Newbie in need of help!

[bluespkr]

Hello all! I am a complete newbie to location recording and in need of some advice on a recording a five piece blues band. The venue is a restaurant/club with somewhat decent acoustics. I will be using a Tascam DA-88 along with a Mackie CR1604-VLZ mixer. There will be 2 vocals, 2 guitars, bass, and 4-5 piece drumset. As you can see, I used my available tracks up right away. My question is about my options regarding miking the drums. I know that I could do a submix on them but I was wondering if there was a way I could use only three mics and minimise the bleed. Would anyone suggest any particular mics for this situation? What setup would others use considering the equipment I have to work with? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[Remoteness]

Hello speaker of blue. Welcome to the forum of remote.

No need for a drum submix. The best three mic situation is two overheads and a bass drum mic. Try to place the overheads so you can maximize the full sound of the kit. If you want to minimize the bleed from the other instruments and such, try using a hypercardioid mics on the overheads pointed directly downward over the kit.

Listen, if all you have is a DA88 and sMackie, go for it. Good mics and mic postitioning is much more important in this case.

[bluespkr]

Thanks for your suggestion Remote! This was what I was after in terms of the kind of mics. Hypercardioids on the overheads should help me with phase problems also. It's funny, after I thought about it, the mic placement for the overheads is like a submix in itself. If I don't get it right, the overall drum mix will be off. I think a good practice session with my own drumset would make sense at this point. I'm trying to take a minimalistic approach to this so I'm not like a deer in headlights come the day of the show. Any other suggestions would be great also! Thanks

[Steve Smith]

have you read of the so called " recorderman" Overhead technique?

Bassically, set up a spaced pair of overheads ( one over the snare side, one over the ride side) and then using a piece of mic cable ( or whatever) make sure that both mics are the same distance from the snare and kick drum.. this should allow you a pretty solid stereo imahge of the kit and still work well at rejecting the other "noise" on stage... hope that all makes sense, in a bit of a rush... let us know how it pans out, and if ya can, take pictures!

[bluespkr]

Thanks for the reply Steve! I suppose if the mics are at different distances from the kick and snare it would throw the stereo balance off when I go to mix the song, possibly pushing the snare and kick more to one side. Luckily, I'm spending some time before the date of the show practicing whatever techniques I've been suggested. This is very new to me but it seems as though there are a few simple techniques to start with. I will definately be taking pictures that night and will post them when I get a chance.

Thanks again for the help! Anyone with techniques that they feel could be of use, please let me know.