RECORDING DRUMS

The typical drum kit consists of a kick drum, snare, a couple of tom-toms mounted on stalks from the kick drum, a floor tom, a hi-hat, and a couple of cymbals maybe a crash and a ride. Obviously, many drummers have a lot more to hit than this simple list, while some make do with less. The overriding element, though, is that it is all percussion so it is transient-rich and usually very loud! Naturally, this affects the kinds of microphones we choose and use, the kind of processing that we apply, and the problems we can expect to encounter along the way. Before even unfolding the first mic stand, it is absolutely essential that the drum kit sounds good in the studio. A soggy, rattly kit will always sound soggy and rattly, no matter what magic you do with your microphones and sound desk. A tight, good-sounding kit will be a lot easier to record and will sound a lot nicer as a result, so it's well worth spending an hour retuning and sorting out the kit. The acoustic environment should also be considered. For example, if the room is too live (hard surfaces can produce unwanted reverberation), you may find that an old mattress or some cardboard boxes can be strategically positioned to deaden the ambient sound. On the other hand brick or stone walls may provide the kind of bright, reflective sound you are looking for.

MICROPHONE CHOICE AND PLACEMENT Probably the most purist approach is required in acoustic jazz, so let's start with this situation. Much like orchestral percussion, the most natural sound can be obtained with a high-quality condenser mic positioned overhead and either in front of or behind the kit. Most engineers prefer large-diaphragm condensers in this role, although small-diaphragm mics can be just as effective in most applications. A single, wide-cardioid mic placed above and behind the drummer's head works very well. Placing a stereo mic in the same place usually provides a very natural and well-balanced sound too. The exact mic position will need to be played around with a little, naturally, to find the best balance of drums and cymbals in the acoustic, but it is quite a good starting point. It is worth bearing in mind that, while the cymbals tend to radiate sound in a bipolar or figure-or-eight pattern above and below the metal plate, the hi-hats tend to radiate sound horizontally. This information provides two clues to help position your mics. Firstly, you can reduce the level of cymbals relative to drums by bringing the mic closer to the plane of the cymbals, where they will radiate little energy. If you want more cymbal, move higher and more directly above them. Since the cymbals radiate up and down, you can also place mics below the cymbals, closer to the drums themselves. In fact, this used to be a very common way of miking up kits in dance bands often with just a single condenser cardioid mic in front of the bass drum on the plane of the hi-hat (to

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ensure it was heard clearly), and angled towards the snare. In general, a better overall kit sound is obtained by going overhead, and you can often find an acceptable balance of most of the kit anywhere between two and three metres above the floor, and either behind or in front of the kit. The more distant positions obviously require a good acoustic environment and low levels of spill from other instruments. If the coincident stereo miking approach is not to your liking, or you have to work with closer overhead mics because of the ambient conditions, then the most popular configuration is a pair of cardioid condensers set up as overheads and spaced apart to cover each half of the kit separately. Again, some experimentation will be required to obtain the best balance, and don't worry about keeping the mics symmetrical either in their height or position. In this role they are effectively covering independent elements of the one large instrument. Place them where you find the best individual sound balance for the appropriate section of the kit much as you would place two mics in a grand piano to capture the high and low ends independently. Miking The Kick Drum In general, and certainly in acoustic jazz, the sound from the overhead mics will be the defining sound of the kit, and the basis on which you might want to add further 'spot' or 'accent' mics to obtain the desired composite sound. In almost every case, you will want to add a mic to bolster the kick drum. The size and repetitiveness of the pressure wave emanating from a kick drum makes this a relatively tough job for any microphone to withstand. For that reason a moving-coil mic is best suited to the job, being inherently more robust than a condenser. A good high-frequency response is clearly not required in this role, and a thicker diaphragm is less likely to become stretched and floppy over time. An extended low-frequency response is usually an advantage so the AKG D112 is an excellent specialist mic for the job. When placing the mic, it is a good idea to stay away from the centre of the drum head, because there will be a wider and better balance of harmonics closer to the edge. If the front head has been removed, or has a large enough hole cut in it, then place the mic on a stand and position it close to the beater head, about halfway between the centre and edge. Small changes in position can make a big difference to the sound, so before reaching for the EQ knobs make sure you have put the mic in the best place to start with. If the front skin is missing, make sure the unused fixings don't rattle. A blanket, heavy pillows or other dense fabric placed in the bottom of the shell and pressing against the beater head will help dampen any ringing and provide a much tighter, more rock-oriented sound. Depending on the relative position of the overhead mics and the kick drum mic, the initial wavefront from the kick drum may reach them in different relative phases. If the polarities are reversed then a lot of low energy will cancel out, leaving a thin sound. It is therefore important that you experiment

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with the phase switch on the kick drum channel to find the position which provides the fullest bass end with the overhead mics faded up.

It is generally useful to thin out the mid-range a little with EQ, around about 450Hz, which reduces the tendency towards sounding like a cardboard box. A little presence boost around 3kHz helps the beater click to cut through, and you can filter off everything above about 5kHz to remove cymbal spill. However, it is usually safer to record flat and introduce the EQ only during the mixdown stage, as the precise frequencies and amounts will depend on the other instrumentation and the overall mix. The key is to make the kick drum and bass guitar (or acoustic bass) complement one another without creating a stodgy, muddy bottom end. That often means thinning out the bottom of the kick drum to leave room for the bass. At this stage, you should have a well-balanced, natural sounding drum kit with a nicely weighted kick drum and a good overall sound through the overheads, panned for stereo if required. If the drummer is a good one, the snare, hi-hat, toms and cymbals should all sound in the appropriate proportions. A surprisingly common problem, though, is for the drummer to be a little light on the snare drum and heavy on the hi-hat. If this is the case then you will have to consider adding another spot mic for the snare drum. Snare Drum & Hi-hats A dynamic mic is often the best option here since it is more robust and has a restricted transient response compared to a condenser mic. What this means is that the microphone's relatively heavy diaphragm can't respond quickly enough to follow the entire dynamic transient of the snare drum, and so acts as a kind of limiter. The mic should be placed near the edge of the head for two reasons: firstly to minimise the chances of it getting hit, and secondly because a fuller range of overtones is present near the edge. Also, being a cardioid mic, the proximity effect will help to lift the low end, giving an even fuller sound. Aiming it toward the area where the drum sticks hit the batter head will help to provide the maximum attack. However, be wary of placing it too close to, or looking directly at, the hi-hat, since the 'chuff' of air produced when the hi-hats close is usually sufficient to cause blasting on the snare mic. A hypercardioid mic is sometimes a better choice than a cardioid, as it can usually be positioned to make more effective use of its nulls to reject the hi-hat. As with the kick drum mic, it is important to check the relative phase of the snare drum mic against the overheads and the kick drum. Normally one position of the polarity switch on the desk channel will sound obviously better fuller and more cohesive than the other. If the overall snare drum sound is okay, but you want a little more 'zizz' from the snare wires, you could place the mic under the snare or even use mics

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above and below. If the latter, remember that the bottom mic must be switched to the opposite polarity of the top mic, because its diaphragm will be moving in the opposite direction to the one on the batter head mic when the drum is struck. Once recorded, a little boost around 250Hz can improve the fullness of the sound, but don't take it too far or you'll end up with it sounding muddy. Since the hi-hat is in the area, it is not always necessary to mike it up separately there is almost always enough hi-hat in the overheads and/or snare drum mic. However, should you feel the need for greater control and definition, another condenser mic can be placed about 10-15cm over the outside edge of the hi-hat, looking down on the side furthest away from the snare. Since the mic is seeing the hi-hat perpendicular to the plane of the cymbals it will be immune from the air chuff emitted when the hi-hats close. A little lift at the extreme high-frequency end (10kHz or so) can enhance the sizzle and sparkle if required. Adding Tom-Tom Mics In our purist, jazz-based kit, the toms very rarely need separate miking, because the main balance is obtained from the overheads. However, in more rock-oriented music everything is close-miked, as much for effect as anything but this is a situation of diminishing returns. The more mics you have open, the more spill. The more spill, the less control, and the harder it is to balance the kit. This multi-miking approach is, nevertheless, sometimes the best solution for a particular musical style, or if the entire band is playing in the same space (or on stage). In this situation the more distant overhead mic placement simply won't work, because of excessive spill, so we have to close-mike everything and balance the kit at the console. We have already talked about mic placement for the kick drum, snare and hi-hat, and these ideas still apply. The overhead mics can be brought a lot closer now, as, instead of trying to find a position where they capture the entire kit, they simply have to pick up the cymbals. How close you can go depends on the number and arrangement of the cymbals, how they are mounted (since this governs how far they will swing), and the kind of sound you are after, but somewhere between 20cm and 100cm is the typical range. Aim the mics towards the outer edges of the cymbals. Be careful with any EQ too much can leave the cymbals sounding like harsh sheets of tin and watch that headroom! The tom-toms are best miked up like the snare drum, with dynamic mics positioned just over the rim looking at the centre of the head. The rear null of the mic should be angled up to reject as much cymbal as possible again, hypercardioid patterns often work better in this role, since they don't have to be angled quite so steeply, although watch out for that rear tail picking up something you don't want. With small toms mounted close together, you may get away with a single mic positioned between the two drums and pointing straight down the middle.

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However, this really only works well if you are using a mic with a very wide cardioid pattern, as both drums are well off axis of the one mic. A better approach is to use a mic with a figure-of-eight pattern, since this can be arranged to see both toms while also providing the maximum rejection of the cymbals above. Recording & Mixing

With all your mics placed, plugged, phased and working properly, listen to each carefully for spill, rattles, buzzes, or anything else that shouldn't be there. Panning the mics for stereo is down to personal taste. Traditionally the kick drum is placed in the centre. This is often wise because the load is shared on both channels enabling the power amp to put more and better-balanced LF energy into the listening room. With a minimalist miking scheme, the overheads will define the stereo image either as a coincident or spaced pair depending on how they have been rigged. Most engineers pan these fully left and right, but you should consider less width to create more space for other instruments and to make a more realistic sound stage. If you have added a spot mic on the snare, it should be panned to the same position as the snare heard on the overheads, otherwise you will have a blurred and confused image. The easiest way to adjust the snare pan is to listen to the stereo overheads, focus on where the snare is in the image, and then fade up the spot mic. If the spot is panned to the centre initially, as it is faded up the image of the snare will pull back to the centre as the spot overwhelms the overheads. Pull the snare back down, pan the channel in the appropriate direction and fade up the snare again. This time the image of the snare will not pull as far, or may pull in the opposite direction, so adjust the pan a little more in the appropriate direction and try again. Repeat the process until fading up the snare just makes the snare louder, without pulling the image. It sounds long-winded, but will only take two or three goes with practice. If you have gone down the close-miking path, there should be enough separation between mics to allow you to pan anything pretty much anywhere. The toms are usually arranged to span the entire stereo image, with the kick in the centre, the snare and hi-hat panned either centrally or slightly right, and the cymbals scattered as appropriate to fill in the image. Depending on the drummer's playing style and the type of music, you may want to apply a little compression the snare and/or kick drum to provide a more even and thicker sound. Pay careful attention to the attack and release settings, since too fast an attack will damage the initial transients, and too long a release will negate the compression anyway. Start with a medium attack and short release, and adjust the threshold and ratio settings to achieve the desired degree of squash bearing in mind that more compression means louder spill.