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How To Record Drums

Written by Cives Tuesday, 10 March 2009 03:53

Time and time again, we hear the age old question,"How do you record drums?" Well, let me give you a few tips on how to achieve a really great drum sound. You can hear it on the song, Third Heaven. So here is the breakdown:

A Great Drum Kit. Our drummer had recently invested in a custom DW kit. He made sure all the heads were new and tuned, and allowed a night to let the heads stretch.
A Great Drummer. Though not showcased on this particular song, he is a very skilled drummer. You want to make sure your drummer is able to hit the kick drum consistently as well as every other drum, in particular the cymbals. Some of the best studio drummers out there are able to hit the toms and snare hard, but pull back on the cymbals so as to not eat up the spectrum. Cymbals eat spectrum like Pac Man on roids.
A Great Drum Room. The studio "Igloos Music" we recorded at had a phenomenal drum room. However good studios are very pricey so for the more budget minded do it yourselfers, I would recommend the following. a.) Make sure the room is large enough to reduce annoying flutters and produce a large ambience b.) Wood surfaces or paneling on the walls are good things as they warm up the sound. c.) DON"T KILL THE REVERB, control it. You can use blankets, sheets, etc. to dampen the room a bit, perhaps where there might be some annoying slap backs or ringing. A little bit of ambience is essential for a good drum sound, so again, don't kill the reverb.
Good preamps - The preamps we used were APIs 8 Channel Preamp rack and Avalon VT-737sp Vacuum Tube Single Ch. Mic Pre-Amp. You can rent them at Design FX. The link will take you direct to their preamp page. Again, good preamps are a must and the APIs are phenomenal for drums.
Mic Setup - Two Neumann U-87s for overheads (these are incredible as overheads), Shure SM57s on the snare and toms (no secret there), C1000 on the High hat, Electro-Voice RE-20 on the kick, and two Oktava condensors placed about 10 feet away from the kit (Any solid condensors will do). This is where not killing the ambience with too much treatment comes in. These mics will give you a really fat sound! Make sure you utilize monitoring and play back to adjust for any phasing problems.
I would recommend a couple of extra room mics if you can afford them. You can play with them in post. Also, you might want to put a mic on the ride if the songs utilize that cymbal a lot.
Experiment! This is one way to get a great drum sound, but there are many others.

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