Drum Miking - Part 2

Hi everybody and welcome back to part 2 of my drum miking series. Last time we discussed miking kick and snare drums so this week I want to delve more into miking rack toms and floor toms.

When you're miking toms, there's a couple of different things that you need to take into account. Do you want to mike just the top, or do you want to mike top and bottom? Do you want to use a dynamic mic or maybe a condenser? What kind of heads should you use? All of these are very good questions, and hopefully I will provide you the answers that you need.

Normally, I just mike at the top of head of the rack tom. I find that miking the bottom head of the tom, while providing some additional resonance, really doesn't do very much for the overall sound of my drum kit, and is a waste of a track to be honest. So let's stick with the top head. As far as what type of drumhead you should use, it really depends on if you're in the studio or if you're doing live work. In my experience, I have always found in the studio, that batter heads tend to give me the best results, while when I am doing a live sound gig, I find the clear heads are the best. Also, it's a good idea if your drummer knows how to tune his drums! I use a tool called Drum Dial. It is a tempanic pressure tuner that works off of the tension of the head, not the sound, to achieve the correct tone of the drum. And lastly, you need to decide if you want to use dynamic microphones or condenser microphones to record your toms. I would say that the studio standard is the dynamic microphone known as the Sennheiser 421. It's a very good mic I'll admit, and I use it sometimes to make musicians feel at home in the studio since it's something that they are probably used to seeing in other studios. Personally, the microphone I like to use for rack toms is the Audio Technica 4050. It is a large diaphragm condenser that just seems to have more attack and brightness then the 421 while still having about the same amount of body as the 421. I like to have a little more natural stick attack coming through the microphone than the 421 offers me most of the time.

So let's talk distance. If you using a dynamic microphone such as the 421 a Shure 57 or an Audix D2, then you want to be approximately 1 to 2 inches off of the drumhead. For me, with my "finger measuring system" that we talked about in my previous blog, it would be about a knuckle up off of the head. When you use a condenser microphone, such as the 4050, the AKG 414, or even the Neumann U87, you want to be approximately 3 to 6 inches off of the drumhead. In my finger measurement, that would end up being a whole index finger to about half of your hand. Remember, the further away your microphone is from your drum, the more bleed you will get from the surrounding the pieces of the drum kit, so it is very important to find that optimum distance that provide you with enough body and attack, but still gives you the necessary isolation from the rest of the drum kit so that your compression (and possibly gating) will work correctly and not against you. You can also mike both of your up rack toms with one microphone if you need to. I have done this on several occasions when I did not have enough inputs on my console to allow me to record both toms separately. What I did in the situation is, I used a large diaphragm condenser (which happened to be the 4050), and I put it about 6 to 8 inches up directly between both toms, facing straight down. Then in the mixing stage, I added a new audio track to my session and separated the second tom hits from the track and moved them to their own track.

For miking floor toms, my go to microphone is the Shure PG 52. I find this microphone (which is actually a lower level mic made primarily for kick drum miking) gives the floor tom a nice round "boom" while still maintaining some of the attack that is needed. I mic it up generally being about 2 to 3 inches up off the drumhead and 2 to 3 inches into the drum itself (over the ring).  I'm not pointing at the middle of the drum like you would a snare mic, but pointing more towards the outside edge about 3 inches into the drumhead.

So that's it. Not nothing too difficult, just your basic mic set up. I do EQ the tracks coming into my system and as well as a EQing them after recording. I find that this gives me the best possible sound I can get going down to my recorder and gives me a good base to start the mix with.

Well, that's it for now. Don't forget that you are welcome to stop by and tour our facilities anytime. Just give us a call at 859-335-8440 (if you're local) or TOLL FREE at 877-335-8440 to set it up, so we can give you the ultimate LIRCo and Lexington School for Recording Arts experience. See ya next time!!!

Steve Nall

Head Engineer, LIRS

Single mic VS double mic - which is best?

So when you go thru The Lexington School For Recording Arts, we have a course dubbed Phase 3. It is during this time of the course that the students have hands on practice with the console, mic preamps, and microphones, and learn what it means to actually run a session with a full band.

When you track a guitar, you have two options, amp or direct. I have been know to do both, depending on the situation. Today I want to talk about the amp option. Specifically single mic vs multi miking techniques.

Miking with a single mic is probably the easiest and most straight forward way to go. Just put a mic in front of the speaker, right? Well, not really. There are many variables to think about. You have the amp, the mic, the distance the mic is from the speaker, the position of the mic, etc.

Of course, things always go better when the source is good, so having said that, a nice amp is a must. It doesn't have to be a Marshall half stack or a Fender twin, just a good sounding amp. Cheap, practice style amps won't cut it in the studio environment. I'm not talking low wattage, small amps - there are many companies that make smaller amps like Marshall and Blackstar that are excellent.

Then comes the microphone. Most engineers have a "go to" favorite for guitars. Some like the good 'ol SM57. Some like the Sennheiser 906. I lean mostly on either an AKG 414 or an Audio Technica 4050.

The position and distance also matter. If you want a tight sound, move your mic in close. A more roomy sound? Pull it back to get more natural ambience. Also, the position on the speaker itself matters. If you are dead center, it's going to be a brighter sound. More on the outside edge and you'll get a more bassy sound. I like to be about 2 inches off center, personally.

The volume of the amp is another piece of the puzzle. If you are using a tube amp, you might need to have it pretty loud to get the tubes to work how they should. If you place a microphone very close to a blasting loud amp, sometimes it actually sounds small when recorded. I have done sessions where the amp was cranked and the mic was almost 2 feet away! But in a smaller room, the room acts as an extension of the amp, and it will sound much fuller than if you put up close and turn the amp down.

Also, part of positioning the mic is the axis. Are you on axis or off? If you are off, you can get a fuller sound and not add in any actual bass, because you can be pointing at the center of the speaker but not looking directly at it, but pointing at an angle. This will roll off some bright without adding lows. It's a little smoother than the straight on approach.

Shew! So many things to think about! And with double miking it's even more confusing and technical!

When you double mic an amp, you are using two different microphones to blend together and make one big sound. This involves two different mics at different distances and different placements to compliment each other. Usually, you have one mic that is your main sound and a second that works to make the main one sound better. With that main mic, you will go thru all the steps and possibilities I have already talked about when using one microphone. Then the fun begins.

With your second mic (and hopefully an assistant!), you will begin to shape the overall sound by adding in additional textures. I almost always double mic the amp (as well as split the signal, but that is another article!), and I couldn't do it without my assistant. His job is to go into the live room while the guitar player is playing and move the position of the secondary mic around in front of the amp while I listen to the result in the control room. All he is doing is watching me for a signal and then he stops moving the stand. He comes in the control room, we listen and sometimes he goes out and moves it a little more. Not only are we listening for a good blend, but we want to make sure the phase relationship between the two microphones is the best it can be. Our goal is to get a great sound from the start, so that in the mix we just put the faders up and it's done. No compression and very little EQ, if any at all.

So, to me, single miking of an amp is ok, but limiting of what the overall sound can become. You have no secondary microphone to augment and compliment your main sound. Sometimes one is all you need, I won't argue that. I have done many a session with one mic on the amp, but I have found that my best guitar sounds have come on sessions that I took the time to not only add an additional mic, but find the correct position for it, so my main sound has more color and depth to it naturally instead of trying to fake it in the mix.

Well, that's it for now. Don't forget that you are welcome to stop by and tour our facilities anytime. Just give us a call at 859-335-8440 (if you're local) or TOLL FREE at 877-335-8440 to set it up, so we can give you the ultimate LIRCo experience. See ya next time!!!

Steve Nall

Head Engineer, LIRS