that's what I meant. Same thing right? haha.

7 mics on the kit, 2 overheads and a mic on each drum. Gonna try using a bottom snare mic as well next time though.

http://www.ashesofthefallen.net/alexdrums1.jpg
http://www.ashesofthefallen.net/alexdrums2.jpg

Try mic'ing the soundhole on the side of the snare with a pencil condenser or a 57. If it's a decent enough condenser, you might even use that more in your mix than the top. I really like this method. Just be mindful of it's position regarding the hi-hat and other cymbals, it will pick up bleed, but it's easy enough to gate that shit out. It's also much easier to keep in phase than having a mic underneath the snare, IMO. But, with DAW's, it's easy to sample nudge waveforms to fix any phase issues.

I'm all about the Zeppelin minimal micing techniques. 3 mics on the drums! If you have a good sounding room (very important), badass microphones, and a bad ass drumkit, then it should come out awesome assuming you know what your doing. I used 8 mics when I recorded my first band at school but ending up ditching 5 of them because of phase and bleed issues. Fuck 32 mics on a drumkit like some albums I've heard recently, that's ridiculous, haha.

I use 4, but I would use a couple more if I had the resources. Right now I've just got 2 overheads, 1 kick, 1 snare. All the recordings I do are just for fun anyways, so it's not a big deal.

Might not be able to record for a while though because our studios getting torn down due to a piece of shit neighbor... :emot-fail

I've heard of people damaging the diaphragms in their mics trying to do this... how far away do you position the mic?

1 inch off-axis, 2+ inches on axis. Both give different results. Though, I really don't think SPL damage is an issue with this method for a small diaphragm condenser microphone. Don't use a ribbon though. If you decide to use a 57, there's no way SPL's from any instrument on a drum kit could damage that mic.

And yeah, I agree with ChAAPY, I would never personally use more than 10 mics on a kit (and that is absolute maximum). I usually stick to 6 or 8. 2 large diaphragm condensers for overheads, SM57 and a Sennheiser e614 for snare (57 top, 614 side), 1 AKG D112 or an Audio Technica ATM-25 for kick drum, and Sennheiser 421's for accent toms (unless the overheads pick them up well enough). The only case this year where I went over 8 mics is when I had accent mics for 6 toms, two overheads, one snare and the kick.

Although, you can still get really nice drum sounds from just 4 mics, like ChAAPY suggested. One stereo mic, or a mono large diaphragm condenser right over top, then a snare and a kick mic.

The best drum mixes nearly always come from a good source signal. Never resort to "fixing it in the mix". Always try your best to get a great signal at the source, then mixing will become so much easier.

I would like to hear some of your recordings, Ouroboros!

http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/8...xdrums2sz6.jpg

How did this mic sound? If it's polar pattern is cardiod, then the pickup would basically be as I drew. Omni or figure 8 wouldn't have sounded too bad like that. But, is there a reason you pointed it towards the back of the room?

I will post some near final mixes in the "listen to my recordings thread". I'm doing another session on March 8 with a pretty wicked prog metal band. So I will post some mixes from that. But if you want to hear some alt. rock I've been practicing with, or some sketchy black metal with a drum machine, then I will post some mp3's. It would be nice to get some constructive criticism from you guys too.

Those are Audio-Technica ATM450s, side address, they are pointed downwards on a slightly outward angle towards the cymbals.

Back to the soundhole on the snare idea... It's not the volume I'm worried about, it's the actual air pressure being forced into the mic... Same reason you hear people say you shouldn't be blowing into a microphone to do a sound check....

Right, I assumed they were top address.

By the way, how did that recording turn out? I would like to listen to it.

Dynamic microphones can handle very high Sound Pressure Levels, which are measured in dB. Kick drums release massive SPL's, a lot more than a snare drum, and are typically mic'ed with these. For example, an AKG D112 microphone can apparently handle 160dB of SPL's (http://www.akg.com/site/products/pow...guage,EN.html). That's well over the SPL output of a machine gun firing.

Condenser microphones are more delicate to SPL's (their threshold before distortion is usually around 100-140dB). Small diaphragm ones are typically very durable and can definitely handle the sound hole of a snare.

Ribbon microphones, aside from Royer, are really delicate, and mic'ing the sound hole of a snare will definitely damage the ribbon, maybe even beyond repair.

But as far as damaging other types of microphones, I don't think that a snare drum is enough to do it.

Cool well I'll experiment a bit and see what I can come up with...

Here's a link to what we tracked, only my second time ever micing a kit though and we pretty much just set them up and hit record... No processing on anything except that the snare and kick are blended with samples, about 25% sample, 75% natural...

http://www.ashesofthefallen.net/sharkattack2.mp3

We all played at once with the guitars blaring in the overheads haha but it still turned out alright... This recording was intended to just be a jam track so we could remember how the song went later, even though it's a complete joke song...

That's a pretty good mix. Everything more or less has it's own space and can be heard. But, was the kick drum one of the drums that was resampled? This is all a taste thing, but I would have preferred the acoustic kick, or another sample. Other than that, I actually don't think the music sounds gimmicky.

5 more days, woot!

Thanks man, I didn't really do any mixing though haha, it's just panned with the kick and snare blended with samples... Hopefully I can get something better when we have a chance to track it properly. The natural kick sounded horrible, I really need to practice with my micing techniques, it was all boom with no definition or click whatsoever, so I blended it with a Pantera kick sample that was super clicky to try and get the body of the natural kick and the attack of the sample... Snare is also the Pantera snare, natural didn't sound very good on it's own.

I'll post a re-done version late next week hopefully!

Yeah, well if you didn't do any mixing, that's a decent enough example of using good source signals. Like, it's obviously not professional quality, but great for a home recording.

If your kick was all boom, and no click, turn it off-axis of the beater. It could help to put the drum head back on and cut a hole in it, then dampen the kick. Listen to how it sounds at a crouched position without the head on, and if the recorded signal is way different, then its likely an issue with mic positioning. If it just sounds meh to begin with, put the head back on, tune it and try again.

Don't really like the snare or the kick drum sound, what did you use on the guitars? Sounds great for just a "jam track," damn. This is a joke song? I like it more than your bands actual material, haha. I like how the ride sounds, how many mics did you use?

top of the page dude, haha.

Oh shit, didn't see it amidst the paragraphs and paragraphs of technical sp33k.

Same

Haha well that was written with different musicians than my actual band, which is more or less toast anyways. It's sort of progressed to the point with these dudes that I jammed this track with where I think we're going to start a Dimension Zero/Carnal Forge style death/thrash band for fun haha... I grew up on that shit so it should be good times.

For the record I despise all the shit my "band" plays as much as everyone on here, but they're friends of mine who needed some help with a few shows when they lost a guitarist and I've just been doing it for fun ever since. Songs aren't really my thing even though I wrote half of the album, but I'd rather be on stage playing SOMETHING and having guys to jam music with than have nothing...

I'm working on some new stuff though, it's starting to come together now that I've got tab software that works on my work PC haha... Think Theory in Practice/Capharnaum/Meshuggah/Anata, at least that's how I'm hoping it shapes up!

just signed up, woot! off to d/l $1,000 of free plug-ins!

Is the site timing out for anyone else?

I checked the site last night at 5AM and it said it was open, had no problems signing up and it only took about 5 minutes. I'm guessing it's flooded with people trying to register now. I couldn't even get on today because of that.

cant reach the site :(

fuck, I need to get on one of those too. Invite?

Check your private messages.

:emot-hear

Audionews is very strict about ratios. Make sure you can upload what you D/L or you will be kicked within a day or two. Otherwise, donate.

But yeah, what are these other sites like?