| If you have a good room, and can separate drums from everything else, and treat the whole kit as ONE instrument, the best method is 1 or 2 overheads (large or small diaphram condenser respectively), kick and snare mics. The snare mic can even be placed underneath, since its purpose is for increased definition.
However, my method is kick mic, plus ONE or TWO OH mics. But that only sounds good of the room sounds good.
When treating a kit as several separate instruments (i.e. mic'ing each shell, hi-hat etc), it is difficult to avoid comb filtering. That said, you can mic each piece separately, and run through a mic pre with transformers for best result. My two preferred solutions in this case are a vintage Ampex tube/transformer mic pre (mine is a 354, which is two channels), or a Focusrite ISA428, which has 4 mic pres through transformers. Both are clean enough to "stack" well, and will give an excellent "sound" that won't dominate or add much color (unless pushed to do so).
I used to use a Mackie 1402 mixer, and it sounded fine as well. I also use my Presonus Firestudio's 8 mic pres and get more than acceptable results.
Gear is mostly a matter of taste and/or preference. Much can be accomplished with simple, low-to-mid priced gear. It has more to do with presentation (players, and properly set-up instruments), and engineering /mixing skills... Once the latter is "near perfect," the gear matters less...
Hope this helps. If not, ask more specific questions for more specific answers. |