Page 33 - The score

them to receive the full impact of the
stick and sound like massive cannons.
If the toms are heavily angled the stick
will hit the tom at an angle causing it
to sound weak. A muting ring should
also used on the floor tom to achieve
that explosive sound, to cut through.
Set up your cymbals a little higher as
you do not want them to the hit the tom
mics when they’re being played. Since
avoiding cymbal bleed into the other
mics, increasing the vertical distance
between them helps. For instance, to
avoid the hi-hat bleed into the snare mic,
you can increase the height of the hi-
hats. Similarly, the distance between the
ride and the floor tom must be increased
to avoid bleed.
Now, let’s can get into microphone/
equipment choices and mic positioning
and placement. For the kick drum, we can
either use a single kick mic or kick in/
kick out mic setup. Contrary to popular
belief, you’ll able to get a thick, punchy
kick sound even if you use a single mic
setup. Place the mic at level with the
point where the beater strikes the skin
and around 10 inches away form the
beater. Microphones like the Sennheiser
E602 or the Audix D6 can be used on the
kick drum to get amazing results. In the
case of the snare drum, an SM57 with a
mild angle facing the centre of the skin
will do the trick. A second snare mic
can be used underneath to highlight the
sound of the snare wire. Personally, I
would also have a separate SM57 set up
as the hi-hat mic. Sennheiser E604s can
be used on the toms while rode NT-5s can
be for the overheads. The positioning of
the overheads is extremely important as
the decide the overall character of your
drum sound. The lower your over heads
are, the bigger the stereo field will be
while the higher up they are, the more
of the room sound they’ll pick up. An XY
set up of the overheads around a couple
of feet above the drummer’s head should
give you the right balance. A very
important factor that you need to look
out for are phasing issues. Collapsing
make a difference on the kind of tone that the other way around. Also, make sure two microphone inputs into mono will
you get. Push up a feather pillow against that the drum throne is set very high, let you detect whether both the mics are
the beater skin to dampen the sound since with the toms set at a level so they’re at out of phase with each other. If the low
we’re going for a heavy attack/short the apex of a stick strike. Since, metal is a end suddenly seems to drop, this means
sustain kind of sound. Using bass drum genre where there is heavy use of double that the microphones are relatively out
impact patches like the Remo Falam Slam kick pedals, having the drum throne set of phase with each other. This issue can
pad help you get an improved attack from high allows the drummer to work with be solved by phase inverting one of the
the get-go. While it may not be required, a gravity and not against it. Setting your channels.
lot of engineers take off the front head of drum throne lower down can also result Using these recording methods and
the bass drum while recording. in fatigue while doing extensive double tips you should be able to organize and
bass runs as you’ll have to raise your legs
While setting up the drum kit, it should higher up to hit the bass drum. Keep your improve your recordings to make them
be noted that the kit should be built up sound like the colossal metal drums that
around the kick and the snare and not rack toms as flat as possible as you want you hear on your favourite records.

The Score Magazine 31
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