Drum Recording

Techniques
 Before beginning there are several things that need to be
Drum Recording Basics

correct

The drums need to sound good first! There is not point

using various recording techniques to improve the sound of
the drums if they do not sound good in the first place.
Listen to them in the room and make sure that they sound
how you want them to.

Make sure the drums are tuned and that you have good
quality cymbals. Cheap brass and B8 metal cymbals will
stand out in any drum mix. Make sure that you have some
B20 cymbals. These are cymbals with the best sound
quality.

Make sure the room sounds good. If you are in a very

reflective room and you want a dead drum sound then use
carpet and other materials that will absorb sound to make
the sound more dead. The opposite is also true if you are in
a rehearsal room that has a dead sound and you want a
reflective sound. Get sheets of wood and other reflective
 Famous Drum Recording
Techniques
Glyn Johns is a british
musician, engineer, and
producer who most notably
worked with Led Zeppelin,
The Who, The Rolling Stones,
The Eagles, Eric Clapton, and
even started his career
assisting for The Beatles

He became famous for

recording the John Bonham
on all of the Led Zeppelin
records.

He only uses 3 or 4
microphones to record
drums. An extra along with
the mics in the picture
Room Mics
Using room mics when
recording drums allows
you to record the ambient
sounds within the room as
well as a full kit sound.

The sound that a room mic

records depends on the
room and its own
characteristics.

For example a large room

with lots of reflective
surfaces will record a lively
sound with a lot of reverb.

Room Mic Placement
The best way to place room mics is to have someone playing drums in the
recording room and an assistant moving the room mic with the engineer
listening in the control room. When the engineer hears a sound that is good
from the room mic he tells the drummer to stop playing and then the
assistant can stop moving the mic.

This is a good method to start with but there are a few techniques to try if
you are using a particularly difficult room to record in:
Face the floor technique: This is where you face your
room mic towards the floor whilst very low on the
ground (this generally works well in a room with a very
reflective floor such as a hard floor). This technique gets
a very kick and low end heavy sound but this can be
useful for adding power to a drum mix.

Above the bass drum: This is to place a condenser mic

just above the kick drum. This is a technique used to
get a highly gritty sound that sounds as if it is highly
compressed. This mic mixed in with other drum mics or
by itself can create a very punchy sound.

Outside the room: This is obviously not a technique to use in a proper

recording studio but trying to use space outside of the recording room with
the door open can sometimes create a good reflective sound.
Innovative and different types of
microphones used for drum
recording
Boundary Microphones
Condenser Microphones placed flush to a wall which are
often used to pick up a full room acoustics as well as the
instrument being recorded

Boundary Microphones are also used as they prevent phase

interference between direct and reflected sound.
 Innovative and different types of
microphones used for drum
recording
Subkick Microphones
Subkick microphones are microphones specifically made
and built to record the low frequencies of a bass drum.

Homemade subkick mic