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Drum set miking in rock and pop music
student research project of Vito Lis
study path sound engineer at the S.E.T. Berlin
The sound of a drum set has always been and will always be a crucial factor for the overall sound of a band and a production.
Just think about bands like Genesis with their unmistakable sound delivered by Phil Collins
or Queen with Roger Taylor, Metallica with Lars Ulrich, or Alex van Halen.
You often only need to listen to the sound of the snare drum, the bass drum or the toms
to immediately know which band you are listening to.
This phenomenon shows the importance of the drum sound and how it is selectively designed
by the respective producer and sound engineers in order to obtain another recognition value in a production or a band.
In this video I would like to discuss the mic'ing of a drum set in rock and pop music.
However, the drum set has to be set up in a great sounding room and the matching drumheads have to be chosen and tuned precisely before.
I will not focus on this preliminary work as it would exceed the time frame of this video.
I would like to introduce some microphones and different configuration possibilities in order to achieve different sound variations.
Due to the high sound pressure and the frequencies to transmit, a dynamic main microphone like e.g.
the AKG D112 or its precursor D12, but also the Shure Beta 52 or the Sennheiser E 602 is used for mic'ing the bass drum.
This is preferably positioned inside of the drum and aligned towards the *** of the bass drum pedal.
The nearer the microphone is positioned to the batter head the more emphasized is the high-frequency sound, the so-called kick.
The further from the batter head away, the more volume / punch is added to the sound and the lesser kick will be recorded.
In order to record both the sound variants at the same time, you need another level-stable microphone lie for example an E-Voice RE20.
In this case you position an AKG D112 very near to the batter head and the ***, whereas the second microphone is set up inside the resonance hole or outside the shell.
In order to obtain a low-sounding bass drum you can help yourself with a so-called sub kick.
This one is positioned close to the resonance head.
When sending the sub kick track through a low-pass filter and adding it to the other drum tracks you will get a nicely deep-sounding bass drum.
Another recording possibility, especially when the drummer uses a resonance head without resonance hole, is to mic the bass drum outside the shell.
In order to do record the kick, one microphone is placed close to the ***, whereas a second microphone is positioned near the resonance head.
However, in this case, the channel separation is affected significantly.
In order to prevent this, there is the possibility of tunneling.
Tunneling is the technique in which the bass drum is enclosed with e.g. foamed material to isolate it acoustically.
In doing so, you can prevent the bass drum microphones to record too much of the rest of the drum set.
Another possibility would be to use a boundary microphone like e.g. the Shure Beta 91 A and to put it inside the shell.
In this case the microphone must be fixed well as the strong beats of the bass drum pedal during recording and the sound pressure could cause it to get out of its place.
The snare drum is preferably mic'ed with a dynamic microphone on the top and a condenser microphone from the bottom.
Sometimes two identical microphones are used, too.
Standard snare drum microphones are e.g. the Shure SM 57, Shure Beta 57 A, Sennheiser MD 441, MD 421 or Sennheiser E606.
Especially in case of big microphones, mic'ing from above is not always easy to do because the adjacent toms and the hi-hat cause positioning problems.
The upper microphone is positioned on the rim and aligned with the drumhead center. By doing so, you obtain a fat sound with very little harmonics.
The more the microphone points towards the rim, the more harmonics will be recorded ó the snare sounds thinner.
Dampening the batter head with a little gaffa tape can be helpful in case the snare produces too many harmonics.
However, you have to be careful not to dampen the batter head too much, otherwise it will quickly sound "dead".
In order to emphasize the sound of the snare wires which are located at the resonance head
for creating an even punchier sound, a microphone facing up is positioned 4" under the resonance head.
Since the snare wires produce a high-frequency sound, a small or large diaphragm condenser microphone like the AKG C451 or the AKG C414 is recommended here
When mixing, it is essential to invert the phase of the bottom microphone in order to avoid phase cancellation.
In case the snare wire response is very sensitive and the wires are strongly presented also on other microphone tracks,
slightly loosening the tuning screws at the wires can be really helpful.
Often there is also a resonance problem with the 10" and/or 12" tom.
Also in this case you can help yourself by slightly changing the tom tuning
or better the resonance head of the toms in order to change the resonance frequency.
It is not recommended to dampen the snare wires because the only result is a dead snare drum sound.
Normally, toms are mic'ed with a microphone being positioned at the batter head.
In case of smaller toms a smaller distance to the batter head is recommended. The bigger the tom, the bigger the distance to the batter head.
The microphone should be positioned about 1" to 2.5" away from the drumhead edge facing towards the drumhead center.
In order to get a fat tom sound, the tuning of the toms and the choice of the batter heads are crucial.
It is not common to position a microphone at the resonance head
as this produces a sound with less attack coming from the drum sticks, which is rather undesired in rock and pop music.
A sound pickup variant is that of mic'ing inside the shell. This type of mic'ing was predominantly applied with so-called rock toms, i.e. toms without resonance head.
A well-known example here is Phil Collins. The advantage of this kind of mic'ing is the good channel separation between the drums.
Standard tom microphones are e.g. Shure SM 57, Sennheiser MD 421, Sennheiser E 604 or the Bayerdynamic Opus series
The latter two are being mounted to the rim.
For mic'ing the hi-hat a small-diaphragm condenser microphone is used in order to transmit the high frequencies of the hi-hat in a fast and precise way.
The microphone is positioned approx. 6" to 8" from the upper edge of the hi-hat and off axis regarding the drum set.
It is important not to align the microphone towards the space between the cymbals because the opening and closing of the cymbals produce air noises.
The more the microphone points towards the edge the lighter and "chickier" the sound.
When approaching the center of the hi-hat cymbals the sound gets more and more bell-like.
Standard microphones for hi-hat applications are e.g. Neumann KM 184, AKG C 451, AKG C1000S
but also AKG C 414 and other large-diaphragm microphones.
The overheads belong to the most important microphones at a drum set.
Regardless of the type of mic'ing, they are the main microphones because they generally reproduce the whole drum set.
Therefore, these microphones should be positioned with particular accuracy.
In rock and pop music mainly 2 different microphone configurations are used. AB and XY configuration.
Considering the height of the microphone position, it is important to know
that the higher the microphones are positioned the more spatial sound is captured rendering the sound "narrower".
The lower the microphones are set up the wider sounds the drum set and the lesser room information is captured.
The AB configuration
2 two 3 microphones are needed. They are set up in exactly the same distance from the center of the drum set at its outer edge.
The center of the drum set is the bass drum and the snare, or the center between both.
With larger drum sets the microphones are so far apart that the in center, between the 2 overhead microphones, a "sound hole" is formed.
In this case a center microphone is set up. As the name suggests, this microphone has to be positioned exactly in the center.
Cardioid characteristics may be applied here, but also spherical characteristics apply well because the stereo image is achieved by different propagation times.
The advantage of this recording technique is the spatial depth of the recording.
The disadvantage is the low monocompatibility and the related phase cancellation of certain frequencies.
This compromise should be kept in mind!
Popular microphones often used for this overhead recording method are:
Neumann KM 184, AKG C 451 with cardioid characteristics
and microphones with switchable directional characteristics like the AKG C 414 or the Oktava MK 012 MSP6.
The XY configuration
For this method 2 microphones with cardioid characteristics are used.
They are oriented so that the capsules of the receivers are exactly positioned one above the other at an angle of 90 to 180 degrees.
The angular orientation should be chosen so that the microphones capture the outer edges of the drum set.
Different manufacturers offer special stereo microphones for this purpose. With some of those microphones the capsule angle can be changed.
The advantage of this method is a good monocompatibility and stereophony. The disadvantage is a poorer spatiality compared to the AB configuration.
Microphones suitable for this recording method are: Neumann KM 184, AKG C 451, and AKG C 414
Conclusion
When selecting the microphones, one has to pay attention to the appropriate directionality of the microphone chosen.
Depending on the recording technique, you can apply spherical but also cardioid characteristics for the overhead and room microphones.
The other drums are generally recorded using cardioid or hyper cardioid microphones.
The microphones should be positioned off axis from the sound source
As this is not completely possible, you should opt for the best compromise.
Furthermore, it is recommended to consider the risk of hitting the microphone with the drumstick while recording the drum takes.
However, in order to get a good drum sound, the choice of the drum set, the drumheads and their tuning,
the room acoustics and, last but not least the way the instrument is being played are of particular importance.
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