Recording - January 2012 - 44

Lo-fi, low-budget drum experiments for the bedroom
Placement and mic-style choices Before we get into placement, take note: All recommendations about distances and angles aside, let your ears be the ultimate guide for mic placement! Not just with cymbals but when miking the entire drum kit (or any instrument for that matter), I recommend a good set of sealing in-ear monitors which will allow you to move mics around the drums while zeroing in on the sweet spot, without getting your eardrums blown out by way of a thrashing drummer. The more time you spend moving mics, fine-tuning drums and conquering the room, the better your tracks will sound. By day my friend David Blascoe is the drummer for the Christian pop band The Least Of These, but by night he dons his eclectic musician/producer hat as part of the indie duo The Silent Sound. He also produces grooves for hip-hop acts and video game scoring, and is inspired by the production techniques of Jack White, Daniel Lanois, the Roots, and of course George Martin. What makes all of this interesting is that most of his initial work took place in his childhood bedroom, with a single entry-level 2-channel audio interface, a pair of $99 MXL mics, and the free copy of Cubase LE that came with his interface. Good lo-fi While he strives for a lo-fi sound, it is a very produced and deliberate sound that is the result of years of work and experimentation, rather than the “lo-fi cuz he can’t do hi-fi” aesthetic common to many of today’s young artists. It also helps that he is a monster drummer who can groove solidly to a click, with ease. He also has a nice collection of high-end drums, a vintage snare, and a large selection of cymbals in all sizes, like 12" through 17" hi-hats. Most of his work starts by recording his real drum kit with one or two condensers and then crushing and manipulating it in post with copious amounts of compression, bit depth reduction and/or extreme equalization. He often starts with the 2-mic setup of one mic in front of the kit and one mic overhead. The biggest challenge is then to find a position for the overhead where it is not too close to the cymbals, but also not too close to the low ceiling where reflections become problematic. On the flip side he will occasionally do the opposite and turn his mics around and face them into the corners, ceiling and walls to maximize the slapback and reflections for a deliberate effect. Oddly enough he is not a fan of using dynamic mics for single drums, as he feels they are too mushy and lack detail. His only successful dynamic mic experiments involved laying the mic on the carpeted floor in front of the kit to exaggerate the low end of the room and create a smeared image when compressed. Bigger rooms, same tricks Now that his band has moved into a full-on rehearsal/studio space, his minimal idealism remains the same. One of his new favored techniques is to use a single small-diaphragm condenser, horizontal to the top of the kick drum, facing the kit about 4–5' in front. Or if he wants a bigger in-your-face sound he will take the same mic and place it parallel to, but just over, the snare and allow it to capture the whole kit, bleed and all. He also likes low-end ribbons for the same thing. He also occasionally expands this setup to 4 mics to mix in other details of the room. In each instance compression, or what he surely recognizes as being an overt abuse of compression, is a key component to his sound. He also likes to treat his kit with towels, as in the Abbey Road drum sound, and of course he experiments with different drums and cymbals for effect—see the 17" hi-hats mentioned earlier. The main goal in miking up a kit piece by piece is flexibility and control. So you will want as much separation between all kit pieces as you can get. This is accomplished by not only choosing the right mic, where and how you place it, but also through creative equalization during tracking and or mixdown... In other words, tight-patterned mics and judicious frequency cuts. Kick: In this situation I prefer a good PZM style boundary mic on the floor of the bass drum, or a kick-drum-specific dynamic on the bass batter head for the slap and pop. For the outer head I will use an additional kick-specific drum mic or—more often—a large-diaphragm FET mic about 1 to 3 feet away from the front of the kick. Sometimes, for even greater boom and separation, I will baffle said mic with couch cushions or packing blankets. Snare and toms: For the snare top it’s hard to beat your average dynamic mic, coupled with a good out44
RECORDING JANUARY 2012

Each limb a fader Lastly David points out that any time a drummer works with the limitations of a one- or two-mic setup, they need to be able to self-mix as they play, and he is not talking about mixing with a piece of equipment. Instead he pretends each limb has its own internal fader, meaning you need to be constantly aware of how loud you are playing each drum or cymbal, and need to adjust your playing accordingly to how it sounds in the mics and the mix. This will be a foreign concept that will take some time and practice to master for many drummers who have been taught to bash as loud as they can and expect the recording engineer to bring it down in the mix for them. His last bit of advice is that if you are starting out tracking drums in your bedroom with a pair or better yet a single microphone, forget the rules of “proper” placement. With a pair of headphones on, walk around the room with the mic while someone plays the kit; when you find the magic sweet spot, regardless of the position, angle or distance... leave it there! To check out David’s music, visit www.theleastofthese.com or check out the Silent Sound on iTunes and Facebook.

http://www.theleastofthese.com

Recording - January 2012

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