Since I just finished up a series of posts on recording drums, I thought it would be fitting to follow all that up with a post on recording percussion. Percussion is one of the most fun things to record. But if you’re like me, you don’t own too many percussion instruments. Since I’m not a percussionist, I can’t justify the expense of owning too many percussion instruments. But that does not stop me from finding ways to put percussion parts in recordings.

All you have to do is get a little creative with household objects-pots, pans, spoons, etc. I’ve used all kinds of items around the house and studio as percussion instruments to create sounds and textures of a wide variation. With a little creativity, you really can use almost any item from around your house to create that sound you have in your head.

Here’s some examples of the types of things I’ve used around the house to get some wild percussion sounds:

• Pots
• Pans
• Spoons
• Weights
• Lampshade
• Baking items (cookie sheet, casserole pan, etc)
• Shower curtain rod
• Grill
• Oven racks
• Boxes
• Tin cans (you can simply beat on this, or put something inside it, such as dry rice, beans, or pennies to create a shaker)
• Glass cups filled with various amounts of water
• Metal bowl filled with water (beat on the side gently with a mallet)

Next time you’re thinking of a percussion part for one of your recordings, look around the house and/or studio for some common items that you may be able to use to get the job done. It will be a lot quicker and cheaper than buying a percussion instrument, and chances are you will get something a lot more unique and inspiring.

//Jon
Twitter: @stsn

Since today is the last day I’ll be posting in July, and as I plan to tweak my posting schedule next month (posting a little less), I thought I’d post twice today in order to get to a conclusion to my series of posts on recording drums.

I suggested in my post earlier today that recording ambient/room tracks for drums is a bit of a wild card, and that you should take the liberty to experiment. I think this applies to choosing microphones as well. Get crazy. Try anything and everything. Have fun. Room mics are the “special sauce” that goes on top of the main drum sound. It’s the part of the sound that should, in a way, stand out from the rest of the drums.

I’ve literally tried all kinds of mics for recording drum ambience-from super expensive mics that I could never afford to own, to super cheap mics that I don’t care to own, to really quirky mics that I didn’t know existed.

This time, rather than make specific suggestions for what I know to have worked for people, I encourage you to experiment with anything and everything you can get your hands on-whether its’s a tube mic, dynamic mic, ribbon mic, or condenser mic. Hey, I once co-produced a project where we got our room sounds using a couple of built in mics from an old quirky reel-to-reel two track. My point being… get really creative…

Just jumping into this discussion on recording drums? Check out my previous posts on the topic:

The #1 Best Drum Miking Technique

Recording A Kick Drum

Recording A Kick Drum: Mic Selection

Recording Snare

Recording Snare: Mic Selection

Recording Drum Overheads

Recording Drum Overheads: Mic Selection

Recording Toms

Recording Toms: Mic Selection

Recording A Hi-Hat

Recording A Hi-Hat: Mic Selection

Recording Drum Room Ambience

Thanks for reading. Hope you’ve not only gotten something out of Producer Notes this July, but also enjoyed reading the blog.

//Jon
Twitter: @stsn

BTW-July 2011 signified the 4 year mark of Producer Notes. Thought I’d share :)

This is where things get creative, and where you should take the most liberties to experiment. Treat your room mics as the “wild card” of sorts for your drum setup and sound. Have a bit of fun.

I’ve taken all kinds of approaches to setting up mics to capture a room sound-stero mics, mics I treat as multi-mono, playing around with a combination of distant and far… It really all depends on the overall sound you’re going for.

If you’re looking for a really dry and tight sound, then you may want to use only one or two mics, placing them a little bit closer to the kit, and recording/blending them low in the mix (or don’t use any room mics at all). On the other hand, if you want to create a bigger sound, then placing a couple mics a bit further from the kit, and angled in such a way as to pick up mostly the ambient sound of the room is the best approach.

Play around with different ideas. Take the opportunity to experiment. I experiment with a slightly different room miking technique on pretty much every project I produce. I may end up changing some things around, but I always learn something from the experimentation process.

Here’s a few suggestions to get you started:

• A spaced pair across the room (6 or more feet away) in cardiod polar pattern (or even omni) – This is good for a bigger drum sound
• A mono mic in omni polar pattern placed directly in front of the kit, about 3 to 6 feet away, and 3 to 5 feet in hight – Good for adding ambience that fits right “behind” the kit in the mix, and adding a bit of “ooph” and presence to the kit just a bit.
• A mismatched pair of mono rooms – two completely different room mics, such as a condenser mic and a ribbon mic, placed in uneven distances/positions from each other. For example, one mic slightly more on the hi-hat side of the kit, about waist high and 3 to 4 feet in distance. Another mic more on the ride side of the kit about as high as your head, and 5 to 6 feet away from the kit.
• A mono mic behind the drummer
• Any combination of all of the above
• Don’t do any of the above – Check the post I wrote on that a while ago: Creating Drum Ambience With No Room Mics.

Just remember how phase plays into the equation-the more microphones you use, the more chance for phase issues. And phase issues=a less focused, lower quality sound. With room mics, a little goes a long way. Typically, two mics is the most you will ever need. If you want to experiment with more, go for it, but just keep your phase in check.

Just jumping into this “drum recording” discussion? Check out my previous posts on the topic:

The #1 Best Drum Miking Technique

Recording A Kick Drum

Recording A Kick Drum: Mic Selection

Recording Snare

Recording Snare: Mic Selection

Recording Drum Overheads

Recording Drum Overheads: Mic Selection

Recording Toms

Recording Toms: Mic Selection

Recording A Hi-Hat

Recording A Hi-Hat: Mic Selection

//Jon
Twitter: @stsn

Cymbals can quickly get harsh. And just as I mentioned in my post yesterday, hi-hats want to bleed all over your drum tracks like none other. Therefore, using a darker, dynamic or ribon mic to kind of tame the harshness of it all is my default preference.

Here’s what I know has worked well for people (myself included):

• Shure SM 57 – Seriously, you should just assume I’m always going to suggest this mic for everything.
• Shure SM7 – Kinda different to use this on hi-hat, but there’s a studio I work at quite often, that keeps the drum mics always set up. SM7 is what is on the hat, and it works!
• Salt Shaker Mic – These are awesome military-esque microphones from the 30s, 40s, and 50s, Such as the Western Electric 633, the Altec 632C, or the Electro Voice 630. They’re not “go-to” mics by any means, but if you ask around, it’s not impossible to track them down.

Instead of again telling you, “don’t go out and buy these mics,” I’m not only going to spare you from that spiel, but actually suggest that you go purchase a 57. After continually suggesting the 57 in pretty much every single one of my drum mic recommendations, it made me fully realize how essential that mic is. Even if you’re only recording once a month, it’s silly not to own this mic as it honestly is a decent choice for recording anything. Since it’s pretty cheap, and considering how much use it will get, you will actually save yourself some money if you just go ahead and buy one.

This post is a part of a bigger “recording drums” discussion. If you’re just now jumping in, take a look at my earlier posts on this topic:

The #1 Best Drum Miking Technique
Recording A Kick Drum
Recording A Kick Drum: Mic Selection
Recording Snare
Recording Snare: Mic Selection
Recording Drum Overheads
Recording Drum Overheads: Mic Selection
Recording Toms
Recording Toms: Mic Selection
Recording A Hi-Hat

//Jon
Twitter: @stsn

I have a real love/hate relationship with the hi-hat. To be honest I feel that most of the time it messes up what would otherwise be a great drum sound that I’m really proud of. It washes all over the place, and bleeds into every other mic excessively. However, I do really appreciate some good hi-hat work (Stewart Copeland?). There are a great many songs in which the hi-hat is so important to the arrangement. And it’s those rotten songs that make me have to actually like the ghastly thing.

Because of the excessive bleed, a lot of the time I don’t record the hi-hat at all. Even still if I do, I’ll keep it way down in the mix, and kind of take it as it goes-seeing how the drum sound and track is coming together, making decisions about how much hi-hat to put in the mix as things unfold.

Here’s how to get a useable hi-hat sound:

Place a mic at the 9 or 10 o’clock position (from the drummers perspective), on-axis, and about halfway between the bell, and the edge of the hat. As far as how much gain to apply to the mic-you don’t need very much at all. -10dB at the very most is all it takes.

Just jumping into this drum recording discussion? Here’s my previous posts on the subject:
The #1 Best Drum Miking Technique
Recording A Kick Drum
Recording A Kick Drum: Mic Selection
Recording Snare
Recording Snare: Mic Selection
Recording Drum Overheads
Recording Drum Overheads: Mic Selection
Recording Toms
Recording Toms: Mic Selection

//Jon
Twitter: @stsn

As the flow of this “recording drums discussion” is obvious at this point, and I’m clearly making my way around the kit, I’m going to keep this post super short by getting straight to the matter.

Here’s the microphones I know to have worked well for people (myself included) when recording toms:

• Shure SM 57-Is that any surprise at all?
• Sennheiser 421
• Sennheiser e604
• AKG 414′s-again, the now discontinued versions with the CK12 or nylon CK12 capsules are ideal
• Audio-Technica 4033
• Electro Voice RE20

For what it’s worth, the mics I keep going back to for getting the drums to tape (or disk) are:

Rack Tom: often times if there is only one rack tom I simply won’t put a mic on it, but allow for the overhead mic to capture it. Otherwise, I most often use a 57 or 421.

Floor Tom: These days I’m pretty consistent in going with a 4033.

And yeah, I’m going to reiterate my point about not rushing out to buy these mics. Try them first. Otherwise you’re spending money on gear just to have gear, and not legitimately investing in a tool for recording. The only exception would be if you go buy a couple 57′s.

Just jumping into this drum recording discussion? Here’s my previous posts on the subject:
The #1 Best Drum Miking Technique
Recording A Kick Drum
Recording A Kick Drum: Mic Selection
Recording Snare
Recording Snare: Mic Selection
Recording Drum Overheads
Recording Drum Overheads: Mic Selection
Recording Toms

//Jon
Twitter: @stsn

When talking about recording toms, it’s probably not really necessary to yet again make mention of my “use only one mic” M.O. There was a time when miking the top and bottom heads of toms was popular, but it’s not quite as common these days. In any case, using only one mic is indeed the way to go. As is placing the mic just like the great engineers who came before us do. It works.

Tuning
Most of the work in getting a good tom sound is actually in the tuning and dampening of the drum-not necessarily the miking (as a matter of fact, this is true in recording the entire kit). No mic placement can make a badly tuned drum sound good.

I recently came across a great video on tuning toms via the Audio Geek Zine blog: Tuning Drums Part One-Basics (from Spectre sound). Don’t be thrown off by the hard rock/metal aesthetic of the video. Their tips for tuning toms can and should be applied to all styles of music.

Once you get the drum properly in tune, put some gaffer’s tape or moon gels around the rim of the tom in various places to suppress the pitch and ring a bit. I usually don’t like to have any pitch or ring present in the tone of the drums-especially the toms. If you really want to suppress the pitch (like me), try placing some gaffer’s tape in an “X” in the center of both the top and bottoms heads.

Miking
For rack toms, placing the mic a few inches from the head, at the 12 o’clock position (from the drummer’s perspective), and angled towards the center typically does the trick. Placing the mic around the 1 or 2 o’clock positions (again, from the drummer’s perspective), a few inches off the head, and angled towards the center is ordinarily where you will find the sweet spot for floor toms. Also, tucking the mic underneath the ride cymbal, and aiming the mic such that the polar pattern rejects as much of the cymbal as possible helps in taming ride cymbal bleed into the floor tom mic.

Synopsis of recording toms:

• Getting a great sound has more to do with the tuning and dampening than mic placement.
• Tuning is a must. Dampening-to a degree-is a preference.
• Once the tuning and dampening is taken care of, placing the mic is a pretty straightforward (go back to the previous paragraph for advise).

//Jon
Twitter: @stsn

In contrast to choosing microphones to record kick and snare, there’s a much more diverse range of mics that recording engineers use for capturing drum overheads. That being said, there’s also a few common popularities that recordists often fall back on.

Because the subject of drum overhead mic selection can be quite vast, and include suggestions that can be very expensive, I’m going to keep my list limited to the most popular yet slightly less expensive options.

Here’s what I’ve seen work well for people (myself included):

• AKG 414-Very popular mic for recording drum overheads, but it’s a bit more on the expensive side. To be specific, the vintage 414s with the original CK12 capsules, or the C414B-ULS, C414B-TL, and/or C414B-TLII with the nylon CK12 capsules are the preferred choices (all these versions have been discontinued).
• Audio Technica 4033
• Shure KSM44-Probably my most used mic for recording overheads. Sometimes I find them a little bit harsh on the cymbals, but fine-tuning the placement, and darkening up the cymbals in the room helps a lot with this. These mics are also a bit on the expensive side.
• Cascade Fat Head-This is simply an incredible mic, with a magical price!
• Shure SM 57-Yep, you read that right. Believe it or not, the SM 57 can be a great overhead mic!

So as I’ve made a point to say before, don’t rush out and buy these microphones (actually, buying a 57 or two would probably be a good idea at this point). They’re popular, so you won’t have trouble gaining access to them. Borrow, rent, or book studio time (in which case you will gain access to all their mics) in order to gain use of them initially. When you find that you’re using a particular mic quite frequently, then consider making a purchase.

//Jon
Twitter: @stsn

[I was aiming to post every day this week, but alas I've been in crisis mode since Monday. I'm Back from a fatal hard drive crash that nearly took me completely out this week. I got REALLY lucky-I recovered nearly all my files. In any case, below is the post I had planned to publish on Monday...]

If you’ve been reading my recent posts over the last couple weeks about recording individual parts of the drum kit, then I bet you can guess what I’m going to say about recording drum overheads…

The best approach to capturing a great, well-balanced overhead sound is the most simple, quickest to set up, and phase friendly miking method. You guessed it, this means using only one mic.

This mono approach to capturing a drum overhead sound I learned all about from a great friend and mentor, who is a very talented engineer. It took me a while to warm up to the idea of using only one mic to capture the overhead sound of the kit, but once I tried it and really dug in, I was very pleased with the outcome.

As I’ve explained before, the less mics you have on a source, the less phase issues you come up against. And the less phase issues there are, the more hi-fi the sound of your recordings. You can’t be any more phase accurate than one single mic.

From a mixing standpoint, using just one mono overhead, condenses and centers the kit within the overall mix of the track. When placed directly in the center of the stereo spectrum this way, the drums are set up to have a nice punchy impact that supports the mix in a natural way. It’s kind of like the primary pillar of a an architectural structure that supports the whole building.

Additionally, a mono overhead simplifies the aspect of recording the cymbals. An interesting observation that my mentor pointed out is that when you record drums with multiple overhead mics, often the cymbals can cause momentary phase-like anomalies that sound a bit ugly. Using one overhead eliminates this, as there’s no chance for timing discrepancies between multiple overhead mics.

So here’s what I recommend:

Start with one well-placed mic centered over the twelve o’clock and six o’clock positions of the snare and rack tom respectively (from the drummers viewpoint), and anywhere from one to five feet in hight over the kit. This gives you a balanced sound from all the elements of the kit in relation to the cymbals. Next, listen and adjust depending on certain specific factors, such as the player, the style of music, and the aesthetic of the band and song. The initial placement should get you 90 percent there, and the adjustments you make after listening will fine tune your sound the rest of the way.

But what about the stereo image of the drums? If you’re worried about sacrificing the stereo image of the drum kit on account of this mono overhead approach, here’s a couple things to consider:

• You can rely on other mics, such as a hi-hat mic, tom mics, and/or room mics to create the stereo image of the kit
• Are mono drums really that bad? A lot of great recordings-both new and old-have mono drums

So that’s my favorite approach to recording drum overheads. I certainly still employ other overhead techniques from time-to-time, but this mono overhead technique has indeed done me well. Give it a try sometime. I bet, just as I was, you will be pleased with your result.

//Jon
Twitter: @stsn

So are you starting to see a pattern form here? The last handful of posts I’ve published about recording kick and snare, have been based on two main ideas: A) keep it super simple, and B) do what’s proven to work-don’t waste time attempting to “fix” a technique that is not broken.

So continuing in that line of thinking, there’s a few mics that are ubiquitous to the application of recording a snare drum. They are ubiquitous because they do the job extremely well.

Here’s what I’ve seen work well for people (myself included):

• Shure SM 57: Ultra ubiquitous!. Chances are pretty good that the awesome snare sound on your favorite album was recorded with a 57
• AKG 451
• Shure Beta 56
• Shure SM7
• Shure SM58 Jack White said he used this for everything when recording De Stijl

Again, most the mics on this list are extremely common (I’ll refrain from using the word “ubiquitous” yet again). And while a few of them are not what I would consider necessarily cheap, there’s definitely a couple-the 57, and 58-that are cheap. So what that means is that either you already own one or two of them, or you know someone who does.

In reality, when aiming to capture a great snare sound, you’re simply not going to need something besides a 57. And considering how popular and inexpensive that mic is, it’s pretty much guaranteed that you’ve got access to one of those right now.

But as I said before when making suggestions for kick drum mics, don’t read this and then rush out to buy these mics (unless it’s the cheap 57). There’s no point in doing that when they’re so easy to gain access to otherwise. Borrow one, rent one, or book some studio time (where you will get access to all their mics). Once you find yourself going back to a particular mic again and again (I bet it will be the 57), then consider buying it.

Have a great weekend!

//Jon
Twitter: @stsn