Best minimalist way to mic a drum kit?

[øøøøøøø]

There is an interesting thing about the Coles 4038

They are extremely fragile in terms of staying 100% optimal. Like *extremely*

Yet they’ll also work and pass signal and seem to sound “okay” or even “great” in some applications even when fairly-well compromised

For this reason I’d never, ever gauge how much i like the entire make/model in a given application without a decent sample size and first-person experience

They have a thin ribbon and very little blast protection when compared to something like an RCA. As a result it’s barely an exaggeration to say that they tend to be happiest when never ever used to close mic anything

My personal pair, bought brand new, is for drum overheads only. We have a pair at our Brooklyn place that’s also reserved exclusively for drum overhead duty

As soon as one is put within 20cm/1ft of anything at all i start to wonder whether it’s really “good as new” even if it seems to sound fine

[marqueemoon]

Lately I've been liking stereo overhead + kick + mono room.

kick: EV RE20
OH: Sony ECM-MS957
room: EV 635A

My practice room has a double entry door with a gap of a few feet between them. My favorite application of the room mic is putting it in between the two doors hanging on a ladder. Smash and blend to taste.

[Dr. Ooh]

I learned my favorite minimal drum miking setup from the late Elliot Mazer. Mid 2000’s I was working with him in my studio, and I asked him how he got the drum sound on Neil Young’s Harvest album. I don’t remember exactly what he told me about the Harvest drum sounds, but I do remember how he showed me how to get the sounds with the gear I had. Harvest has some of my favorite drum sounds of all time, and definitely minimal.

He put my AEA R88 Stereo Ribbon microphone on the front in the kit, about 3-4 feet away. His said that we record every other instrument in front, same should be true for drums. (Arguing against placing overheads over the kit).

So it was:
Front of Kit: R88, mono R84 as an alternate
Snare: Josephson e22s, SM57 as an alternate
Kick: AKG D12, Fet47 as an alternate

I had an earthworks kick pad at the time as well, and we used that on the kick, in-line.

Best minimal drum sound I ever got, and still use it to this day. Definitely helped me achieve the Harvest drum sound.

[JamesSGBrown]

I learned my favorite minimal drum miking setup from the late Elliot Mazer. Mid 2000’s I was working with him in my studio, and I asked him how he got the drum sound on Neil Young’s Harvest album. I don’t remember exactly what he told me about the Harvest drum sounds, but I do remember how he showed me how to get the sounds with the gear I had. Harvest has some of my favorite drum sounds of all time, and definitely minimal.

He put my AEA R88 Stereo Ribbon microphone on the front in the kit, about 3-4 feet away. His said that we record every other instrument in front, same should be true for drums. (Arguing against placing overheads over the kit).

So it was:
Front of Kit: R88, mono R84 as an alternate
Snare: Josephson e22s, SM57 as an alternate
Kick: AKG D12, Fet47 as an alternate

I had an earthworks kick pad at the time as well, and we used that on the kick, in-line.

Best minimal drum sound I ever got, and still use it to this day. Definitely helped me achieve the Harvest drum sound.

Where are you placing the kick mic? I’m guessing it’s an unported kick? Similary, what positioning for the snare mic?

[Dr. Ooh]

I learned my favorite minimal drum miking setup from the late Elliot Mazer. Mid 2000’s I was working with him in my studio, and I asked him how he got the drum sound on Neil Young’s Harvest album. I don’t remember exactly what he told me about the Harvest drum sounds, but I do remember how he showed me how to get the sounds with the gear I had. Harvest has some of my favorite drum sounds of all time, and definitely minimal.

He put my AEA R88 Stereo Ribbon microphone on the front in the kit, about 3-4 feet away. His said that we record every other instrument in front, same should be true for drums. (Arguing against placing overheads over the kit).

So it was:
Front of Kit: R88, mono R84 as an alternate
Snare: Josephson e22s, SM57 as an alternate
Kick: AKG D12, Fet47 as an alternate

I had an earthworks kick pad at the time as well, and we used that on the kick, in-line.

Best minimal drum sound I ever got, and still use it to this day. Definitely helped me achieve the Harvest drum sound.

Where are you placing the kick mic? I’m guessing it’s an unported kick? Similary, what positioning for the snare mic?

If it was the D12, mic placed just outside the drum, on the edge of the resonant head. Fet47, placed center, 6" or so from the resonator head. Kick was ported.

For the e22s on snare, pretty much typical snare mic placement. Somewhere around 30 to 40 degree angle to the top of the batter head, about 3" off, you can go even closer, if needed.

[JSett]

I recently tweaked my earlier technique and used a the U87 about 4' in front of the kick and about 3' up (tilted slightly down to face the tom mount) and then just a pair of Coles 4038 in a Glynn Johns setup. Sounded huge, especially the kick. Feed that into a nice bus compressor and a soft limiter... Bingo!

[marqueemoon]

Lately I've been liking stereo overhead + kick + mono room.

kick: EV RE20
OH: Sony ECM-MS957
room: EV 635A

My practice room has a double entry door with a gap of a few feet between them. My favorite application of the room mic is putting it in between the two doors hanging on a ladder. Smash and blend to taste.

On my band’s upcoming EP I did:

kick: EV RE20 (positioned outside the resonant head about 3” from the hoop)
snare: Beyer M201 (conventional placement)
OH: Sony ECM-MS957 (mid/side stereo mic set to 120 degrees). With a stereo mic I like to position my boom stand on the ride side. If you can picture a centerline through the kick running from the batter head to the resonant head the stand is coming in at about a 45 degree angle with the mic at about 6’ from the floor and aimed down at the kick pedal. This puts the kick and snare roughly in the center of the stereo image, and while it’s not super wide sounding there is a clear sense of the hats and rack tom being on one side and ride and floor on the other.

I used my Superlux S502 as a stereo room mic about 8’ out from the front of the kit and slightly favoring the ride side. Again, this is to put the kick and snare more in the center, and because nobody ever needs more hi hat on a recording.

6 mics is not minimalist by my definition, but compared to most modern drum recordings still pretty spartan.

After playing around a lot in mixing I left the stereo room mic almost completely untouched. There is zero compression, and only a gentle high pass and high shelf.

Since GarageBand has no busses or sends what I ended up doing is printing off a stereo mix of the kick, snare, and overheads, flying that back in, smashing the crap out of it, and then blending a little of that in.

This combined with the untouched room mics allowed me to find a balance between a thicker rock sound and the natural sound of the ORTF room mic with all of those transients intact.

There are some shortcomings with the sound of the room and of the drums themselves, but overall I am very happy with it. I’m especially happy with the stereo image. It works beautifully on headphones.