Recording Drums Demystified
I’ve been telling you about my new band’s journey (deadsoulrevival.com) to launch our first single. Today I want to tell you a little about the recording process we used for drums. This is a process that I’ve honed over the years to get a great capture at the source.
Generally what I like to do is use our demo of the song as the guide track for my drummer. He plays to the demo with a click and then we overdub guitars, bass, and vocals after the drums are cut. There’s actually a step in the middle which is to edit the drums in Pro Tools. More about that later.
For this record we used a DW kit with two toms. On kick I used an Audix D6 inside the drum pointing at the beater to capture the attack. Outside the kick I used an AKG 414 a couple feet back to capture the “boom”. I had my drummer Scott play the kick and felt the blast of air coming out of the sound hole. Then I put the mic on the very edge of that blast.
I used a Shure 57 on the top head of snare, which is a time tested choice. Capsule pointed at center of head approximately 2 inches above rim. So the capsule is lined up with edge of rim. Under the snare, I put a small diaphragm condenser pointed at snare wires. The wires should be running in the same direction as the mic. So probably one end of snare wires will be toward the hi hat side and the other side toward floor tom.
I like a Sennheiser 421 or equivalent on the toms. I used an AKG d112 on floor tom. I basically mic these the same way I do a snare head. Try and point your mic so that it captures the drum but is also not aimed directly at that snare if possible.
Hi-hat I prefer a small diaphragm condenser mic coming in from above aimed directly at a spot half way between the edge and middle of the cymbal. Maybe 9 inches or so from the cymbal. I like an additional condenser on the ride as well in a similar manner to the hi hat mic.
Experimentation is key with getting great drum sounds! We like to mic the kit the day before our recording sessions start so we can spend time dialing everything in and then the following day we are ready to rock.
Next comes editing the performance. My first studio gig was editing drums so it’s second nature. The trick is to clean up the drums and make them sound polished. Make a copy of your drums as a backup so if you mess up you always have that to fall back on.
For most projects I keep the feel natural and not super quantized. Putting everything right on the grid (bar lines) is a great way to take the life right out of your track so I like to avoid that.
For more about recording drums check out my course the Sound Visualization Method.
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Also, in case you didn’t know, I mix singles, EPs, and Albums for Rock and Metal bands. You can check out my work and get more info at mattclarkmixer.com/secdir/ as well as get prices, etc.
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