Recording Drums

[john]

Hey

Anyone have any tips for microphones/mic placement/eq/compression etc for recording acoustic hand drums? I'm planning on recording some bodhran...

Cheers

John

[john]

No takers then?

Oh well...

[kurtyb]

Lol John!

I'm the first taker I guess :-) Hand Drums are very fun to record ~ I had the pleasure of recording a "World Beat Tour" at a studio in Seattle about 10 years ago featuring Michael Shrieve (Santana) ... For the low sonic end puppies such as Tablas or large "Talking Drums", the good old EV RE-20 works great~ For the higher end (sonically), I recommend a small good condenser like an AKG 451. For the mids, nothing like an old Neumann 87 :-) For snares, a Shure 87 works great (is also a great hammer) :-) Oh, and you also mentioned compression. I use a combo of an LA-2A and a DBX-360 ( The 360 is used for brick-wall, the LA-2A for the softer "Tube Compression" ) I also use the same combo for Vox, but with obvious level changes...

Cheers

Kurt

Edited August 2, 2005 by kurtyb

[Prometheus]

Use a couple of decent quality condensers (if you have them) as overheads suspended a few feet above the kit and pointing down at the cymbals to get a bit of top end sizzle on the drum mix. Other than that, my advice would be to make sure that you know the cardioid pattern of each mike and make sure it is pointing directly at the drum you want to record to try and rejecting as much bleed as possible, that way you can usually gate (being careful not to do it too savagely) a lot of the unwanted noise out...

Recording drums is a whole black art in itself... I was extremely fortunate that I had a lot of drum recording work to do when I was serving my time at college, because it's something you don't come up against every day... I've found that there is no prefect way to record drums, and that getting a produced sound on them is all in the gating and EQ... I tend to roll a lot of bass off the overheads, and I mean a lot, so the cymbals are almost splashing... Like anything else, you have to be careful not to overdo things...

Edited September 15, 2005 by Prometheus

[john]

Thanks for posting back guys!

I need to go and sleep now, but I'll have a good read of your advice when I get up.

Cheers

John

Hey Prometheus

Where in Scotland are you? i live in Glasgow!

Cheers

John

[Prometheus]

Thanks for posting back guys!

I need to go and sleep now, but I'll have a good read of your advice when I get up.

Cheers

John

Hey Prometheus

Where in Scotland are you? i live in Glasgow!

Cheers

John

I'm not far away... I'm in sunny Troon... I've gotta kind of DIY studio rigged up here... I got into all this stuff a few years ago, and went and did an HND Mutec course... I've been having some fun with it and been lucky enough to get the chance to do a few cool recordings...

Speaking of Glasgow, I've got a friend who lives up in Maryhill Road...