Bootstrapping Your Drum Sound Part II – Recording Drums in Your Living Room

Recording drums in a living room environment poses some challenges. I recorded 6 tracks for an upcoming EP over the weekend and they came out pretty good if I say so myself.

I wanted to keep you in the loop on some of these recordings, so that you can hear how they change over time.

The Unmixed Drum Recording

Below you can hear a sample of the drums I recorded over the weekend. If you read Friday’s post on recording drums then you might know what I was planning on doing.

An unmixed, bare bones version of the drums can be heard here below:

[audio:https://www.audio-issues.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/drumsall.mp3|titles=The Long Wait Recording Drums]

All the tracks are at unity gain, and no mixing has been done to them so far.

How it was Done

I tried the recorderman technique but I was having problems with their equidistant kick and snare technique so I ened up with something similar that worked. It was more of a overhead placement exercise than using any one technique.

In the end I had something that sounded pretty good to me. The overheads were closer than typical A/B overheads but they were phase coherent with the snare drum, being equidistant from it.

The kick was miked with an Audix D6 just inside the kick drum. I had to move it around to get the right amount of click from the beater. I also tried to capture the resonance from the bass drum by draping a blanket over it.

The snare was miked in the typical fashion, pointing straight into the center of the snare drum with an Audix i5.

I used one room microphone at waist level, pointing at the center of the kit. I put my Reflexion Filter around the microphone to minimize reflections bouncing from the walls. I don’t know if it did anything really but the room microphone sounds pretty good to me.

[audio:https://www.audio-issues.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/drumsroom.mp3|titles=drumsroom]

Initial Observations

Using just five microphones I have plenty to work with. I think I used the resources at my disposal pretty well, and these tracks will definitely lend themselves well to mixing.

The so it’s not a big problem.

The room mic sounds pretty awesome to me and it really brings out the fullness of the kit.

Compare the drum recording both with and without the room microphone below:

Drums without room

[audio:https://www.audio-issues.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/drumsnoroom.mp3|titles=drumsnoroom]

Drums with room

[audio:https://www.audio-issues.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/drumsall1.mp3|titles=drumsall]

It definitely creates that space needed. I don’t know if I’ll use that mic as the reverb for the drum kit or use it creatively during mixdown but I’m glad I decided to add it.

Conclusion

Now, I don’t know how you feel about the sound of the kit(and please tell what you actually think) but I think I achieved a pretty good drum recording considering the living room feel of it all.

With the right amount of mixing I think I’ll be able to make these drum tracks sound pretty awesome.

What do you guys think?

P.S.

For practical and easy-to-use recording tips for any instrument, 

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