Recording - August 2013 - 24

all drums to one mono channel and use
just one of your two DAW inputs, and all
other instruments including vocals go in
mono to the other of your two DAW
inputs. That will give you a recording in
mono after you pan everything to center
in your DAW. (Like I said: desperate!)
If you don’t have an external mixer, the
best way to capture the drums is to set a
single microphone up about 4 feet in front
of the kit, as high as the drummer’s head
and tilted down slightly, so as to capture
the snare and bass drum most particularly
(see Figure 1). You can then use the other
of the two inputs to lay down a rhythm guitar or keyboard part for reference.

the other two for a submix of everything
else that you miked. That opens up a lot
more possibilities, as long as you have the
mixer or mixers to create those stereo submixes. Quite likely you or your band have
a PA mixer that can do the job, or you can
borrow one or two mixers—small but
capable mixers are cheap these days.
With eight inputs on your recording interface, you definitely have enough to capture
a solid representation of your band: Scratch
vocal, rhythm guitar, bass, two overhead
mics, snare and kick. If that interface has
eight mic inputs, better still—you won’t need
an auxiliary mixer unless you want to submix more mics for, say, the drums.

Figure 3: Overheads are positioned to capture cymbals and other parts of the kit
not directly miked. Place them equidistant from the snare mic.

Alternatively, you can record a guitar
or keyboard part along with a vocal into
the two inputs, then have the drummer
record his parts while playing along to
those tracks. In this case, the bass drum
and snare go into one input and the rest
of the kit into the other. If the resulting
drum sound is not defined enough for
your tastes, you may be able to further
enhance things by using Beat Detective,
Drumagog or some other sound replacement solution.
Things improve with four and eight
inputs
If your DAW interface has four line
inputs, you can use two for a stereo submix
of however many mics you use on your
drums through an external mixer, and use
24

RECORDING August 2013

The beat goes on
Drums are always the primary challenge. Not only do they define the tempo,
groove and overall feel of each song, but
they’re just so... loud. They will find their
way into every mic; not just the ones you
want them to, but vocals, guitars, and
any other mic that is open in the same
room, or even in neighboring rooms!
Attempting to isolate and contain their
volume can also create problems. For
instance, if you were to place them in their
own room and close the door, you may be
able to minimize this leakage quite well.
However, unless this room has a window
that affords visual communication
between the drummer and the rest of the
band (sliding glass doors are wonderful
this way), this will be at the expense of

sightlines, and will adversely affect the
actual sound of the drums in the room
where everybody else records.
Start with the kick drum mic; dynamic
models like the AKG D112, Electro-Voice
RE20, Audix D6 are great choices, or in a
pinch you could even use the venerable
Shure SM57 (although the Beta 52 would
be a better choice). With a head (skin) that
has a hole, place the mic just inside the
hole, pointed towards the beater. If there’s
a head with no hole, then just point the mic
where one would be (at about the 4
o’clock position) 2–4" away from the
head. If there’s no outer head, again, pretend there is one and place the mic accordingly. To help deaden the drum’s resonance, place a towel, blanket or small pillow inside the drum, right up against the
batter head; move it around until it gives
you a punchy and controlled “thwack”,
without a lot of the ring or rumble that can
quickly muddy up your bottom end.
The snare is another drum that works
very well with dynamic mics like the SM57
(a classic on snare!), but I’ve heard great
results from condenser and tube mics as
well. If you’re seated on the drum throne,
the mic would be positioned at 10 or 11
o’clock, about an inch above the rim and
hanging over the inside edge about an
inch as well (Figure 2). Tilting the mic down
will highlight the tone of the drum’s body,
while keeping it more parallel with the
drum head will provide more “crack”.
Experiment with this until you find an angle
that provides the right combination for you.
Overhead mics are generally condenser
models, like the Sennheiser e614, MXL
603S and the AKG Perception 420, but on
certain sessions I’ve heard two SM57s
sound simply amazing in this role. They
should be set up at the sides of the drum kit,
lined up with the front of the kick drum.
Place them at a distance equal from each
other as their proximity to the snare (Figure
3). You can start by pointing them at the
drummer, but as you rotate them outward
you’ll capture a wider stereo field. Again
experiment until you find the sonic ‘image’
that you like the best. Try to keep these mics
situated higher than your cymbals and, if
possible, not too close to any one of them.
I like trending toward the direction of the
ride and hi-hat, which helps to bring those
elements out while minimizing ‘cymbal
wash’ and other potential problems.
If you have a compressor available, dedicate it to the kick drum. This is one piece that
needs to be a constant presence in your mix,
unless you’re recording a jazz player where
subtle nuances on the kick drum are a part
of the style. Set your Attack so that the click
and other transients are able to slip through
before the compressor kicks in, set a Ratio of
about 4:1, and a Threshold setting that gives
you a total of about 3 to 6 dB of attenuation.
Set the Release to a fairly quick setting, so
that the signal isn’t still being attenuated by

Recording - August 2013

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