Recording Drums, Part II: Close Mic Techniques

[@AlexLukeMusic]

such valuable videos, watchese these about 3 years ago for my home studio recordings, and working on new projects and wanted to revisit them!

[@SonicScoop]

Awesome to hear! Glad to have you back :-) -Justin

[@joejonfitzpatrick]

I have the e914 mics are love them! Interesting on snare. Never tried it but will do now! Thanks for these vid. They are excellent. Keep 'em comin' :)

[@austing.8870]

The condenser sounds amazing on the snare.

[@lifeofalex9199]

I heard that condenser and went wow why do we all put dynamic mics on the snare??

[@RicardoPabloMusic]

Really a great videos with excellent drum sounds and mics. I love the Sennheiser mics.

[@musicbySTIX]

Thank you very much for this video also! It really helped me a lot! I love how thorough the video is and how clear it is! Keep up the amazing work! =D

[@jeroenfigee]

Blend the shell snaremic in with rest and you got a fantastic sound. It almost sound drummachine-like. Never saw that technique. Really cool !

[@JO-ox7yq]

Thank you for this video. Very clear and helpful!

[@thesuccessfulbarber]

sweet. you just saved me 500 hours of experimentation

[@LuisHouses]

great tips

[@MrBrinxter]

Probably not a good idea to put the snare shell mic right on the air hole on the snare drum

[@JustinColletti]

It's hard to get a good sense for the exact angle in the video, but yes, you're right Biggi!: It's a good idea not to point the mic directly on axis with the vent. You can get some very weird low-frequency air blasts that way. (Kind of like plosives.) We're pretty close to the vent here, but yes: Better to point at the shell rather than directly into the vent!

[@GeorgePiazza]

I stopped using air vents and kick drum holes as mic placement locations some time ago; the air blast does not contribute to the sound (IMHO) and the artifacts are detrimental to the recording. I look for the best sounding spot on the skin; if more snap is needed, a Sure Beta 91 inside provides the heavy metal 'tick' that some recordings require.

[@Nowaczyk308]

@@GeorgePiazza Is your snare interenally mic'ed, I guess it is from your comment. Do you like the sound better them an outside mic?

[@drampadreg1386]

Mike the attack heads on the toms and the resonance heads on the kick so you have to cut a hole and stuff that pricy kick with a pillow or something. Or, you can put a mic on each head of the kick and use a felt strip behind the front head with no holes cut in the kick head, and that is how I get a very good kick sound. You just have to be sure the kick side won't get banged around by the drummer, and use a cardoid or hyper cardoid polar pattern on the kick side. Mic it just like the other drums except you have two mics, one on each side. Try it, you can use a small diaphragm condenser or dynamic on the kick side but I prefer the condenser. I never cut a hole in my kick head, and the price represents build and engineering quality so I sure won't stuff my kick drum but that felt strip off center behind the front kick head makes it easy to get the sound you need without destroying that expensive kick head and the sound is sweet, I've been complemented on my kick sound several times by drummers, because I am a drummer.

[@schmitty101]

Very helpful! Thanks guys :)

[@sockysworld8010]

Awesomeness

[@Nowaczyk308]

Your coplete series is just what I needed to see and hear. I'm using The May internal mic system with AKG D112's and SM57's. Do you think it would be worth an experiment to adjust angles and heigth from the batter heads on the rack toms?

[@AJDOLDCHANNELARCHIVE]

Great stuff guys, very informative videos :)

[@SoundweaversRecording]

awesome sounding drumkit! make and model?

[@pawelmorrison]

It`s a Ludwig, probably classic maple. The snare drum looks like a Ludwig Supraphonic LM400 14x5

[@JustinColletti]

Paweł Morrison Good eye Pawel! That snare is actually my own personal Ludwig Supraphonic. I take it to every session. Never know when you're going to need one. The kit is a vintage Ludwig maple kit that belongs to the good folks at Strange Weather.

[@pawelmorrison]

Must be something about that drum, because i`ve never heard of a proffessional studio drummer without a supra :)

[@cedarandsound]

I have that same drumset, it's a Ludwig Fab 4 Club Kit

[@nogoogleplus]

really helpful thanks!

[@jayjayDrm]

has the low sound of the shell-mic-technique something to do with pointing the mic to the air-vent?

[@laurensdrumt]

that was my first thought on this placement as well, i play drums and you can feel the air pushed out of those air-vents when you hit the drums, so i guess you should avoid placing a mic pointing directly to a air-vent...

[@JustinColletti]

Yes, you should avoid pointing the mic directly on-axis with the vent. I wish I had explained that better in the video. Slightly axis from the vent is better-you may get a major plosive artifact if you're straight on axis.

[@LuísSantiagoMálaga]

just thank you

[@benartzigeva]

thsnks!

[@richardlibby8825]

the e905 mics are no longer available and hard to find. Any suggested replacements?

[@Ayonbuddy28]

yes u deserve 300 likes and 0 dislikes ... Thanks

[@DDrummerxD]

Hi guy´s! you might add that the last snare technique will add a lot of air(bad air/popping) and therefor it´s important to use a pop filter etc.

[@thesuccessfulbarber]

I set mine up about a foot and aim in at a 45, .. Pop usually comes from vocal syllables such as P and B..

[@DDrummerxD]

Cody Walker Jr. Yes i do agree that having the mic a foot away help´s agains "that sound", but then again i would say that the less mic´s are better because of phase. if the drummer is good a few mic´s can be enough. Eric Valentine uses only 4 mic´s on drums and i would say that he captures the music he record´s in a great way.

[@JustinColletti]

Hi Anders, That's true if you aim it right at the hole. It should be off-axis from the hole. I wish the video had explained and showed that more clearly. There's always next time!

[@DenVuTv]

Hi I'm new to mixing and i was wondering, what do you mean by swiching the polarity andhow do you do that?

[@MyNameIsCallumBenson]

Hi im also new so im not 100% but i think he means on you eq you see a little button that looks like this: ø This will switch the wave form into the opposite so the two mic signals arent cancelling eachother out n cause phasing I hope that im both right n helpful!

[@JustinColletti]

That's exactly right, *****! When placing two mics on a single source, it's generally a good idea to try the polarity switch both ways on one of the mics (using the "ø" switch your preamp or in your DAW) and go with whichever position sounds fuller.

[@Ankylophobia]

I would love to see these videos with less muffled drums

[@SonicScoop]

If you're liking Justin's instructional videos here on SonicScoop, you might like his new video course on mixing, called "Mixing Breakthroughs". Check it out at mixingbreakthroughs.com/

[@Dwolfmusic]

Is it me or doest this guy sound like Flea of RHCP?

[@h-voltage]

someone please put a deesser on this guys face! :D great video btw

[@fejneerg]

He doesn't explain that you need to flip the phase on the bottom mic, or that when he pointed the mic to the side of the snare's shell, he pointed it right at the hole. "Kinda'" important points.

[@kylewilliams640]

not always

[@morbidmanmusic]

one key to a drum sound... good heads, and not a ton of tape and tissues... lol. Start great, destroy as you go. Better theory .

[@danjwalker]

I'm wearing headphones while watching this and it's interesting to me how horrible the audio is during the explanation parts. A lot of music tutorial videos tend to suffer from this.

[@dillontaylor8035]

Terrible video. Didn’t even mention flipping the phase on the bottom mics.

[@TheFabioOrchedella]

i really hate that snare sound. too much muffling

[@tiarahuddleston1763]

that kit sounds dead because of how muffled it is, christ.

[@TempoDrift1480]

Too bad that drum wasnt even tuned. Probably would have been a 100 percent better video. I know women that have more balls than that.