Recording - January 2015 - 22

For close miked hi-hat I prefer to have a
small-capsule condenser pointing straight
down at the hat from about 6-8" above,
focused directly on the edge of the cymbals.
In a perfect world, my favorite mic for hat is
a vintage Neumann KM54, but the contemporary KM184 works just fine, as would
many other small capsule condensers.
comes in handy. Mic placement on the
front head will vary greatly depending on
the drum itself, the microphones you have
to choose from, and whether or not you
plan on taking advantage of a more distant microphone in front of the drum kit,
such as the Glyn Johns mic A described
above.
I ask the drummer to play the drum quietly and consistently while I move my ear
around the front head, listening for a
place where the "boom" is most robust,
focused and consistent. Especially if the
beater head mic diaphragm is either in
the plane of the head or slightly outside
the drum, for phase coherency you'll
want the front head mic either to be within a few inches of the front head, so that
the two mics are hearing radically different signals, or far enough back so that the
3 To 1 Rule applies to the starting point
where the beater strikes the head. I like a
solid state large-capsule condenser for
this task, and for me this has led to choosing the Sony C37FET for my own collection. Like many other engineers, I also like
a Neumann U47FET for this task.
Interestingly, both mics have been reissued by their original makers in recent
months!
Snare, hi-hat, and toms
My snare drum top head technique
looks like just about everyone else's: position the mic above the rim about an inch
and a half above the drum, with the capsule pointing toward the center of the
head. Like just about everyone else in the
world, I like the Shure SM57 or Audix i5
for this task, though if I'm recording quieter drumming, where brushes or other
implements lighter than sticks are more
likely to be used, then sometimes I'll use
an AKG C414.
Many years ago I worked with Mark
Needham (Chris Isaak and many others)
and saw him pointing a mic at the air
port on the shell of the snare, and I loved
the bottom-head snare drum sound he got
doing so. Subsequently I tried this technique and have found it delivers a much
more useful "snare" sound than placing a
mic underneath the drum. I like a Shure
SM54 for this because of its unusual
design; like the Electro-Voice RE20, it's
rear-ported for minimal proximity effect,
so I can place the mic within about an
inch and a half from the port without getting too much low-frequency information
from this placement.
22

RECORDING January 2015

about the relationship in distance between
my more distant coverages and cymbal
mics, I keep the 3 To 1 Rule in mind while
positioning cymbal mics. I place cymbal
mics close enough to the cymbal or cymbals they'll pick up, so as to enable a very
direct relationship between a particular
cymbal or cymbals and the fader on which

For toms, I like the sound of a large capsule condenser, and in particular, my
favorite is the Neumann TLM103. I don't
much care for these mics for most other
applications, but man do they make a
great tom mic-power is conveyed beautifully and quite robustly! The only thing
you'll have to worry about is trimming your
preamp levels, because these mics have
an incredibly high output. Place the mic
about 2.5" above the rim, capsule angled
down toward the center of the head.

they'll end up. I generally pan these cymbal channels no more than 50% left/right,
relying on my more distant coverages for
wider panning. I usually prefer small-capsule condensers for this task, and am
happy with a pair of Neumann KM54 or
B&K (now DPA Microphones) 4011 or
AKG C61 mics. AKG C451 or C452 mics
also work well for me; any small-capsule
condenser you have will work.

Overheads
I recently watched a youtube video
(www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZOVZQ
gXl9k) in which esteemed engineer
George Massenburg calls out all engineers who place "overhead" microphones above specific cymbals, rather
than in a position he recommends: closer
to the drummer, set up in a plane so both
mics are equally distant from the snare
and equally distant from the kick. I've
never tried this technique, and I plan to at
my next session. The technique he
describes is for "overhead" mics and not
specifically for cymbals, so maybe my
cymbal coverage would fly under his
radar. Or maybe not!
In my 17-mic scenario, since I have the
Glyn Johns setup as well as the other two
stereo setups to fall back on, I tend to view
cymbal mics as cymbal coverage, not
overhead coverage. Therefore, thinking

Summing up
The possibilities for recording the drum
kit are endless. Don't let preconceived
notions of how you've seen drum kits
miked on stage determine how you mic
them in the studio. Use your ears and feel
the vibrations with your body, first standing next to the drums in the studio, and
subsequently in the control room as you
dial in the sounds.
Remember that there's not one right
way to approach recording drum kit-in
this article we've considered a wide variety of approaches to covering the drum
kit, but by no means are these the only
ways. Be the next Glyn Johns! Experiment,
and come up with something that leaves
all of these techniques in the dust.
Bruce Kaphan (kaphan@recordingmag
.com) is a recording engineer, producer,
and lap steel guitarist living and working
in the San Francisco Bay area. Learn
more at www.brucekaphan.com.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZOVZQgXI9k http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZOVZQgXI9k http://www.brucekaphan.com

Recording - January 2015

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