Recording - January 2015 - 20

miking drums in the studio; some will
think it's stupid overkill-they're entitled
to their opinions.
When I first began engineering in professional studios, I worked on 2" 16-track
machines. Little did I know that in the future,
some would look back at this era and think
that these tape machines were the bestsounding recording devices of all time, better than anything being made now. I don't
happen to share that opinion! I experienced so many problems with these
machines-speed problems resulting in
indelible pitch problems, noise floor from
hell, random grainy distortion from misbehaving bias amplifiers. I jumped onto the
digital bandwagon the minute it rolled into
town, and that affected my miking strategy.
When you're limited to 16 tracks, you must
constantly make decisions about how many
tracks a particular instrument deserves. Some
look back on this enforced early-in-theprocess decision making as being of value.
I'm not one of those people. I absolutely love
the ability to allow a project to evolve, and if
late in a project (i.e., at mix) I decide that I
want to be able to present the drums from a
distant perspective in the choruses, switch to
a Glyn Johns approach for the bridge, switch
to a close miked perspective for the verses,

and be able to reliably and efficiently trigger
other sounds by virtue of easily using close
miked recordings of one drum or another,
then having all these possible setups at my
disposal is invaluable. And in the DAW era,
where track count is no longer the issue it
once was, who cares if 17 tracks are devoted to drums!
Some argue that setting up and managing
so many drum tracks is more trouble than it's
worth. But think about how much work goes
into producing an album. If it takes a few
hours to set up for basics, the setup time,
amortized over the life of the production
process, ends up being proportionally very
small. I've been fortunate enough to see how
some super successful artists and engineers
and producers do what they do. People at
the top of their game aren't afraid of hard
work. (Well, maybe they'll have interns doing
the grunt part, but still, you catch my drift!)
If I'm in circumstances that will allow
for it, and there's any question in my mind
how I might want to present the drums
later, Table 1 shows in general how I like
to set up for drum kit:
Granted, most of us don't have mic lockers this deep, so use what you have access
to-this is why I indicated "mic type", and
where I didn't indicate where I prefer a
small or large capsule condenser, I'll use
whatever the best choice is at a given session. As far as wide left and right positions
or mono room mics go (not used in the photographed session), I might opt for any
number of possible mics, depending on
what's appropriate to the sound and what's
available. Ribbon mics will sound less
splashy and convey a little more power.

Close miking the kick-harder than it
seems
For me, close miking a kick drum presents
more variables in recording technique than
any other drum. As far as I'm concerned,
kick technique is one of the dividing lines
between a good drummer and a drummer I
would likely not invite to a session. A good
drummer would understand the difference
between "burying the beater" (resting the
beater on the head after striking so that the
sustain of the drum is damped) and playing
"off the head" (letting the beater hit the head
for a brief instant, then bouncing it off so that
the drum resonates fully after the attack) and
would be able to readily use either technique. Another distinct dividing line between
good and maddening kick drum technique is
the tendency that some drummers have of
bouncing the beater when burying it. If
you're going to bury the beater, it should be
a single event, not a series of small events!
As a general rule, the only time I'm ever
tempted to substitute samples on a kick drum
track are the times when a drummer bounces
the beater when attempting to bury it.
When a drummer's technique includes
the ability to play off the head, they usually
have a full front head on their bass drum-
no holes cut for interior or semi-interior mic
placement. In this case, to place a mic in
position to capture the beater head, the mic
will have to be placed on the rear of the
drum, focused on the beater head in the
crowded area near the kick drum pedal. It's
as likely as not that this microphone will
need to have its phase reversed at some
point in the signal path, because the first
acoustic wave it hears will be moving away

Some argue that setting up and managing so many drum tracks is more
trouble than it's worth. But think about how much work goes into an
album... people at the top of their game aren't afraid of hard work.
track #

sound source

notes

mic type

preamp

in the example photos

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17

kick
kick
snare
snare
hat
floor tom
rack tom
cymbals
cymbals
Glyn Johns A
Glyn Johns B
Glyn Johns C
stereo (x/y)
stereo (x/y)
wide left
wide right
mono room

batter head
front head
top head
port

dynamic
lg cap condenser
dyn or cond
dynamic
sm cap condenser
lg cap condenser
lg cap condenser
condenser
condenser
cond or ribbon
cond or ribbon
cond or ribbon
cond or ribbon
cond or ribbon
cond or ribbon
cond or ribbon
cond or ribbon

solid state
solid state
solid state
solid state
tube
solid state
solid state
tube
tube
either
either
either
either
either
either
either
either

Sennheiser e602
Sony C37FET
Shure SM57
Shure SM54
Neumann KM54
Neumann TLM103
Neumann TLM103
Neumann KM54
Neumann KM54
Coles STC-4038
Telefunken ELAM251
AKG C12
AKG C24
AKG C24
N/A
N/A
N/A

20

RECORDING January 2015

left
right

stereo mic L
stereo mic R
Recording - January 2015

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Recording - January 2015
