| here's some of the things i might do to record drums:
1:use real tape or a tape-saturation plugin rather than compression or distortion. use it on everything to varying degrees, except maybe bass drum. if you're using 24-bit, record low to catch all the transients so that the saturation can do its thing properly. if using tape , record hot hot hot! if using 16-bit, get as good a level as you can without limiting.
2:mic under the snare(phase-reversed) as well as over. gives you a big, big snare!
3:make the drums sound good in the room - tune them, change the heads, and find a good, super-resonant place to put them in the room - usually in the middle but not the dead centre is a good starting place
4:don't pan too wide
5:use automation on the toms for crazy pans/echos to make the tom fills more exciting. also mute tom mics when not in use to minimise phase issues.
6:for metal, time-delay the close mics to match the overheads. i would be less inclined to do this for other genres - it gives you a very high-impact drum sound.
7:you don't have to point both mics at the snare, although you may want the capsules to be equi-distant from the snare. i might turn the one above the floor tom towards that, and the one above the snare between the snare and the rack toms, to get more of a picture of the kit as a whole. don't worry about aiming at the cymbals - you'll get more than enough of them if you're using condenser mics.
in your situation, i would try:
channels 1&2 - overheads(ld condensers)
channel 3 - kick(ld dynamic)
channels 4&5 - snare(over and under - 57s or similar sd dynamics will do)
channels 6,7&8 - toms(use ld dynamics if available, sd's will do for the smaller toms if you're stuck)
there's a great chapter in mike stavrou's 'mixing with your mind' book about setting up drums for recording - it's improved my drums 100%. prevously i was using the recorderman method with mixed results. |