Drum Mic'ing

[stolenband]

Hello to all...

I am a drummer, 3 year experience, and I want to do some home recordings. I am currently trying to lead a small band, and i am holding all the recording equiptment at my place, where we practice. I currently record off of a single microphone I got from a target store. Samson m1. I am also a bit of a guitarist, so some help with my speaker cabinet post would also be apreciated.

My question...
What kind of microphones do I need. I have two bass drums, NOT a double bass drum pedal. Two low toms, three high toms. A crash, hi hats, and ride cymbol. I am going to upgrade my set to a rack system, with overhead cymbol mounts.

What kind of mixer/interface do I need. I will probablu plug in outputs from three other amps, and i want to have it go to my computer.

I will get more pa help in another post.

what mics do I need?!?!

thanks for any help

[indianajo]

I've seen pictures of Shure SM57's on craiglist mounted next to drums, so I believe this is what they are designed for. there are a lot of them on craigslist, so they are very popular, and right now in my town there is a guy trying to buy one instead of sell one. I believe they are dynamic mikes, so they don't need phantom power out of the mixer. Tape recorders & mixers have inputs suitable for dynamic mikes. Modern bands invariably use a PA mixer, although some solo players go right into the PC.
1/4 phone to 1/4 phone cables go from amps to the mixer, usually. Garage bands usually start this way, but pro bands often have DI units or Jensen transformers to cut the hum from ground loops. Mixers with differential inputs from op amp first stages already have some hum rejection.

[Xoc1]

For recording purposes I would think that you would need 2 kick drum mics and a pair of electret overheads. The overheads should be set up to capture the sound of the kit and preferably should both be the same distance from the snare so that the dynamic atack of the snare is captured without delay from one of the mics. A mic on the snare would also be preferable. A SM57 is a good choice for a snare mic. Some people mic a snare from underneath do not be afraid to experiment with what sounds best.
If this sounds too expensive one dynamic between the kick drums and a single electret overhead would be a minimum set up.
Microphone kits for drums can be relatively inexpensive. A cheap mic set can be bought for little more than the cost of one decent mic. You can usually find a box set that would allow you to individually mic up all your drums. You may need to buy another kick drum mic separately.
All of these will need mixing down, and your really going to need a mixing desk to set all the gains and eq for the various microphones. Often cheap electret mics require 48V phantom power from a mixing desk to work. This means using a desk with balanced XLR inputs and phantom power.
When I,m mixing my band I have 7 inputs from the drum kit.
Snare
Hi tom
Mid tom
Low tom
Kick
Overhead 1
Overhead 2
I mix these down to stereo group and them use a noise gate and compressor before adding them to the final mixdown. This level of complexity is OK for live performance but the simpler setup can capture your drums well for recording as long as you can avoid overspill from the rest of the band.

[Nigel Goodwin]

Originally Posted by Xoc1

Often cheap electret mics require 48V phantom power from a mixing desk to work. This means using a desk with balanced XLR inputs and phantom power.

You seem a little confused over mike types?, the more expensive condensor types require 48V phantom power, electret mikes have a permanent charge on the condensor element and a high impedance buffer, usually powered by a 1.5V battery in the mike itself (although you can get phantom powered ones).

For gigs we always used as many mikes as we had left for the drums , all dynamic ones (as it's what we had) - it varied from five mikes to one, depending who was in the band

For recording it's fairly similar, use as many mikes and channels as you have, and as many as you can record at once. The usual way is dynamic on the bass drum, and condensor overheads - but really you could do with a good range of mikes to get a specific sound, from a specific kit, by a particular drummer. Nothing is cast in stone, try things out, to get the result YOU want.

[Xoc1]

Electret condensor You are right to correct me
I was probably thinking about my overheads which are AKG CS1000S
They are back electret capacitor mics.
I suspect that most of the cheaper condensor mics are electret, but they require phantom power to work as they have no internal battery compartments.

[GandTSounds]

Hi.

We do quite a lot of PA for various types of band, including rock and jazz. We use the Shure PGD-Mk4 set of 4 mics plus two CS1000S for the overheads. We have phantom on the desk, but the CS1000s will take a 9v battery if phantom is not available. We always mic the snare and kick drums and use the other two mics in the set for the toms.

Hope this helps

Paul

[Nigel Goodwin]

Originally Posted by GandTSounds

Hi.

We do quite a lot of PA for various types of band, including rock and jazz. We use the Shure PGD-Mk4 set of 4 mics plus two CS1000S for the overheads. We have phantom on the desk, but the CS1000s will take a 9v battery if phantom is not available. We always mic the snare and kick drums and use the other two mics in the set for the toms.

Nice to have six mikes, and channels, available

[Printer2]

Whith careful placement you can get away with three mikes. A couple of condensers to pick up the toms and cymbals and something like a SM58 to pick up the bass drums and the snare. Placing it between both bass drums should pick up both of them. Mind you it will give you more of a live sound rather than a tighter sound that you would get by miking each piece separately. You will also get more bleed from the other instruments. Have used the same setup but with one bass drum and got acceptable results.

[GandTSounds]

Originally Posted by Nigel Goodwin

Nice to have six mikes, and channels, available

Yes, but sometimes we are short of channels on the desk, so the Tom mics are usually the ones to go. We also have small 5 channel Spirit Folio which we sometimes use as a sub-mixer, just for the drums.

[Nigel Goodwin]

Originally Posted by GandTSounds

Yes, but sometimes we are short of channels on the desk, so the Tom mics are usually the ones to go. We also have small 5 channel Spirit Folio which we sometimes use as a sub-mixer, just for the drums.

It often comes down to compromise

That's half of the fun of doing PA.