Recording Drums - Getting A Professional Sound Without Using Expensive Drum Mic's

Miking a drum kit is perhaps one of the most important techniques you must master if you want to become any sort of decent sound engineer. Through my experiences, I can tell you that if your drum track comes out sub-par, then it will not only make for a bad recording, but it will make your life hell in the post production stage when you're trying to compensate.
So how does one ensure a quality drum track?

Well, first we have to talk about a few things. Obviously, because of budgets and financial limitations, not all of us are lucky enough to have expensive microphones/equipment. But DON'T LET THAT HOLD YOU BACK because trust me, you CAN produce high quality drum recordings with low end equipment.
That being said, there are some things that are imperative to have. In order to be able to successfully record drums, you need some sort of multi-track recording system, along with a few microphones (4 would be the minimum, but you could get away with three). The reason you need a multi-track recording system is so that you can record from multiple sound sources into individual tracks on your DAW (digital audio workstation). If you're not quite sure what multi-tracking is, be sure to check for my next blog post in which I will explain this in more detail.
Anyways, as I was saying: Just because I said that you need all of this equipment doesn't mean that you have to go out and spend thousands of dollars on high end stuff!!!! In my next blog post I will fully explain my low-budget recording setup and recommend cheap equipment that I guarantee will get the job done.
Okay, so now that you have your multi-track system and microphones ready, let's get to business....

First thing's first: you've got to properly mic the bass drum. IF YOU READ NOTHING ELSE IN THIS ARTICLE, READ THIS! You want to use a solid dynamic mic with good frequency response in the mids and low ends.Many people think that when you're miking a kick drum, you want to retain as much bass frequencies as possible. This really isn't true, because once you are putting your entire song together, too much bass on the kick drum mic will result in a very muddy and lifeless tone. Rather, I have found that concentrating on boosting the mid frequencies will give you a really nice, punchy kick drum with very high attack and smooth decay. It will make a world of difference in your final mix because you will be able to feel the kick drum without it really getting in the way of the focal points in your song. As far as placement on drum kit, you may either use a short boom stand to point the mic directly at the head of the drum, or you can place a pillow/blanket inside of the kick drum and lay your mic on top of that. The latter technique results in greater sound isolation, which will come in hand when you're in the post production stage. Whichever method you choose, just make sure the gain on your recording device is cut down enough to where you aren't receiving any sort of clipping.
The next most important thing to mic is the snare drum. You want to use an instrument mic with a tight cardioid polar pattern so that it can handle the close-in miking without it receive bleed-in from all the chaos that's going to be going on around it like the high-hat, toms, and surrounding cymbals. The mic should be positioned right above the rim of the snare drum, facing directly at the center of the snare head. By doing this, you can eliminate any phasing issues that would be a pain to deal with later. This will also allow you to add some subtle reverb so that your snare drum sounds bigger - which is something that's very important when mixing a drum track.

Lastly, you need to properly mic the entire kit using overheads. Now, everything that I previously mentioned can be done on and extremely low budget, however, if you want to get a good overhead sound you may have to spend a little extra money. I say this because you generally want to use large diaphragm condenser microphones to capture all the subtleties in a drum kit with your overheads. Typically, the price for a single large diaphragm condenser mic ranges from $100-$200. Ideally, you would want to have two of them so you can get a good stereo panning of the drum kit. If you do have access to two of these types of microphones, then position them about 3 feet above the drum kit on either side, and make sure they are both pointing at the snare drum. Again, this positioning ensures that you will avoid phase cancellation issues. In the post production stage, make sure you pan these two mic's left and right accordingly, so that you can get a good stereo feel for your kit. Since we are doing this entire setup on a budget and we don't have tom mic's, it is essential that you mix the overheads so that they sufficiently cover the toms - (if you had tom mic's, the overheads would generally focus more on the cymbals).
Congratulations, you now have your drum kit miked and ready to record!! Feel free to leave suggestions about your own miking techniques in the comments.
As always, you can check out my band's recordings and listen to how our drum tracks have come out - SIMPLE INTEREST WEBSITE


Thanks again for tuning in,
-Cecil