Limited Mics for recording drums, any ideas?

[tpmiller08]

My band has a Tascam 1884(think its 1884 at least) 8-Channel sound board.

We have 5 Mics in total, but only 3 XLR cables to actually plug them in.

We set up the mics so we had a vocal mic on the bass drum (in that little hole thingy on the outside skin), and a vocal mic at the snare drum, and a condenser mic on the opposite side of the snare drum.

The drums came in really treblely and "tinny" we put the EQ curve on Cubase so that the bass curve was all the way up. It works, but its not great.

Is there anything we can do to make this work better? We're trying to make a demo for now, until we pick up the drum mics and do it all over again.

Any suggestions would be awesome

-Troy

[lm183902]

If by "vocal mic", you mean something similar to an SM58, then your best setup is probably going to be one vocal mic on the kick, one vocal mic on the snare top, and the condenser as a mono overhead.

Won't be glamourous, but should do the trick.

[bongomania]

Putting the mic inside the kick is mostly for live onstage. In studio the mic would be outside the drum, pointed at more or less the middle of the head. You can get fancy with multiple mics on a snare, but with limited number of mics you only need one on the snare, up top and off to one side a bit, aimed at the center of the head and at a 30 to 45 degree angle. Both the kick and snare mics can be typical SM57's or whatever dynamics you've got.

If you've got a condenser, and if it's got a broad pickup pattern, then hang that over the top of the kit. Not too close to the cymbals though. Try aiming it at the rack toms.

[OrionManMatt]

The mic for the kick could be any number of places.

I like this approach sometimes (despite its few drawbacks):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQkdFIyv8Y0

[acubass]

I've done many recordings with a single overhead and kick. Always with decent results.
I always record live so sometimes the fewer the mics the better in my situation.

[mrufino1]

I am betting that your trebly tinny sound is due to phasing. From your description it is hard to tell exactly where the mics were, but I bet the condenser and the snare mic were out of phase. There is a lot of reading on the net about micing drums, and it takes a lot of practice. I would suggest using your condenser as an overhead, along with your kick mic. Learn where to place them. Actually, before you even put up a mic, make sure the drums sound good in the room. Drums need some space to breathe in a room- if the ceiling is low and untreated, the sound will bounce back into the mic out of phase with the original sound and thin it out very much. So once you find where in the room the drums sound best, start moving your head around until you hear what you want to hear from the drums, then put the mic there. Hard to screw it up that way. But eq and plugins will never make a crappy kit, or a crappy drummer (sorry!) sound great. Get it right at the source and it is hard to screw it up. Just keep working at it until you get it. If something doesn't sound right, look to the source first, if the drums and drummer sound good, then start moving that mic around again. Also, might be time to buy a few xlr's!

[62Jazzbass]

There is no where near enough info here to begin to figure this out. There have been some good tips and suggestions, but they may or may not work depending on the cause of the problem. We can't help you solve your problem without knowing what it actually is. The "treblely and tinny" sound is a symptom of something else, not the problem.

First -"What" mics are you using. The "vocal" mics could be SM 58s, not my first choice for kick and snare, but certainly shouldn't be a "problem". On the other hand, these could be some crap from Walmart....THAT would likely be a problem.

Second - As for phase issues, that's easy to check on the existing recorded tracks. Mute all but the kick (I assume the three drum mics went to individual tracks (not to be confused with inputs). Does that sound thin and tinny? If so, something else is going on, because with only one mic, there can be no phase issues.

Third - Are you recording with any EQ or filters on, rather than flat? It's OK to do so IF you know what you are doing. Do the input channels have LOW CUT filters on them, and are they engaged?

Fourth - Is it your playback system. Maybe your speakers are lying to you. What does everything else sound like? Print the drums to a CD (without your whacked out bass boosted EQ curve from Cubase) and listen elsewhere. Still thin?

If you can toss an example up on the web somewhere we could listen to, that would help.

FWIW - The drums here ( www.concrete-blues.com ) were done with 4 mics using the Glyn Johns method (Google it), with the addition of a spot mic on the snare.