How to Mic Drums The Studio Way

This is an art itself and takes a lot practice and variations to get the sound your looking for. You'll learn the basic principles of where to put your mic's at the professional way.  I'm currently working on my recording degree but its very hard to give all the details on actually mic'ing the drums, because no two sets are alike. This recording section will be ever growing as there are entire books written on this. Its no simple task for the ordinary to take if they truly want to get professional quality you'll have to invest some serious time, money and experimenting. 

Mic Placement of The Bass Drum

The drum itself will sound best with some sort of padding in there that is weighed down and also should have a hole in the front bass drum or the the front head should be removed. You can modify a drum head if you should desire to have it done or they can be bought that way. The mic should be around 9-12 inches front head facing 45 degrees towards the rim. 

The mics themselves should have a low frequency of 40Hz to 80Hz for the deepest sounding bass drum. For a muddy sound get a mic around 600Hz. If your attempting to record a live show you should look into putting a noise gate on the bass drum mic so it doesn't echo back the bass player.

Mic The Snare

Most drummers are always looking for that "fat" snare sound but they should know a drum less than 8 inches deep is harder pull that off. A couple things you can do is not tune up the top head so tight but not too loose either,  also the same for the snare wire. If the wires have a bad buzz while playing other parts of the set try weighing down the top head with a small object or putting a small piece of tissue between the wires. The mic itself should be around 6 inches away and pointing directly at where the snare will be hit. It can be further away if your not concerned about the hi-hat leaking into the mic, this will create a fatter sound. Also a second mic can be placed on the bottom of the snare and still about 45 degrees same as the top mic. Just be sure the bottom mic doesn't get too low that it leaks in the bass drum. Frequencies of the mic's should be around 240Hz for a "fat" sound and 2.5kHz for a "crack".

How To Mic The Toms

These tend to be a little trickier to get them all in tune where they correspond with each other. You don't want one of the toms to be tune sharp or flat with the other instruments. A good example of tuning them could be tune the first tom at a G note, then second tuned to a lower E and the floor tom to a C note. The toms don't have to be in the same key as the song and can pretty much be tuned however the drummer prefers, some drum shells don't sound good at certain pitches and the drummer would know his set best. Frequencies of the rack toms should be around 240Hz-1000Hz the lower the more well rounded and the higher frequency would cause it to sound more woodiness sound.

The toms often require dampening of some sort with either internal dampeners or control rings. Even putting tape or taping on a pad material in some circumstances. Tom's don't have to be mic'ed individually either as one mic can often record two toms pretty easily if its positioned right. Saves on money too especially if its a big kit getting mic'ed. The floor tom can produce sounds as low as 20Hz which isn't desired in most recording and can be prevented by a dynamic mic with a roll off at around 40Hz.  Floor tom frequency mic should be around 80Hz-120Hz for a good bass sound. 

(Quick Tip: Pan the toms from the right to the left speaker in increments. For instance if you have five toms the high tom would be almost all the way to the left and the third would be in the middle while the floor tom would be mostly in the right speaker.)

How To Mic The Cymbals

Overhead/condenser mic's should be around 4-5 feet above the drum set and about 4 feet apart. This will capture the sound of all the cymbals and toms. Jazz drummers tend not to even use mic's for the toms and just use overheads. Its quiet common and acceptable in the jazz community.  If the overheads are positioned well they will capture hi-hats quiet well, but should you mic the hi-hat use a condenser mic and angle it away from the snare. Another method is to point directly down at the hi-hat one foot away. One reason some bottom hi-hats have holes in them or bent around the edges is to allow air to escape and prevent a suction sound when being mic'ed. Its pretty drastic having to drill a hole in the bottom hat yourself but you can angle the hat instead or bend the bottom hat slightly to prevent that.

(Quick Tip: Checking in mono is a great idea any time while setting up the mics to make sure there is no phase cancellation.)