I'm recording some live rehearsal room demos with my band soon and on my recorder (zoom h6) I'll only have one XLR input left for drums. I've seen this video and whilst we don't exactly play that sort of blues he gets a pretty good sound after compression and treating the lows and highs differently, plus mixing in some room (I'll also be using the mid/side capsule on the zoom for room sound)
I have an MD421 I could use as per the vid but would a cardioid condenser (sennheiser MK4) be better with its wider Freq response? Or will the sensitivity just pick up too much spill from the other instruments?
I know neither is ideal (I always like to record drums with 4 mics, Glyn Johns/recorderman style) but we just need some quick and dirty demos to put together teasers etc.
Comments
Studio: https://www.voltperoctave.com
Music: https://www.euclideancircuits.com
Me: https://www.jamesrichmond.com
It all comes down to trial and error--if you have time, setting up one mic to get the best overall sound is good, but you will always just have a mono track to play with, which worked ok when we were ALL mono recording, ie early rock n roll, Beatles etc etc.
These days, we can work miracles in a Daw, duplicate and flip tracks to create stereo effects etc, which can work well to create a spread, but you will miss the drive and punch that come from a kick and snare at the centre of your mix, but then we can cheat with stuff like Trigger to generate separate sample tracks of kick and snare, which is what I would try and allow for in a limited recording session.
It takes a bit of work afterwards to get these tracks from a full drum track on one mic, but it can be done.
It will take a few goes to get a good result, which is how I approached the problem, but even a really bad drum track (sounding) can be improved on, the choice of mic depends on how you want to capture that drum track--a broad accurate mono recording, or a more focused kick and snare , which will make generating sample tracks easier.
Good luck.
These are just for rough teasers at the minute. We'll record something more proper with isolated instruments when we can afford to. We just need to get something quick and half decent sounding to send on to the promoter asap.
@andy_k check out the end of the video - he duplicates the single mic track and blends with mid/side room to balance it out.
@digitalscream - just money tbh. and I'm a big fan of keeping it as simple as possible.
Dynamic mics work really well for close mixing individual elements of a drum kit, which is why you see them on kick, snare and toms.
It is rare to use dynamics as overheads, except as an effect.
If you are using the H6 why not mount it on a stand over the kit and use the onboard stereo XY mics as overheads?
I've never heard drums from a single mic that are approaching anything that can be considered 'OK', even if you have a £2k Neumann U87.
Personally, even when using minimal mic setups I still mic the kick, snare and overheads.
I often also add a slammed (compressed) mono room mic too.
The the very least I'd mic the kick and have stereo overheads.
Studio: https://www.voltperoctave.com
Music: https://www.euclideancircuits.com
Me: https://www.jamesrichmond.com
But I disagree that there are 'plenty of people' doing one mic drums.
Daptone do, although a lot of the time it is two and that is a very specific sound.
In the professional recording space it is usually a minimum of 4 and for good reason.
Studio: https://www.voltperoctave.com
Music: https://www.euclideancircuits.com
Me: https://www.jamesrichmond.com
Daptone track to tape and somewhat specialise in that sound.
I don't want to give a false impression that one mic drums will give anything other than a very, very basic level of quality.
That said, I did something a while back where I copied a one mic drum recording onto three tracks and isolated the kicks and snares with strip silence and then sample replaced them.
That afforded a much better sound- if the OP wants to entertain that sort of thing then it can work ok.
Studio: https://www.voltperoctave.com
Music: https://www.euclideancircuits.com
Me: https://www.jamesrichmond.com
I mean, sonically it'll sound as good as the player makes the drums in the room sound at the place you put the mic. In isolation, that can be great. Notice that in the video in the OP, the drums only have a bluesy guitar and a voice to co-exist alongside.
Once there's more going on - multiple guitar tracks, bass etc - then a 1-mic drum recording can be a hindrance as you can't get it to punch through without making it really loud and forward - at which point, if the production doesn't want that from the drums, you start to wish you could pull some more isolation & attack out of the kick & snare at least. And in 90% of cases you'll start to wish you could go back in time and use the cymbals to decapitate the drummer since they're usually way too loud. In a one mic recording, you're stuck with them.
Bandcamp
Spotify, Apple et al
In the past I got some recordings I was reasonably happy with just using just an SM57 for the drums but I didn't position it well, and the MD421 video above sounds much better than my isolated drum track.
As for the band and setup, it's stoner rock with drums, 1 guitar (might layer a 2nd rhythm track afterwards), bass and vox. Ideally want to record it all live and due to the genre I think we can get away with a slightly lo-fi demo.
Again I'm not looking or expecting to get proper studio level results, but I want it to sound better than just plonking the H6 in the middle of the room and hitting record which sounds like crap.
So I have -
H6 with either XY or MS capsules
4 XLR inputs and a reasonable selection of standard mics to choose from.
Use the rest of the inputs however you were going to do so.
Later on in the mix, use plugins to isolate and trigger kick+snare+toms and mix them in with the original X/Y recording. It'll probably take some extra midi editing work, but it'll sound much better for it. The most important thing will be to make a tempo-map in your DAW that matches your drum recordings.
The most important thing for a good live drum sound - in my opinion - is a sense of space. A single mono mic is not going to give you that and will put your recordings roughly back in 1952. Which is bad. Again, imo.
Things like bass and guitars are so easy to track at home now, that your priority should be drums, and depending on the vocals, getting great vocal takes. With great vocal takes and stereo-sounding drums, everything else can be redone and redone until it's right.
I'll even go as far to say that "authentic" recordings where everything sits in the same space *tend* to miss the entire artistry of mixing.