How to Mic a Drum Kit

Mic-ing A Drum Kit

The standard setup in drum recordings is:

* Kick - Centre

* Snare Centre

* Hats - Half right/right

* Cymbals - left - right

* Toms - left - centre - right.

A drum kit should be miked so a stereo image of the kit is evident as you will want to hear it in the mix. The overhead mikes should be placed directly above the kit and an equal distance apart so it makes an invisible equilateral triangle with where the drummer is sitting.

The next step is to mike the individual components so that their position and individual sound can be emphasised.

Kick Drum:

There are three ways of setting up a kick drum

* Front and rear skins on.

* Front skin with rear skin with hole in it

* Front skin only.

This setup allows you to balance the attack sound of the beater with the decay of the front skin of the drum. This miking setup also brings up and important factor in recording.

Microphone Phase Relationships:

Microphone phase is when two microphones used in stereo interfere with each other. The microphone over the beater it is pointing downwards like all the other microphones on the kit will do whereas the microphone on the front skin of the kick drum is facing the opposite way. Therefore the front skin mike should have the phase reversal. As you can see it is a good idea to reverse the phase of your kick mike even when you are not using two of them as the normal kick mike setup places the kick mike out of phase to the rest of the kit mikes.

The next setup is where the kick drum has a front skin on with a hole in it. Because of the hole you can access the front skin - thus the attack sound - without having to use a beater mike.

Here the mike is placed inside the drum pointing to where the beater hits so as to get the full impact of the beater.

Sound Pressure Level:

It should be noted here that the SPL (Sound Pressure Level) created by drums is extreme so you must select a microphone that can handle high SPL and even then it will output a high voltage into the console. Therefore a Microphone PAD should be inserted in the console to prevent the front end of the microphone preamp distorting.

Toms:

The toms are similar to the full kick drum miking in that there is a mike on the impact skin that gets the full attack of the stick when it hits the drum plus you can also add another optional bottom mike to get the bottom of the the drum. If you add a bottom mike to the toms you must reverse it's phase.

The Cymbals:

These are basically covered by the overheads but you might find that the ride cymbal needs a mike of it's own. Basically you want the crash cymbals to have a loose sound yet the ride often is the main drive.

Some engineers mike the ride from underneath. In an elaborate drum setup with lots of crash cymbals you might like to spot mike certain cymbals but if you've setup your overheads correctly they should cover the full cymbal range.

The Hihats:

Like the overheads the hihat also requires a mike with a clean top end so a condenser mike would probably work best. The hihat mike should be separated from the snare by placing it in a position that is pointed at where the drummer strikes it with his stick.

One of the problems you can get is where