Miking drums for live recording?!


Question: i have six microphones to mike a five piece drum set, where is the best positioning(of the microphones) to get the best professional sound?


Answers: i have six microphones to mike a five piece drum set, where is the best positioning(of the microphones) to get the best professional sound?

Good question. First you want to start with a pair of overhead mics about 4-5 feet above the center of the kit to pick up the overall sound and the cymbals.

Next go with at least 1 mic on the outside of the kick drum.usually in front of the bass. I don't like putting the mic inside the hole, in my opinion it gets too boomy. if you play the floor tom a lot, then ive had good experience with placing the kick mic next to the pedal on the drummer side. this will allow you to pick up some of the floor tom but also tends to make the kick sound a little snappy.

One on the snare drum. the best placement is in front of the snare angled at 45 degrees down toward the head. if you have to you can place this mic close to the hi hat as well, but you will get a lot of bleedthrough to the snare mic. this is ideal if you have fewer mics. but ideally you would want seperate mics for the hat and snare. if you have any extra sm57 laying around you can mic both the top and bottom and mix in each as desired. this will give you a sharper snare sound.

one on the hi-hat. this mic should be off a little off axis on the pattern so you don't get air blasts hitting the mic when you step on the pedal.

and maybe one in between the toms. you will pick up a little tom in the overheads but this will ensure you get better sound pickup on the attack and release of the sound coming off the toms.

this will set you up for a pretty good overall sound. depending on the mics you have small diaphragm cardioid condensors sound good on hi hats and overheads. then I usually go with dynamic mics on the rest. hope this helps!



The answer content post by the user, if contains the copyright content please contact us, we will immediately remove it.
Copyright © 2007 enter-qa.com -   Contact us

Entertainment Categories