Micing drums

Sometimes I want to do a drum video cover but i don't have access to a studio. All I have myself is an Mbox and access to a couple of mics. The Mbox only has 2 inputs so I am limited to micing the whole kit with just 2 mics. Often I'll get Phil Ciufo (the singer in my band After The Anthems) to come and record drums for me because he has a full Pro Tools set up with tons of mics. It always sounds killer when he does it for me. This time I used my Mbox and 2 Beta 87a's. I tried a bunch of different mic placements and found a couple of places that gave me a good mix. I ended up putting one Beta 87a overhead on the right-hand side of my kit over the Ride Cymbal and Floor Tom and another pointed upwards towards the snare so it would also pick up the hi-hat, rack tom, snare, and left crash. I feel like the mix ended up pretty good considering it was only 2 mics. I figured that since drums sound like drums when you're in the room with them that I didn't need to mic every tom, cymbal, and snare separately. With a couple of room mics it should sound decent. How do you mic up a drum kit? What has worked and sounded good for you? Let me know in the comments.

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3 comments

  1. john laco
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