Recording Drums on one mic |
Hey, I havn't been here in a while, but how do you record drums on one mic? I have a four piece set and I use Audacity and have one jack for a mic on my computer... thanks
-Daniel
-Daniel
The way I do it with almost the exact same set up is I stick the mic right above the head of the drummer and have them play about 15-20 seconds for a test. Once you find a decent position I don't worry too much from there. Ideally you would want to have a mic for each individual beating surface but since you only have one just try to record it so all of them are even or however you want it. If you can't seem to get it right try moving everything into another room. Which reminds me of a Frank Zappa story. I think I read somewhere that certain pieces of Captain Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica were recorded in all different parts of the house, saxophone in one room, drums in another, etc...
Bass4YourFace wrote…
The way I do it with almost the exact same set up is I stick the mic right above the head of the drummer and have them play about 15-20 seconds for a test. Once you find a decent position I don't worry too much from there. Ideally you would want to have a mic for each individual beating surface but since you only have one just try to record it so all of them are even or however you want it. If you can't seem to get it right try moving everything into another room. Which reminds me of a Frank Zappa story. I think I read somewhere that certain pieces of Captain Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica were recorded in all different parts of the house, saxophone in one room, drums in another, etc...
k, what type of mic do you use?? I use a regular mic that you would use to sing into, is that good??
you only have one mic. So the best way is for you to experiment. Try putting the mic in all kinds of different places, midway in front of the kit, same for in back of the kit, try it above in different locations. you might even try laying a piece of plywood down in front of the kick drum and laying the mic just to the outside edge of that( heard a decent drum mix done this way).
When you only have one mic you will have to work a lot harder to get a decent drum mix/sound, but even in a situation where you have a bunch of drum mics you still have to work at it to get decent drum sounds.
When you only have one mic you will have to work a lot harder to get a decent drum mix/sound, but even in a situation where you have a bunch of drum mics you still have to work at it to get decent drum sounds.
LynyrdSkynyrdFan wrote…
Bass4YourFace wrote…
The way I do it with almost the exact same set up is I stick the mic right above the head of the drummer and have them play about 15-20 seconds for a test. Once you find a decent position I don't worry too much from there. Ideally you would want to have a mic for each individual beating surface but since you only have one just try to record it so all of them are even or however you want it. If you can't seem to get it right try moving everything into another room. Which reminds me of a Frank Zappa story. I think I read somewhere that certain pieces of Captain Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica were recorded in all different parts of the house, saxophone in one room, drums in another, etc...
k, what type of mic do you use?? I use a regular mic that you would use to sing into, is that good??
I use a thirty dollar mic purchased at best buy. I don't remember all the specifics, but it's probably classified as a crappy vocal mic. I'm not too concerned about it though, there's a bunch of low-fi legends out there to idolize.
You would want to use a condenser microphone versus a dynamic microphone.
To simplify it, the major difference is the microphone sensitivity and polar patterns most often.
A cheap but good one is X-Q from naiant.com (~30$).
Please note condensers 99% of time require phantom power, so be prepared to buy a board or a pre-amp.
Then you just take the mic, put it on a mic stand and put it behind the drummer, above, and pointing at the drums.
To simplify it, the major difference is the microphone sensitivity and polar patterns most often.
A cheap but good one is X-Q from naiant.com (~30$).
Please note condensers 99% of time require phantom power, so be prepared to buy a board or a pre-amp.
Then you just take the mic, put it on a mic stand and put it behind the drummer, above, and pointing at the drums.
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