How to Record Drums

Tech Tips - How to Record Drums

Author: Gavin Hardcastle Published: May 2009 Recording a live drummer can be lots of fun when done right. At Platinumloops we've recorded many different drummers in many different locations, sometimes in challenging circumstances. There are a few things you can do to prepare for on location recording in order to get the best results. Your two main objectives are to get the best performance from the drummer and also to get the best sound from the drum kit and the room.

Before starting a session arm yourself with these essential resources.

1 - Moon Gel
2 - Blu Tack - loads of the stuff.
3 - Gaffa Tape
4 - Some Really robust headphones with thick enclosures and long cable.
5 - A couple of tuning keys
6 - Some high quality lubricating oil - not WD40
7 - A headphone amp with stereo in and out.
8 - Some deodorant spray - things can get sweaty
9 - Lots of bottled water
10 - A thick rug or piece of carpet
11 - Some earplugs for both you and the drummer

The Recording Situation

An ideal situation for recording drums is for the drummer to be in a separate live room to the sound engineer. This allows the engineer to monitor the microphone inputs without being deafened by the shed builder on the other side of the glass, however you might not have that luxury. Recording while in the same room as the drummer does have its benefits. First of all the communication between engineer and drummer is far better, you can be sat right next to the drummer and it makes for much faster workflow and can often make the drummer feel more comfortable. In addition to this the engineer can often hear unwanted sounds within the room much better than from a control room which he otherwise might not notice until the session is over.

Web cam Com's

The downside to recording within the same room as the drummer is obvious ear fatigue and the fact that you can only really monitor the mic inputs properly on playback while the drummer has stopped playing. At Platinumloops it's only in the last couple of years that we've had the luxury of being able to record drummers from the control room while they are in the live room.

If you have a separate live room to the control room but no windows you can easily setup a couple of web cams via wireless internet so that you and the drummer can communicate visually. You'll here the drummer through the mic's when he talks and he will be able to hear you if you patch a mic in to his headphone amp. The wonders of modern technology eh!

Setting Up

I strongly advise that you learn how to tune a drum kit yourself. I used to be a drummer (a very bad one) so I learned the basics of this years ago. There are some brilliant video tutorials on Youtube that helped to improve my drum tuning skills. If your drummer is really good he'll know how best to tune his kit and he'll know how much life is left in his drum skins (heads).

If your room has a nice wooden floor your going to want to protect it with a thick rug or a piece of carpet. You can also buy those rubber floor protectors that will prevent your floor from getting scratched by the rough underside of the rug or carpet. The carpet also prevents the entire drum kit from moving forwards every time your drummer hits the kick drum. If he's a metal drummer he's going to be hitting it pretty hard.

With the kit setup and tuned get your drummer to play for a while before you even think about setting up the mic's. What your listening for here are two things. Firstly, mechanical noises from the kit - such as squeaky pedals, drum stools, rattling tom mounts. I can pretty much guarantee at least one of these noises will rear it's ugly head.

The second thing your listening for are noises from the room - such as vibrating furniture, fixtures and appliances. You might also want to experiment with the placement of the kit. Start off in the middle of the room and then move the kit to either end to compare the room sound, this is where the carpet/rug comes in handy as you can carefully just drag the whole thing wherever you want it.

Walk around the room while the drummer plays to find the sweat spot for the room ambience, this is where we'll place a mic to add "hugeness" to the sound if that's what your after. If you have a stair case or hallway at the end of the live room try listening to that space for the sweat spot. We'll do some more of this later when we crack the mic's out, for now it's all about where to place the kit for the best room sound.

Blu Tack?

If your wondering what the Blu Tack and gaffa tape are for you'll have figured that out pretty much as soon as the drummer starts playing. Tom mounts are notoriously rattly and creaky, especially in older drum kits or cheaper drum kits. Use the blu Tack to stuff into the gaps on the tom mounts to silence the rattling, you'll be surprised how much you'll use. Blu Tack is also really good because it doesn't leave much of a residue on the drum hardware and your drummer will thank you for that. When I recorded our Ultra Metal Drum Loops V1 I used a spectacular sounding Premiere PK Cabria Drum Kit with Sabian and Zildjian cymbals and a Pearl double kick pedal. Unfortunately the tom mounts rattled and squeaked so badly that I used two full packs of Blu Tack to silence the pesky things - and this was a brand new kit.

For our Power Ballad Rock Drum Loops V1 we used a brand new Mapex M-Birch kit that had a far superior tom mount system that needed no such Blu Tack treatment. The birch kit was much louder and the hardware was easier to use with no nasty noises to content with. We liked this kit so much that we kept it as our stock studio kit.

The Snare Drum The gaffa tape is essential to use as a dampener on the snare. If your recording a funk drummer or a rock drummer that wants a really tight and 'pingy' snare with minimal rattle your going to need to reduce the snare buzz. Use a 6 inch piece of gaffa tape across the centre of the snare then add more if required.

If you want a very natural, roomy kit sound you might be able to get away without dampening the top head on the snare drum. I like snare drums to be tuned really high so that they cut through the mix but this tends to make them more prone to resonating when playing other parts of the kit. To counteract this problem use one or two chunks of moon gel to dampen the resonating top skin. It'll still sound good but wont ring on every time you drummer stamps on the kick drum pedal.

The Kick Drum

Use some heavy duty lubricating oil or grease on the Kick drum pedal and maybe even on the hi-hat pedal. Even once the squeak has gone you still might get some rattle from the kick pedal so get the drummer to adjust the tension on the pedal so that you get a happy compromise of playability and quietness. An ideal situation is to have a few other pedals on hand just in case, but if the drummer is using a double beater that's not very likely.

The squeaky drum pedal has been the cause of many delayed sessions, so it helps if your drummer is able to be flexible with the pedal tension. Better still ask him to make sure it's perfectly quiet before he turns up. Time is money.

The beater on the kick drum pedal is also an often overlooked factor. Your drummer might not like the feel of a wooden or plastic beater but you might prefer the sharp clicky sound that it gives you. If this is going to effect your drummers performance your going to have to give way and let him use the felt beater. Try adjusting the height of the beater for both playability and sound quality. You want to get as much definition and punch from the kick drum as possible without making it difficult for the drummer to play.

Tom Toms

Tuning toms is an art form in itself. We wont get into the details of how to tune toms, you can find hundreds of instructional videos on Youtube for that. Let's focus on how to overcome some common problems you might experience when recording toms.

It's more than likely that your toms will need some form of dampening to prevent them from resonating every time the drummer hits the kick. After you've spent the last hour tuning them to perfection you'll feel like crying when you hear how crap they sound after you've slapped a couple of moon gel patches on the top skin.

Don't despair. They might sound a bit lame with the dampening on but by the time you've mixed the kit, added a bit of compression to the toms and then a bit more to the overall stereo kit they'll sound fantastic and you wont have any resonating problems.

One other problem with toms is that you'll usually find one tom is much louder than the others, namely the hi-tom. You can overcome this with tuning but that's going to compromise that cool tone. Your only option is to leave it up to the drummer to try and balance them out with his playing - that, and shed loads of compression during the mix stage of course ;)

Balance out the volume

Finally listen for imbalances in the volume of the separate kit parts. Even after what I just said about the toms, don't be tempted to leave certain problems up the mix because there are some things you just cant fix. For example, rock drummers tend be really heavy on the hi-hat and no matter what you do during the mixing stage your going to find it difficult to get the snare sounding sharp and bright without inadvertently boosting the already overloud hi-hat that's bleeding through onto all the mic's.

This is where having a quieter set of hi-hats to choose can be a godsend. Your aim is to get your transient levels as even as possible before you even record. If one of the toms is louder than the entire kit try re-tuning it, adding some dampening with moon gel or even replacing it. The same goes for your cymbals. If your crash cymbals dominate the entire drum mix your going to have serious problems down the line. You can always ask your drummer not to hit certain parts of the kit quite so hard but that's like asking Lewis Hamilton not to drive fast.

Mic'ing Up

Now that you've got the kit and room sounding splendid, the next stage is to bring in the mic's. Assuming you've only got 8 audio inputs in your audio interface you'll need to prioritise. If your drummer is playing a 5 piece kit your probably best to use 7 mic's on the kit and one mic in the sweat spot of the room if you want room ambience.

If your after a tight, closed in sound and your not bothered about room ambience then bring that 8th mic back in and place it on the hi-hat or some other part of the kit you feel is important. Here's how I would mic up a 5 piece kit.

• Kick Drum - AKG D112
• Snare - SM57
• Hi-Tom - SM57
• Mid-Tom - SM57
• Low-Tom - SM57
• Over head x 2 - SM57's
• Room Ambience - SE Electronics Z3300A

This setup means that my hi-hat, cymbals and ride will primarily get picked up by the 2 overheads and the room mic. In most cases this is perfectly fine but obviously we'd have more control of the mix if we had more inputs and more mic's. This just illustrates how to get the most of an 8 channel situation.

Some people don't like to use condenser mic's for recording drums due to the way they struggle with extreme transients but I make sure the Z3300A is a long way from the kit and all I can say is that it sounds lush.

Microphones - Which ones to use.

Over the years I've tried lots of different mic's ranging from super cheap to ridiculously expensive. By far the most versatile microphone for recording drums is the Shure SM57. Not only is this dynamic mic brilliant at handling extreme transients but you can buy them new for around $99. For kick drums I prefer the AKG D112 which does a fantastic job of capturing bass frequencies.

For room ambience I've started using my favourite vocal mic, the brilliant SE Electronics Z3300A which is an absolute bargain. At the end of the day your choice of mic's is purely a matter of taste. If you've got the budget to experiment with high end mic's you should definitely try it out but don't expect miracles.

Mic Pre-Amps - Do I really need them?

The answer is No you don't NEED them, but it would be nice to use the best Mic-pre's you can get your hands on. If you can only get your hands on a stereo mic pre you'll need to decide which parts of the drum kit are most important. Typically these would be either the 2 overheads or the kick and snare. My microphone pre-amp of choice is the Focusrite Liquid Channel and I usually just use this on the snare mic. I like to tweak the "harmonics" knob on the Liquid channel just a little bit on the snare but this is only a very subtle enhancement.

Compression and EQ - Yes or No?

If this is your first time recording live drums i would advise against adding any colouration to the sound at the recording stage. If you get this wrong you'll have to correct it later and that might add noise and ruin your mix. If your well versed in how to use compression and eq you'll find a little bit of a squeeze on the snare and overheads really helps to get a punchy sound at the recording stage. Keep it subtle so that you've still got plenty of dynamics left at the mixing stage. If you are recording at 24 bit, 96 Khz you'll have lots of headroom for dynamics while keeping the noise levels as low as possible.

Mic Cables and plugs.

Don't skimp on the mic cables and hardware. Even though drums are very loud instruments that doesn't mean that the noise floor wont find its way into the mix. Remember, you've got 8 or more mic's on the go and if your using cheapo cables with poor quality XLR connectors all that noise is going to add up and find it's way on to the tracks. If you cant afford to buy good quality cables try to borrow or hire them. The same goes for the mic's and the mic pre amps.

Drum Mic Placement

There is no right or wrong way to do this. Usually I will at first try to get the mic as close to the point of contact as I possibly can and then I'll move it around until I hear the best results. If you don't have the luxury of a control room and an assistant to help with this you'll find those Industrial strength, full enclosure headphones I listed earlier very useful right now. While the drummer hits the skin you need to move the mic around to listen for that sweet spot.

Move the mic further away from the drum skin and you'll get a more natural tone but this will allow the other parts of the kit to bleed into the mic, so it's always a compromise.

For the kick drum you can often get a much more natural tone by placing the mic on the outside of the front drum head. Obviously this will result in more bleed from the other parts of the kit so it depends on the type of sound your after. A more common practice is to place the mic deep inside the bass drum and about 5 inches from the beater head. Angle the mic slight to the left so that wind energy produced by the moving beater head doesn't produce plosive sounds in the mic pickup. This will give you a more clicky and defined tone and will also give you a better separation. The ideal situation would be to use both methods if you have enough inputs.

Depending on your style of music you might want to stuff lots dampening into the bass drum. If your recording a jazz drummer your probably going to want to leave it un-dampened for a nice boomy tone, for metal you want it to resonate much less so stuff some cushions in there and see how it sounds. Here is a loop from our Jazz drum loops collection that had nothing inside the bass drum, you can hear how boomy it is with a clear bass note and not a lot of click.

Compare that to a drum loop from our Metalcore Death Metal Drum Loops collection and you'll hear how this bass drum is really clicky, has less resonance and a much tighter bass note. This is all down to how you tune and dampen the drum. Oh, and of course the drum itself has certain characteristics that suite certain types of music.

For the snare you have two options, over the top head of the snare drum or under the snare drum. mic'ing the underside of the snare drum is a bit of a luxury and in my opinion should only ever be used as a subtle enhancement to the other mic that is placed on the top of the snare. Typically I'll place the top snare mic close to the rim of the snare and then I'll try to angle it away from either the hi-hat or the hi-tom depending on which gives me the most bleed problems.

One technique I've favoured for the overheads is the so called "Drummer Man" mic placement technique. I discovered this instructional video at the brilliant site Home Tracked which I highly recommend.

My basic method is to to start with this mic technique and then blend it with the individual close mic 'ed drums. This gives you a really good acoustic sound with more control over the separate parts of the drum kit. I used this exact same technique for recording our Power Ballad Rock Drum Loops because I wanted a more natural sounding kit with a tasteful room ambience.

Reset you ears

It's worth spending 15 minutes listening to your favourite drum sounds just before starting on the mic placement and maybe even before the drum tuning stage. Your goal is to get this drum kit sounding as good as possible before recording anything. Constantly reference your kit against your CD collection of top drum sounds.

Setting the Input levels

I'm assuming you already know about setting recording levels - basically get the loudest level possible coming into your audio interface without clipping. What you need to know about drummers is that no matter how many times you ask them to play as hard they can (and thus setting the desired input levels), your drummer will always play that little bit harder during recording, usually at the magic moment when he's really in the zone and playing the best performance of his life - that's the moment when your levels will go into the red and you'll have to ask him to do it again after you've adjusted the levels. Too late, the moment is gone. The moral of the story is to get those max levels and then back it off slightly in anticipation of the inevitable drummers ear splitting crescendo. Mark my words, it happens every time.

During Recording

The worst nightmare for a drummer is the dreaded click track. Killer of all feel and spontaneity. Unfortunately your drummer is going to have to get used to this if your recording is ever going to by synched up to midi or DAW sequencing. In order for your drummer to hear the click track or the backing track he's going to need to use that essential headphone amp. These days you can pick up a decent headphone amp with a stereo feed and multiple outputs very cheaply.

The main thing to look for when recording drums is that the headphone amp is loud enough for the drummer to hear over his own drumming. If you can get the headphone amp right next to the drummer he can adjust the volume himself which saves you a job.

Your audio interface should have a control room output, feed this to the headphone amp while you monitor via your own headphones plugged into the interface headphone out socket. Ideally you'd be in a control room monitoring both through speakers and cans. If you do have the luxury of a control room be sure to regularly monitor the inputs with headphones as this can often reveal unwanted noises much better than your near field monitors, remember your control room has computer fans, room fans, chatter, creaking chairs etc so you might not pick up on unwanted noises during the recording.

During the mixing stage you'll find it very useful to have the drummer play a few minutes of sound checking so that you can apply processing. For example you don't want to have to listen to the entire song to get to the drummers tom tom fills in order to eq and compress them accordingly. If the drummer plays a full minute of just toms for you it'll be much easier to tweak the processing just on the toms. The same goes for all other parts of the kit, just like when you hear a sound engineer sound checking the drum kit at a live concert. The drummer only has to do this once and you can loop the parts you need until you've tweaked the sound to your liking. This will save lots of time during mixing.

Playback and checking

Have the drummer play all parts of the kit individually and then together, get him to hit his fills as hard as possible (see my notes above on levels) and then go for a coffee break for 20 minutes to let your ears recover. Watch a bit of TV or even listen to some white noise to reset your brain for listening. When you come back to listen to the playback you'll have a clearer perspective and you'll be able to hear any trouble spots in the levels, tuning, mic placement and performance. Listen for the sticks hitting the mic and adjust the mic's accordingly, solo each track to isolate any trouble spots.

And Finally...

After all the tuning, setting up and sound checking the most important thing of all is to protect your ears. Now that you've got everything sounding great it's time to pop in those earplugs if your recording in the live room. Make sure your drummer wears some ear plugs too, he'll still be able to hear the click track and his own drums, it'll just be a few decibels quieter that's all.

That pretty much sums up the preparation and process of recording a live drummer. Remember, there is no right or wrong way to do this, just experiment and allow for lots of time setting up. I was once told by a drummer for a metalcore band that when his band was recording their demo they informed the engineer that he had only 4 hours to mic up and record the drums so that they could have 4 days to record the guitar parts. Needless to say their demo sounded pretty shatpank. The drums are the most important part of a live band sound, if you get that right everything else is easy. Take the time to get it right and you wont be disappointed.

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