Opinions on drum mic'ing

DonovanBankhead · #1 09-10-2011, 03:20 PM

We play in your average local bars, restaurants etc. It's a cover band doing dance songs from the 60's through now. Average size of the rooms are 75-150 capacity.

The drummer insists on mic'ing his kick, snare and 3 toms. I think the kick is a good idea, but the other mics are a) not necessary and b) help contribute to our feedback issues.

Oh yeah - he has a 15-piece kit and plays effing loud.

Who's right?

impactwrench · #2 09-10-2011, 03:24 PM

my drummer is the same way. mic the kick drum and two overhead condensers for everything else. and hes ham fisted with an old ludwig super sensitive (john bonham) snare. its probably the only reason I use 480-600 watts and the guitarist plays a mesa mark iv with extension cab.

Jimbob Jones · #3 09-11-2011, 12:36 PM

Leave his snare mic muted, maybe put the toms through the subs a bit (pre-fade, so it doesn't have to go through the tops as much/at all) and leave the kick as-is. You don't have to tell him that you've muted his snare.

TimmyP · #4 09-11-2011, 01:37 PM

The toms are always the weak part of the kit. Guys bash the cymbals and snare, but not the toms. I mic the kick first, then the floor tom, then the other toms as channel and mic availability allows. Then hat or snare as needed (sometimes the snare mic is just so I can get reverb on the snare - it's not routed to the mains - but sometimes using the snare mic to fatten the tone makes an overly loud snare less painful). 90% of the time, overheads will just give you more of the cymbals that you have too much of already.

SBsoundguy · #5 09-11-2011, 01:39 PM

I don't see the point of having any more than a 6 or 7 piece kit in a bar. The footprint is just too damn big.

JimmyM · #6 09-11-2011, 05:25 PM

Rooms like that are snare/kick micing only on the vast majority of my gigs that size. Too many live mics are death to good sound in small places.

Lo-E · #7 09-11-2011, 05:35 PM

impactwrench does what I was going to recommend: mic the kick and a pair of overheads for the rest of the kit. If you really want to get zany, you could mic the snare, but you certainly don't need it in a small/medium room.

Sounds like your drummer's got a bit of a Neal Peart complex....

prd004 · #8 09-11-2011, 05:48 PM

The acoustic level of the drums should be the bar for volume level for average bar gigs.
Mic the kick, OK I can see that but otherwise......................................
The only reason I would mic the drums is if PA support was being used for everything (or if the guitarists were just too effing loud), or the drummer was a Nancy

AndyLES · #9 09-11-2011, 06:48 PM

I mic everything...and use only what I need. Some rooms, I may only need the kick, while other times I'll need the Snare/toms/OHs as well.

Better to have and not need than need and not have. You never know when you need to route something to, say, in-ear monitors, a recording rig, etc.

Either that, or the place fills up with more people than you thought would come and then all of the sudden the extra bodies soak up the sound.

badstonebass · #10 09-12-2011, 09:37 AM

Especially if you are playing rock the drums all should be miked. It is amazing to me that those that play guitar/bass/sing(and cry about amp tones and mic vs DI) think the drummer should give in and do what THEY think is appropriate.

If you know what you are doing miking all the drums is no problem. I play gigs every weekend in dive bars to festivals with the SAME mic set up. The band sounds consistently GOOD because we use a consistent set up. In fact we sound better than most because we DO mic the drums and get a great rock sound out of them. The bands that cheat the drummer often sound weak...not because we ARE better...because we go the extra mile.

We don't fight feedback or bleed because we use these AMAZING products called GATES. Come on guys you need gates for a good drum sound anyhow.

That's my opinion then again I could be wrong.

musicman7722 · #11 09-13-2011, 05:53 AM

We use 3 to 6 mikes depending on the room and FOH request. I put the kick and overhead into our ears with reverb and between these and the 4 vocal mikes and 2 guitar mikes onstage there is plenty of drum in our IEM. I assume there is bleed out front. I can't speak form FOH but I assume he gates them as well, he has a large Yamaha digital board. We now use a Presonus board for monitors and I set the gate on each mike fairly high to help block out leakage.

Russell L · #12 09-13-2011, 06:31 AM

How deep should the kick drum be, eq-wise? One of my bands always has it set deeper than the bass, and WAY too loud. Sometimes I can hardly hear my bass, if at all, with the kick bumping along like that.

MNAirHead · #13 09-13-2011, 08:33 AM

Opinion

I err on low volume for venues like that. Eq depends on the room, clientele and gear

meycom · #14 09-13-2011, 09:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by badstonebass

Especially if you are playing rock the drums all should be miked. It is amazing to me that those that play guitar/bass/sing(and cry about amp tones and mic vs DI) think the drummer should give in and do what THEY think is appropriate.

If you know what you are doing miking all the drums is no problem. I play gigs every weekend in dive bars to festivals with the SAME mic set up. The band sounds consistently GOOD because we use a consistent set up. In fact we sound better than most because we DO mic the drums and get a great rock sound out of them. The bands that cheat the drummer often sound weak...not because we ARE better...because we go the extra mile.

We don't fight feedback or bleed because we use these AMAZING products called GATES. Come on guys you need gates for a good drum sound anyhow.

That's my opinion then again I could be wrong.

+1 to this, but obviously there are many opinions about amount of mic's...etc. One thing no one has mentioned is using a drum shield and then miking... I have seen other bands do this with varying results. We tried it once and with everyone using IEM's the stage volume was very pleasing.

Stanley Pugh · #15 09-13-2011, 09:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JimmyM

Rooms like that are snare/kick micing only on the vast majority of my gigs that size. Too many live mics are death to good sound in small places.

+1

DonovanBankhead · #16 09-13-2011, 09:51 AM

In our case, we aren't playing large enough venues, nor or we good enough, to worry about drum shields, IEM, FOH mixes vs Stage mixes. Just a regular old bar band. With a drummer that thinks he's playing for Whitesnake.

WalterBush · #17 09-13-2011, 10:06 AM

Kick and overheads cover the vast majority of drum sound needs IME. In some venues my cover band plays in, the OHs are overkill since the snare and cymbals are clearly heard at high volume throughout the room. In those cases, we close mike the toms, hat, and kick. The rest gets picked up through kit bleed (which happens even with gates, since drummers hit more than one drum at a time.)

Do you have any control over whether all those mics get muted or not? Mute the snare, it's a huge source of bleed since nearly every drum hit is reflected off the top head. Gate the toms if possible, they're a major source of feedback if not dampened.

Really, though, the primary problem sounds to me like it's your drummer's desire for every nuance of his playing to be heard, and disbelief that anything less than complete close miking will do that. Not much to be done about that, except maybe taking them to see other drummers with simpler mic setups that have a great sound.

DonovanBankhead · #18 09-13-2011, 10:24 AM

Yeah, I usually have access to the board, and often shut off the tom mics and the snare mic (leaving only the kick). The guy is a real pain to talk to about stuff like this - he takes it all personally, when I've NEVER had a patron tell us they couldn't hear the drums well enough. It's always the opposite problem...

Ric5 · #19 09-13-2011, 10:36 AM

Go with digital drums and plug them into the pa ...

then you won't need mikes.

Then you also have a volume control.

DonovanBankhead · #20 09-13-2011, 10:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by badstonebass

Especially if you are playing rock the drums all should be miked. It is amazing to me that those that play guitar/bass/sing(and cry about amp tones and mic vs DI) think the drummer should give in and do what THEY think is appropriate.

Dammit - who let the drummer in here?