If you are recording drums in your studio and only have a few mics to work with you might be thinking "How am I going to get a great sound without having a huge mic locker?"

Well I'm here to tell you that you don't actually need many mics to get a really cool drum sound. In fact there are even some benefits to using only a few mics at a time on drums.

This is a continuation of the previous blog posts I wrote Five Tips For Awesome Drums In Your Home Studio and How To Choose The Best Drum Mics (For Your Home Studio).

So here are 8 ways that you can record your drums with one, two, or three mics.

This is really simple and involves taking only one mic to record your drum kit. Essentially there are as many ways as you can think of since you can move the mic around to different spots and listen to see which sound best.

One cool way to start is to plug your ears and walk around the kit while the drummer is playing. When you hear a particularly good sound try placing the mic right there, and see how it works out. If that doesn't work listen to see what exactly you don't like about the sound and adjust accordingly. For example, if you don't hear enough hi hat move the mic closer to it. Or if you hear too much crash cymbal then either move the crash cymbal away from the mic, or move the mic further away from the crash cymbal. Easy right?

The single mic soul technique Is one that I heard about the Dap Kings using for their records (credit goes to Goffrey Moore for hipping me to this). Place the mic between the kick and snare drum so that it's hearing both pretty closely. If you add some compression at 2:1 or 4:1 You can get a really cool "In your face" kick and snare sound. Hopefully you can hear just the right amount of high hat as well. If not then again just move things around slightly till you find a sweet spot and balance for what you need. Remember that each groove might require different elements to be heard.

And another great way to mic the drums with a single mic is to use a single overhead looking down at the drums. Just put the mic above the kit Looking down so that it sees a little bit of each drum if possible. (If the mic doesn't see a drum then it may not hear it well)

If you find that the drums sound too far away or too roomy then just move the mic down closer to the drum kit. Make sure that the mic itself doesn't get in the way of the drummers ability to play or do fills, and you should be good to go! If you have any other mics and want to hear more kick or snare then you can always add close mics to those drums as needed.

If you have a pair of mics then you can start to get into some really cool stereo miking tricks. The simplest one to start Is the spaced pair method. This can be done with cardiod or omni mics.

When I first learned about different stereo miking techniques I thought it was the coolest thing in the world. So I raced home to meet up with my friend Meghan, and we started miking everything we could find using different stereo methods. One of the instruments that lends itself very well to stereo miking is of course the drum kit.

For the spaced pair method all you need to do is take one mic and put it above the high hat and snare looking down, and the other mic above the ride and floor tom side looking down. You should be able to pan these two mics hard left and right to get a cool stereo drum sound. Make sure to check the sound in mono too to see that the polarity between the two mics is correct so that you don't accidentally cancel out the lower frequencies.

Also be sure to listen to each individual drum in the drum set to make sure that you're hearing a decent balance of all the elements of the kit. If something is not right start moving mics around, or start moving the drums around till you hear what you want for the song.

This comes from the standard set by France, which stands for Office de Radiodiffusion Télévision Française. It involves setting up a stereo pair of cardiod mics above the drums at a 110° angle between the two mics looking down. The mics should be a matched pair and 17 cm apart from capsule to capsule. This gives a stereo image from the pickup patterns of the cardioid mics and the time difference between the arrival of sound at the capsules, but still maintains a good mono compatibility. Plus it's easy to mount to a single mic stand with a stereo mic clip above the drum kit out of the way of the drummer.

Mono compatibility is important in stereo miking if you want your drums to retain their sound whether in stereo speakers or on a mono playback device. Mono playback happens more often than you might think. 

​When you are rocking out in the car you might get more of a mono sound then true stereo. When you listen back on built in computer speakers, and iPhone, or your laptop you might get more of a mono experience. Or even when you have stereo speakers but hear them from across the room or in a separate room the sound will converge into mono as it fills the space.

So if you want to get a stereo drums sound that is nearly mono already you can try using the XY coincident pair. This involves a matched pair of cardioid mics that are set at a 90º angle with the capsule as close as possible. So that a sound arriving from in front of the mics will arrive at both mics at the same time. This way there is a stereo image formed from the pickup patterns of the cardioid mics, but not from the time difference between them.

You will get a very focused image out of this, and typically more mono sounding with a subtle stereo effect. This can be great if you want the drums to have lots of focus and punch and don't really need a wide stereo image.

This is such a cool method for recording drums! If you have a matched pair of cardioid mics, Then you can get a great stereo sound while keeping the kick drum and the snare drum in the center of your mix.

Take the first mic and place it above the rack tom and near the snare pointing down at the drum kit. And then measure from the center of the snare drum up to the capsule of the mic and back down to the kick drum beater. While holding the string on the snare and the kick drum beater rotate the apex of the triangle that you just created, with the string, over towards your right shoulder, and floor tom. When you feel you've found a good spot for the second Mike Place the second mic at the point of the triangle. 

Take both microphones and pan them hard left and right in your mix. This will give you a great stereo image. However it will also keep the kick and snare dead center in your mix, and totally focused, because they are the same distance from each microphone.

(Its a little hard to see the equidistant mic placement in the image, but it gives you the general idea of what the mics might look like when you look at it from the front of the kit.)

Glyn Johns is one of the greats! He recorded bands like the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, and the Who. And it was during a Led Zeppelin session that he famously discovered his mic technique.

Normally Glyn he would record the drum kit with a single overhead mic. But one day during a recording session with Led Zeppelin, the assistant unintentionally moved a second microphone out of the way of a guitar amp, and randomly placed it looking over the floor tom. The second mic was also panned over to the side because thats where the guitar amp had been panned. And when they heard both microphones in the control room with the drums in stereo, everyone flipped out at how awesome it sounded!

The technique is often explained as taking the first mic and setting it above the drums looking down exactly two drumsticks length from the center of the snare drum. But Glyn basically glossed over this detail essentially saying that his technique is pretty loose in general,  and that the overhead mic can be placed pretty much where ever you like it. 

Then take the second mic and come over the floor tom looking toward the snare, and kick beater. If you can manage to have both mics the same distance from the snare drum all the better! Because then as you pan the two mics out left and right, you're likely to hear the snare stay in the center image.

However the Glenn Johns technique does not typically hard pan left and right very well. In fact I find myself panning the overhead mic just slightly to the left, and the floor tom mic further to the right. That always seems to make for a pretty good stereo drum mix. Also a complete Glyn Johns technique would probably include a kick drum mic and a snare drum mic to bring those drums forward in the final mix.

Basically if you're room doesn't sound great in your studio, and you feel like you get too much of it in your overheads when you try to set the mics up high. Then you can use this method to get a little closer to the drums, and still cover the full drum kit.

This is a way of recording the drums that I use sometimes when I start with a mono overhead like my Coles 4038, and then discover that I still need more detail on the high hat and ride. So I will add another pair of condenser mics to the outside of the drum kit looking in. I have also seen Graham Cochran of the Recording Revolution using this method with great success, to accommodate the less than fabulous sound of a home studio drum room. 

Simply take one mic and put it above the drums pointing down in the center. Then take the other two mics and put them on the left side and the right side of the kit. Pan the three mics accordingly so that the high hat is panned over on the left side, the center mic is right up the middle, and the ride mic is panned over to the right side (if you want drummer perspective). This should give you a nice stereo spread with a focused center as well.

Each of these methods above will potentially give you a very cool drum sound. And you can also get a pretty great stereo image for some of these. But you might find that you still need to add close mics to the drums to really bring out the kick snare in toms. 

So don't be afraid to add a mic wherever you think you might need it if you just want to hear more of a particular drum in the final mix. Just remember to check the phase polarity on each mic as you add it to the overheads to make sure that it's not killing the punch of your drum sound, but enhancing instead.

There are a lot of microphone available today. I mean really A LOT! But we want to get some for miking up our drum kit in our studio. So let's jump in and get started.

Let's search for "Microphone"  in Google and figure out which ones we want right?

283,000,000 microphones? 

Holy crap. I can't even count that high!

Hmm... Why don't we search for "Microphone" in Amazon and see what we get 

331,058 results!!

Um. Well how about we narrow it down even further?

Let's search for "Home Studio Microphone" in Amazon, and see what that looks like...

Ahhh. There we go. Now we can narrow it down to a mere 5,935 results... Hahaha!! So if you want to make a great choice for buying drum mics for your home studio all you need to do is search through 5,935 microphones???

Yeah I don't think so. 🙂

In fact when I started out in recording the best way to learn about which mics to use was either through trial and error (if you could get ahold of a mic) or ask someone else what to use.

So here are some of my favorite mics for recording drums (and a few recommended on the podcast too). Now bear in mind that there are no rules for this stuff since what we are creating here is art. So feel free to try anything and see what you think of the sound.

And what I will list here are the mics I might choose for a multi miking of the drum kit. More of a modern sound. Minimal miking is an awesome choice too: things like the Glyn Johns technique, the Recorderman, or the single mic Dap Kings method. But for now Ill talk about mics on each drum with overheads, ambient mics, and room mics.

• My favorite go to mic for capturing the inside of a kick drum is the AKG D112. I have tried many others (and like most all of them) but whenever I do an A/B comparison I always seems to come back to the D112. I just like the way it has a built in eq curve to boost some low end and add a little snap on the top without sounding too boxy.
• I like to put it inside the drum going in through the hole in the front head if there is one. Ill point it at where the beater makes contact with the center of the drum head. My mentor Brad Jones also taught me to scoot it over toward the side of the drum shell to "Capture some of the wood" unless I really want more of a modern kick sound in which case I will leave it dead center.
• And if the kick drum has a full front head with no hole then you can sometimes drop a mic cable through the small breather hole in the top of the kick drum and clip the inside mic to that leaving it dangling (but pointed at the beater). This will give you a rather "basket ball" sound but it works in a pinch to give you more definition to the final kick drum sound. Otherwise you would only have the outside mic to use.

• Sennheiser MD421 -  Dynamic mic with an unusual mic clip and sounds really punchy. Make sure to check the low rolloff rotary switch near the clip to select the correct bass response.
• Shure SM7 - Dynamic mic great for vocals and also for bass and kick drum. Again make sure to check the low roll off eq selection in the back as well as the mid boost. Select to taste (though I often bypass the eq)
• Electro Voice RE20 - This is another great microphone that always sounds like a really flat response to me. Whether that is true or not it sound to me like a focused midrange without too much hype in the lows or highs. Also a great vocal mic and classic radio mic like the Shure SM7. I love using this on the bass amp too.

This is where the condenser comes in handy for recording the kick drum. You are likely to want a mic that captures a little more "air" and picks up on the full natural sound of the drum rather than just the focused attack that the inside mic gets. You can blend the outside mic with the inside mic for your complete kick sound. I usually favor the inside mic with just a hint of the outside mic to soften the focus of the inside mic.

• Neumann FET47 - This is a classic go to mic for the kick. It actually works great on the inside of a kick too. But thats because it has both a capsule pad and output pad that will let you select the level the mic puts out to the mic pre. Thats why is is so useful as a kick mic, bass mic, or super loud guitar cab mic. Plus it picks up beautiful low freq and has a great tone all around. But of course it is not an inexpensive mic though.
• AKG 414 - This is another great choice for the outside of a kick (or many other things for that matter). It has a pad selection that will let you knock off 20db of output from the mic. I have the AKG414 BULS and love it for it's dark full quality. It's also a great choice for recording vocals that need to soften a resonant midrange presence. I have had great luck with this mic for both male and female vocals.
• Audio Technica 4033 - I also use this awesome affordable mic with its -10db pad to capture the front head of a kick drum sometimes. I like the extra midrange presence that it offers too. It has wonderful detail. When I recorded with Steve Albini we used it to record the bass amp cabinet too.

DYNAMICS

• Shure SM57 - Of course the classic mic of choice for snare drum is the Shure SM57. I use it all the time for both the top and bottom mics of my snare. I think it has a certain "whack" to the sound and eq response that is familiar and just sounds like a snare drum to me. Granted, I will always eq a lot more high frequency to the sound. I might add a shelf at 4kHz with my Calrec PQ1161s. And I will certainly add a little more in mixing too. But overall these mics just sound familiar. Plus if the drummer hits the mic by accident it wont break!
• EV RE10 - This is an older dynamic mic that I use occasionally for the snare. It has a bit more upper mid boost than the 57, and can also sound great on the snare bottom.
• Lewitt MTP 440 DM - This mic came to me as part of the Lewitt drum pack. I thought it sounded pretty awesome, and could be a great substitute for the SM57 without needing quite as much hi shelf eq boost.

CONDENSERS

• Neumann KM84 - This is a condenser mic that can sound great on a snare. I have done interviews with some producers like George Massenburg and William Wittman who would much rather hear a snare recorded with a great condener mic and never have to hear a Shure SM57. But its always a matter of taste. So go with what sounds best to you!
• AKG 451 - If you have an older model you might need to get a screw on -10db pad. But if you get the newer model this should be built in as a switch. You will get a brighter crisper sound out of this mic. But you might prefer a dynamic like the SM57 if the drummer is really hitting hard. Steve Albini prefered the AKG 451 for toms mics.
• Sony C37 - I remember when the band, Autumn Defense, came to record with me. We used the Sony C37 for the snare on a bunch of tracks. It sounded killer! But the drummer was also gentle with the snare. If you are recording quieter songs then a condenser might work out great for your snare. It had a full soft dark tone.

CONDENSERS

• Miktek CV3 - These are my go to mics at The Toy Box Studio. I love the way these sound. With the large diaphragm I can capture more of a full sound of the kit than just the cymbals, and the tubes just bring out the richness of the drum shells. Plus they have a -10db pad that helps when the drums get loud.
• Roswell Mini K47 - This is also a killer 47 style capsule that works great for capturing drum overheads. I would describe these as sounding less harmonically enhanced and more of a natural drum tone. Great for rock drums where you want a straight forward sound. I am really digging these mics!
• Oktava MK12 - Again the MK12 is a very affordable mic and the small capsule condenser as an overhead gives you lots of bright focus to the drums. You may not need to sculpt the lower mids or cut lows with these mics like you would a large diaphragm condenser. 
• Miktek C5 - Another small capsule mic these have a particularly smooth tone that you might love on drums! They don't have a pad though so maybe not the best choice for rocking out.
• AKG 451 - Again a small capsule mic that can sounds pretty bright in a good way for the right music, but could rip your head off for a rock track or if the cymbals are already really bright (been there done that!)
• AKG 414 - These are classic overhead mics that can work in many different situations. If you get the BULS versions or the ones with the C12 capsules then will have great luck with darkening the brightness of the cymbals. The C414 XLII pair will probably sound great but might be a bit brighter and hyped.
• The Neumann U67, U87, and Gefell UMT 70S FET are all great choices for overhead mics too if you have the budget for them. They will sound rich and smooth and awesome!

There are too many vintage condenser mics that sound great on drums to cover here but I was able to mention a few that have worked great for me.

RIBBONS

• Coles 4038 - The Coles ribbon mic is something to experience. I remember the first time I heard it it was so different from anything else I was used to. It will give you incredible detail while being totally dark at the same time. You can add lots of top end eq and it sounds great when you do. But be VERY VERY careful when you handle these mics or move them around. The ribbon is so fragile inside that to see it move is like watch a slight breeze make a spider web glide through the air. So they can't handle any burst of air from a voice or kick drum. This will destroy the ribbon inside. Also don't send phantom power to these mics by accident!
• Royer 121 - Royer makes beautiful microphones. These ribbons are wonderful sounding and unlike the Coles they can handle a lot more volume without distortion. They wont blow out with a slight gust of air. So you can put them right in front of guitar amps or mic the drums more closely with them. Royer recommends that you angle the mic 45 degrees in front of loud sources though to avoid overload and distortion. It can be a little confusing but Royer also makes the active 122 ribbon mic. So DON'T send phantom power to the 121 but DO send phantom power to the 122. Got it? Oh lord....
• Fat Head Ribbons - Ive been hearing a lot of great things about the Fat Head ribbon mics. If you want something at a very affordable value then check out the Fat Head mics.

Room mics are a great way to put some real excitement and energy into your drum sound. When I worked with Steve Albini we asked all sorts of questions about recording In Utero with Nirvana at Pachyderm studio (of course we did!). And what we learned is that a huge part of Dave Grohl's awesome drum sound came from the room mics (with his great playing of course). In fact Steve favored the room mics over the overhead mics when it came time to mix. 

Now of course the opposite could be true for certain records. An classic Eagles or Steely Dan record probably wouldn't sound right if you heard tons of room mic in the mix. So decide for yourself what you are going for and mix accordingly. Meanwhile here are some cool choices for room mics.

• Miktek C7 - These are my go to room mics at The Toy Box Studio. In fact I leave them set up all the time above the loft railing. That way I can just patch them in any time and add room mics to anything that I record. They sound great and have a selectable pattern. I have ben using them in cardiod a lot but am going to start using them in omni more often to avoid any off axis coloration of the cymbals in the room.
• Roswell Delphos or Mini K47 - These sound great on just about everything! Room mics included. Plus they have very low noise which is great when using them as a room mic since you may need lots of gain which can bring up the noise floor in the mic signal to your DAW.
• Marshall 2001 (MXL mics) - These were actually my first stereo pair of large diphragm condenser mics back in 2000. I still break them out for recording and they work and sound great! I don't think my particular model is manufactured any longer but MXL makes all sorts of other models that could be a great choice too.
• Lewitt LCT 640 - Lewitt is an Austrian mic company that makes this model very similar to the AKG 414. This is a very versatile and great sounding microphone! I use everywhere from drums to guitars, and piano. Its just a great all around mic.
• Altec M20 - This is a mic I learned about from Steve Albini. He always did a really cool trick where he put a pair of mics on the ground in front of the drum kit with a slight delay between them so that one mic was delayed 20 miliseconds  and the other perhaps 24 miliseconds. This gave a cool stereo widening effect to the fairly close close ambient mics in front of the drums. He used Altec coke bottle 150s but these are very similar. A Pair of PZM mics on the floor would work great too. 

And then finally any of the great overhead choices would make a perfect choice for room mics as well. What you really need are a pair of mics that will allow you to bring up the gain without added noise. Also I find that darker mics are preferable so that you don't emphasize too much cymbals brightness in the room sound. Really they are great to adding body and power to the drum shells rather than cymbals.

Check out some of these mics in your home studio if you can get ahold of them, and you should see some awesome results. There are many more to choose from and many that I have not mentioned that would be totally fantastic for you!

If you know anyone locally that would let you rent or borrow some mics to try out that is really the best way to see what you think. Sometimes the local music store will let you take home a pair to test them or give you a return policy for a week or two. That way you can really find out whether they are the right mics for you.

But don't get too caught up in the choice though. Any of these mics listed would be good enough for you to make a great record. And remember its all about the drummer anyway! You're just there to capture what they do with great mic placement!

I can only cover so much in a single blog article. So if you are interested in getting much deeper into recording, editing, and mixing drums in your home studio you should check out Rockstars Of Drums.

Are you ready to take your drum recording, editing, and mixing to the next level? 

Check out my pro drum course:

 Rockstars Of Drums.

Learn how to record, edit, and mix pro sounding drums with Nashville session drummer Mike Radovsky and Grammy studio owner Lij Shaw. 

Recording drums in your home studio can be one of the most complex and tricky instruments you will ever get to record.

​With so many drums that make up a complete kit and so many mics and mic choices it can be a bit overwhelming at first. But fear not! You can capture a great drum recording in your home studio if you follow these simple guidelines:

There is really is no substitute for starting with a great musician. There are infinite possibilities in how a drummer can hit the drums creating a variety of sounds and tones. And if the drummer has a great touch and tone when playing the kit it will make the whole drum kit sound better. When the drum kit sounds better your mics sound better, no matter what mic you choose.

And of course there are also an endless number of drum grooves to choose from too. You can take a group of drummers all playing the same exact groove, but each will have a different flavor and style to the way they play that groove. So choose someone that plays with great feel and makes it fun for you to play guitar and sing (if you are playing along).

Now of course some of us like to play drums ourselves, and that’s just fine. If you are a great drummer yourself then you’ve already got that covered and can get right down to recording. However if you are a wanna be drummer (like me) then you might really want to consider bringing in a ‘real’ drummer for the session. I don’t want to discourage you from playing drums if you really enjoy it. But if you decide to bring in someone really good then you may discover that the groove feels better, the fills are more solid, and the tones are far more consistent.

Drums are like guitars and need to be in tune to sound their best. When a drum is well tuned it can have a great tone and really sing. In fact the whole kit can sound better if you have chosen the best drum shells, heads, and cymbals as a group. No this doesn’t mean that you have to have an expensive or fancy kit. In fact I have a motley collection of drums in my studio that I have gathered over the years, but they are mostly drums that I really like the sound of when I first found them.

I have a collection of snares (around 6?) and they all sound a little different from each other. Some are student snares with only 6 lugs, some are wooden, and the others are metal. There are two snares that have consistently proven to be great choices for rock songs (or just about any song for that matter), The Ludwig Supraphonic, and the Ludwig Acrolite snare drums are both excellent affordable choices for an all around rock snare that can be tuned up or down depending on the song.

There are many ways you can mic a drum kit with one mic:

• Try placing a mic above the kit looking down so that it can see all the drums and cymbals.
• Try placing the mic near the drummer’s head so that it looks at the kit like the drummer does.
• Try placing the mic on the floor in front of the kit.
• Try placing the mic above the kick pointing toward the side of snare and top of the kick so that it can hear both the kick drum and the snare in a balanced way while picking up the rest of the kit at the same time.

Listen for the balance of the drums coming out of the speakers. If you need more of a particular drum simply move the mic closer and if you need less of something move it away. Once you feel like you understand what’s going on with the single mic then you can better understand what’s missing and start to add close mics on the drums to help bring out what the single mic lacks.

If you have a pair of mics you can try the Recorderman setup. Basically you take one mic above the drum kit pointing down at the rack tom and snare and measure the distance to the center of the snare drum and also the kick beater.

Then you take the second mic and place it near the drummer’s shoulder on the floor tom side (the image below is a right handed drummer). Measure the shoulder mic so that it is also the same distance away from the center of the snare and the kick beater.

Then you can pan both mics stereo all the way to the left and right and the snare and kick sound will stay in the center image since they both reach the two mics at the same time through the air.

If you want to take the Recorderman to the next level you can try what I’ve loosely been calling the “Lijman” technique where you add a third mic out in front of the kick, but measure it to be the same distance to the kick beater as the other two mics. That way you can get a little more impact, focus, and body out of the kick drum. And because it is the same distance from the beater as the other two mics the attack will stay focused right in the center image.

If you are lucky to have a great sounding room for the drums in your house then congrats, and go ahead and start recording! But if you are like most of us the room might sound a little funny. Perhaps the walls are all hard dry wall and the space sounds like an boxy empty office space. Or maybe you are in a basement with a lot of splashy sound coming back off the concrete walls.

Use careful mic placement to help alleviate the room problem too. You might rely on close mics a little more. Or bring your overhead mics down a little closer to the drums so that they hear the direct drums more, and reflections off the walls and ceiling less.

In fact you can even add a third overhead mic in the center to balance out the stereo image better. So one mic near the hihat, another near the ride, and a third one above the center of the kit with the hi hat and ride mics panned out to the sides in the mix.