Recording Drums?

Here's my set up: Pro Tools LE, Digi 002 Rack & M-Audio Octane.

I have a total of 12 tracks to record.

Can someone tell me the best way of recording drums. I am not a drummer but will be recording drums for the first time next week. I am also new at Pro Tools and recording in general, so easy on the terminology.

Do I need to have a drum mic on every drum? what is recommended? what should the minimum be? distance? Gain? Tips? Tricks? Is there a good web site that explains this in detail?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

I have little knowledge, but since I've been getting set up for drum recording in the past few months I've learnt quite alot. There are really 3 paths you can take in terms of mics

1) just use one or two condenser or room mics. This (i've heard, not talking from personal experience) can have some decent results. If you're looking for a high quality recording it may not be your best bet.

2) The classic kick, snare, and overheads approach. Usually does pretty well, depending on your mics and placement. Sometimes the toms will sounds a little wimpy, but that's usually more of an eq or tuning issue. You can really get good results with just these 4 mics.

3) Full out on the mics. Two overheads, and one on every drum. Can yield really solid results with great sound from the whole kit, but for obvious reasons can be more costly and confusing to the beginning recording engineer, as you may be working with 7+ different channels.

Hope this helps, sorry if you already knew all this! I'm not sure if you have mics or what, but if you need some reccomendations I'm sure some of the other forumites and I can help you out

I'm not an expert at all, and learning new things from experimentation everyday. So far I have done...

1 large diaphragm condenser 1 ft in front of the kit, and it sounded good, with a little EQ and compression and slight reverb. BUT you don't get to pan things.

2 overheads (recorderman method) Works well and you can pan left and right, sounds good but weak kick drum.

Recorderman method with Kick mic, sounded great, only complaint was I wanted more compression and reverb on the snare without adding it to everything else.

Micing everything

This one was more complicated but was more pro results, every drum had a mic, plus 2 overheads and a room mic. That was by far the superior sound quality, but takes more time to pan each mic, add different amounts of compression, reverb and eq, etc... But once things are dialed in you just save it and open those settings for every session. Other obvious drawbacks are, more mics, and good mics cost money, not to mention stands and cables.

If you have a small room well insulated, micing the kick, snare and 2 overheads sounds good, just got o experiment with different methods and find the sound you want out of your recordings, if it's the sound you wanted to achieve, who is to say it's wrong. Paint the picture you want to paint...

It all depends what you're going for. If you want a white stripes kind of sound then room mics would probably be sufficient. If you're going for any kind of modern sounds I would suggest micing every drum and dampening your room some... and I would read up on phase alignment. Take your time. There's no shame in taking a day or two getting drum sounds. Experiment... it's the only way you'll learn.

Here's a great place to start:

http://www.saecollege.de/reference_material/

The first thing you need to consider is the room sound.If it`s good then you can get most of your drum sound with a stereo pair of condensor mics as overheads.I have mine placed two feet above my cymbals and pointed down at them.Most likely the room isn`t the greatest sounding wich if that`s the case you want to keep the room sound out as much as possible so close miking is the best way to go.You need a mic on the snare SM 57 is the first choice but if you don`t have one use whatever dynamic mic you have.Start with it about two inches above the head and aimed at the middle of the head.You need a kick mic i use a shure beta 52 but there are other mics you can use just shop around.Place it in the kickdrum about halfway and point it at where the beater hits the head.You should also use a mic for each tom i have the samson q tom mics inexpensive and they get the job done.Mine are clip ons and they are one inch above the head and pointed directly down.Now the next step is to hang some duvets around the kit to keep the room sound out.Once you`ve accomplished that make sure the kit is tuned and no pedals are squeaking(hit them with WD40)then do some test recordings to make sure your mics are in the right spot(chances are you`ll have to adjust them)When you get that right you can send some reverb from a bus for the overheads to get a better room sound.It`s alot of info but that should get you started.There`s more as far as EQ,compression and gates( you should definatley use gates on the toms)Have fun

I usually take the "simple is better" approach when recording drums. Two overhead condensers 3-5 feet above the kit panned left and right (a stereo spaced pair), a sm57 on the snare drum (about two inches from the rim and pointed toward the center of the head, and a kick drum mic (a mic specifically for miking kick drums in order to capture the lower frequencies). The overheads will do a good job of picking up the toms if you set them up right.

You could throw a bunch of mics up, but the problem with doing that is unless you're experienced in recording and know exactly how to set up microphones, you'll likely end up with a bunch of phase issues (microphones canceling each other out). With 3 or 4 microphones on the kit you won't have to worry about things being out of phase.

Everything mic'd works pretty well - but, when we do it, we put gates on the toms, to help minimize bleed. The trick is to know how long your sustain is, so that you don't unnaturally clamp off the drums resonance...

But, I also like the idea of 1 mic in the room - I get passible results with just a SM57 in the middle of the room, pointed slightly down and away from teh snare side of the bass drum.