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

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

Just like Recording A Kick Drum, I recommend employing the simplest, quickest, phase-friendly, and easiest to mix method. Again, that means using only one mic, and positioning it in the same place countless other hit-making audio engineers have-between the rack tom and the hi-hat (at the 10 o’clock position from the drummer’s perspective).

What point is there is over-thinking it, attempting to change a proven method, when so many other talented people have already done the hard work for you, and figured out such and effective technique?

Bonus: small tweaks go the longest way, and through the course of observing what’s helpful for some of the other engineers I’ve worked with, I learned that moving the snare mic to the 9 o’clock-ish position, helps tremendously in rejecting hi-hat bleed into the snare mic. This isn’t always possible because of the way some drummers set up their kits (typically a very low hi-hat), but luckily, most of the time there is plenty of room to get that snare mic under the hat.

//Jon
Website: jonstinson.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/stnsn
Twitter: @stsn