It's enjoyable to read people's drum mic ideas, since I'm still trying to
figure mine out, having had limited experience.

So far I like "over head" mics placed right behind the drummer so they're
looking at the edge of the cymbals instead of seeing the tops of the
cymbals.

Also, I like spacing the mics closer than most people, but definitely not an
XY configuration; to me that's too close and doesn't offer much of a stereo
image, but the typical three or four feet apart (or more) I see when people
are simply using over heads to augment all their zillions of other mics on a
kit is way too far apart to my ears, especially when you're using a stereo
pair that will be more prominent in the mix.

You could go for a vintage 60's - early 70's style, heh heh... with drums
popping out of one side of your mix along with bass guitar or something like
that. It actually sounds kind of cool context, with instrumentation
conducive to that kind of thing.

I've heard some 4 track and little hard disk portastudio recorders where
drums were recorded with 1 room mic and some of them sound great! That kind
of approach can really work well but in that case the room acoustics and
quality of the drum kit sound are pretty important to begin with since you
can't control it as much by juggling EQs, gates, effects & levels on
individual tracks.

I would guess that most of the really amazing drum mixes I've heard involve
a great many microphones and some real experience behind tuning the kit,
playing it of course, selecting mics & placing them. Lots O mics are the
norm.

Kick mic, snare mic & one over head mic can be a fun experiment to try. You
might be surprised.

Large diaphragm condensers are really amazing for kick...

Overheads don't have to have super high end response if you're planning on
using any artificial ambiance or reverberation at all.

With three mics you could center kick, pan snare a bit & then pan a single
overhead a bit to the opposite side of the snare.

Don't be afraid to be different or feel compelled to do what everyone else
is doing.

Experiment. Mixing can be as creative as song writing or anything else if
you want it to be & you don't have to be complicated to be creative.


Skler



ScotFraser wrote in message
...
I've had good luck recently close micing the kick and snare plus a
single mono overhead mic,

This is how I do a lot of my live concert recording. Stereo is pretty
overrated
for drum overheads, IMO. And with this arrangement I find I can get by
with
very little of the snare & kick mics.


Scott Fraser