worked for me.

Last but not least is the cymbals. Just as a side note: I think getting a good cymbal sound is extremely hard to achieve inreference to the overall drum mix. What I mean is that it is hardto mix the cymbal sound in with the rest and having it soundnatural... not too over-powering and not too under accounted for.Some good mics for cymbals are the sm81 and the akg c1000s.

The sm81 is about $285.00 and the akg’s are a whopping$185.00. There are two methods I know of for placingmicrophones on cymbals. One way is to put a microphone onevery cymbal. This method isn’t very cost effective and is veryhard to mix in with the rest of your drum track. The standard wayof doing this is to place two microphones up high over thecymbals (about 2-3 feet). You can used a spaced pair or x-y

pattern. Experiment with these methods to find your sound.

Recording the hi-hat is fairly simple. You should probably useone of the microphones listed under the cymbal paragraph and

place over the hi-hat using the same method as for the snare andtom drums.

Some things to keep in mind when placing all of your microphones is to have them facing away from each other so thatyou get as little bleeding from track to track as possible. Bleeding

between tracks is when the sound from an unwanted source is picked up in a microphone. I.E. You pick up the snare sound inthe tom mics. The reason why you don’t want this to happen is

because it gives you less control over your mix. You could up thefader for the bass, and bring up the already too loud toms with it.

What levels should you set each drum at?

This is a tough call but can be broken down into some basic areasof volumes depending on what kind of music you are recordingon your drums. The levels are on a scale from one to ten. Ten

being the loudest. They are all respective to their mix. A 10 under the metal category isn’t the same as jazz…you be the judge onthey should weight compared to each other.

Rock/Metal/Country---ok all you straight time people

Bass Drum 9

Snare Drum 10


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Hi-Hat 8.5

Toms 7

Cymbals 8

Jazz/Be-Bop/Funk/Fusion---ok all you cool cats

Bass Drum 6

Snare Drum 8Hi-Hat 10

Toms 6

Cymbals 9

Classical---ok all you orchestral people

Bass Drum 8

Snare Drum 8

Hi-Hat 7

Toms 7

Cymbals 9

Ok, Now I have the Microphones...What Else Do I Need?

Now that you have the microphones, you need a few more things.First you need the obvious...Mic stands, xlr cables, and other cabling used. Now to the not so obvious for the non-educatedmusic technology musicians out there. You need what is called amix-board, mixer, or console. They are all the same things, they

just have different industry names. Mixers come in a variety of

makes and models and range in price from two hundred dollars towell over one million...so you have some choices to make here. Ireccomend the Mackie 1402 VLZ. Its a great little mixer with 6mic-pre amps (xlr inputs) and has phantom power also, which isneeded to power electret condenser microphones, like the one Irecommended for the cymbals (AKG c1000s). You will also needsomething to record on to, whether it be a two track tape recorder or a 24 track '2' inch tape.

Setting Up For Your Recording

Once you have your microphones set-up like as explained previously in this article, you need to set up other very neccesaryequipment such as; your mixer and recording devices. Start off bysetting up your mixer, which is the central part of your recording.It controls all levels and allows you to create a balance for thetype of music you are playing, as listed previously. (see Whatlevels should you set each drum at? for more information). Onceyour mixer is plugged in, get your mics plugged into your mixer,giving each microphone its own channel on the board. It is anindustry standard to put the kick drum on channel one and thecymbals last. You decide in between. Then, use the main outs of

your board to route your signal to your recording device. Keep inmind that if you are recording with digital equipment, do notallow the signal to clip or overload the machine(go above 0 db on


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the meter).

Thats basically it folks. Enjoy recording your drums.

Here is a break-down of the cost of a recording:

Bass Drum apprx - 150.00 - 225.00Snare Drum apprx - 75.00 - 150.00Tom Drum apprx - 75.00 - 150.00Hi-Hat apprx -- 175.00 - 300.00Cymbals apprx - 175.00 - 300.00Mixer apprx - 200.00 - 1,000,000.00

Total cost apprx 850.00 - 1,001,125.00

If there are any questions about this article be more thanwelcome to email me. Thanks for taking the time to read this. Ihope it was informative to you drummers out there. Once again,thanks a million.

Daniel Allocca


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Recording Drum Tips