I did not get them, but you can actually order something like that on Amazon or just go to a fabric and foam store.

There are lots of threads all over the Internet on the isosceles triangle. Just look up Glynn Johns miking technique. I set them up equidistant from the center of the snare and pan them hard L and R. Never find myself needing to mic the ride. I’ll go through something like a 33609 that can grab the snare and change the snare to cymbal ratio. I’m using my OHs to mic the kit, not the cymbals.

Silly question- on the drummers left side, is that a divider from an office cubicle? It certainly looks like one. Thanks.

Yes it is. It’s there to make the space “smaller” and therefore tighter. Works great.

Ah ok. I’d never heard Glyn Johns technique referred to as isosceles hence my curiosity. Thx for the insight as well as the info on the foam!

Hi, This is Inspiration Studio, its a studio i built about a year ago, this one is in the Philippines. There are not many studios here, actually this one is the only built from the ground up to be a studio, most are low ceilings, office space etc.. There are not many home bedroom studios here either. I built this studio to produce and record Christian artists that have some amazing talent and no where to record. But we are also open to anyone that wants to record or mix. This is the only room in the PH with a working analog console, big live room, tuned control room etc.. and i am so thankfull to be able to work in this room everyday .

I will post some drums i tracked in here as soon as i get time.
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Here is the website, and facebook page

https://inspirationrecording.com/

https://www.facebook.com/InspirationRecordingStudio/

Cool stuff, Funny Cat. How do you manage to get such a full, in-your-face snare with such a controlled and unpronounced hat? I don't even mic my hihat and it's still all I can do to tame it in the mix.

Thanks! It's all about the player!

I'm probably stating the obvious but some drummers know how to "Self-balance" and others just bash.

I get a mix of both in here.

Ain’t that the truth!

Sounds great. The Rhodes sound is pretty convincing from the Nord as well.

I'll try to keep an eye out for that.

the single biggest secret in getting killer drum tracks. fat punchy kicks and snares and toms...with smooth, velvety cymbals that don't take over the track.

it's amazing how many times i've mixed records with killer drummers...and pretty much any mic near the kit could be eq'd to be a pretty good drum sound.

i mixed a record years ago for my buddy miles nielsen that had bun e carlos on a few tunes. as i was pulling up the tracks, somehow i just had the hi hat mic and a low room mic turned up out of all the drum tracks.

it basically sounded like a well balanced drum recording with just those two mics

i always struggled to get great drum sounds...except when i had a great drummer to work with. the it was easy. just toss up some mics, get the phase right..press record.

drummers that can balance themselves...are the real heroes.

also drummers who leave the china cymbals and splashes at home.

no splashes unless you are ritchie hayward or stewart copeland.

Lol. No China cymbals. Haha!

Agree 100%. A lot of drummers use my house kit and I’ve been thinking about how one recording can sound phenomenally better than the next.

Same mics save me swapping a snare or room mic every once in a while to keep it interesting. Same pres. Same room. Yet vastly different sounding recordings.

It all boils down to the “hero’s” as you put it. The drummer!

Yep. Throw just about any decent mic up on a good drummer and you’ll get something inspiring. :0)

Same here. Lots of people have played on the house drums, but still sound different.

i recorded levon helm once for some johnnie johnson tracks.

the studio that was booked had a house drum kit. a crappy pearl export kit with some camber cymbals. i couldn't believe it when i walked in. i realized i should have brought one of my kits but i was told there would be a great house kit there.

i was young and pretty snobby about drums.

i did all i could to get those drums to sound passable...i was so embarrassed when levon walked in, i just wish i could have driven 50 miles to get one of my kits. i was angry the "producer" told me the drum kit was all taken care of.

i had a pair of coles 4038's, a d12 in the kick drum, and a beyer 201 on the snare. a single u67 out in the room.

levon saw the kit, said..."ok, this is cool...what are we playing?"

i went in to start getting sounds...he started laying down a groove and i about fell out of my chair. it sounded...perfect.

because he was playing.

all i really had to do was get the mics close to the drums and not forget to press record.

i learned a lot on that session.

I'm completely jealous.

that was a fun day. levon could not have been a nicer dude. just a great man. johnnie was too.

don't think those tracks ever saw the light of day. a few years later i did johnnie's last album. we tracked that all to 2" analog. levon was busy and did not end up on those sessions. wish i could have worked with him again.

it was pretty cool sitting next to him watching him play. i've been lucky to watch a few of my drum heroes play up close, and it's always interesting to watch the subtle ways they pull tones out of the drums and cymbals...and mostly...to feel their groove and pocket.

I would post audio, but the drummer rescheduled for next week... It sounded great when I tested it out though! Wanted a more modern sound for this one, so more mic's than I usually use.

Overhead: AEA R88
Snare Top and Bottom: SM57's
Kick In: Sennheiser e602
Kick Out: Vanguard V13
Low Drumkit Mic: Chandler TG
Toms: OktavaMod MK-012's
Hats: Rode NT5
Rooms: Vanguard V4's

I had the snare tuned pretty high and snappy and didn't want the overhead's to sound too spread out, so the R88 worked well. I knew I was going to have the Vanguard V4's spaced out in the room, so those would give some subtle space/spread and sparkle when blended in. The V4's are pointed at the floor, I wanted more reflection than direct support. The floor position usually gives you a little more "umph" and resonance from the kick, which I felt like the kick needed with the way I had it tuned. The TG mic was on the big sounding 5A setting (System A IEC/NAB 7.5 IPS), that's more than likely what it will live on when drum micing. Everything else is pretty standard.

I'll be interested to hear this. You've posted a few of the giant drums minimal mic thing (that's totally cool) so I'd like to hear what a more "modern" set up from you sounds like.

Also, you need some short stands!

Hard to beat a few of they super awesome posts here haha!

I recorded some drums in a small studio last weekend. First time i used ORTF, always used spaced pair. I like it! Very nice in-phase centered snare but still enough stereo width on cymbals. A few spot mics on HH and ride helps too!

Kick Beta91
Snare Audio Technica Atm 450
Tom 1-2 Atm450
Tom 3 Sm57 (the 450 was to toppy)
OH Neumann km84
HH/Ride km84
Rooms Coles 4038

Seconded. I particularly want to hear what those Vanguards sound like facing the floor! Maybe solo'd...

My week got really screwed up and I had to rearrange some sessions, the shorties are all being used right now. But ya, EVERY studio I've worked in I always need more short stands. Was thinking about ordering 2 more this morning!

I forgot I still had some wave files in the session from where I was setting up the drums and testing for levels/phase. This is just strait faders up, nothing else going on. The snare bottom mic is causing some funky phasing with the kick drum. I tried a quick and dirty gate on it and the problem went away, so I'm not going to worry about it. You're not hearing the gate though, so if you hear some phase issues on the kick drum you'll know where they're coming from.

I bounced out the Vanguard V4 rooms too. I wasn't entirely happy with the image balance, I figured I would play around with it more when the drummer got here. The placement just needs some tweaking as it's a LITTLE lopsided. Probable something I could fix with the waves imager plugin, but I'll definitely tweak placement next week when I've got someone playing.

I use to go over the top on drums in the past. A lot of the drums I was recording were for projects I wasn't going to mix, and there were minimal scratch tracks to play to at that point. I got in the habit of setting up a bunch of stuff to give the mix engineer some options later on. Now days, pretty much everything I'm working on is me from start to finish, so I can get away with doing more minimal stuff because I know I'm going to work everything else around it.

@ andersmv


Interesting. With headphones on, I'm hearing the kick on the right and the snare on the left from the V4's but looking at the pics I would assume it would be the other way around? I suppose if you can't get them both centered you could mute one and just use a mono room. I like the way the Vanguards are picking up the toms. I also like the softness of the capture. Pretty cool that you've got all that light coming into the room near the drums. I bet you can get some fantastic photos in there!

Ya, I wasn't thrilled with the image on that placement. I was probably panning the rooms to the drummers perspective as well (I can't remember), drums panned audience perspective have always bugged me. I can definitely get away without room mic's in this room, so it was a spur of the moment thing. I measured out the same distance from the kick drum to each mic thinking that would get the kick centered, but it didn't. A lot of the lopsidedness is low end, I could probably roll out some of the lows and the image would be fine.

I agree though, I do like what they did with the toms. When I have a drummer playing, I'll walk around the room a bit and move them around until they're more balanced, it probably wouln't take much.

The R88 is Blum? I’ve never used that on drums (or anything for that matter). Do you dig? I don’t know if I would. It seems like weird spread for close up ish drums?

It's a great drum mic, it get's used on almost every drum session. I typically don't place it in the traditional overhead position like I did for this setup. I usually place it more in front of the kit pointed towards the kit rather than over (Picture below). It's not an exaggerated stereo image, but it's accurate. Great for blending in just a bit as support to add a bit more body. I would use it more as a room mic, but my room is open and live enough that I don't do that very often. The back of the figure 8 picks up enough reflections that I get a nice, open sound even when it's placed close to the kit.



Here's a link to the drums from that picture, it's only 3 mics. There's an old 1932 RCA PB90 capturing the whole kit, the R88 blended in with that and a little bit of a condenser mic outside the kick. I would say that most of that mix is the R88.

Kit I record with. Mic'ing changes depending on style.

Cool. Thank you dude!

Cool, man thanks for sharing this. The lopsided thing isn't that noticeable in the full faders up version.

I saw Nick Raskulinecz do something really cool with room mics while guest teaching. He had the students close their eyes and adjust the gain of the room mics until they sounded balanced, without seeing meter on the console or PT. It sounded solid, but looked really weird on the meters.

I'm, generally an "all the mics" on drums guy, but when the minimal thing is right, its super cool.
This is got a great vibe. Is it one of your songs?

Ya, that one was one of my songs. The recording on my songs is always all over the place as it's just a time to experiment and try different things. I think when I did the drums, I had just gotten the 30's RCA and was playing around with drum tunings for the one mic idea. I probably had a session coming up where I wanted to do it and didn't want to waste time during the session playing around with ideas.

That's one of the percs of having the studio at home now, play time is a lot easier and less stressful logistically.

Did you frame that panel with the wood yourself?
I like that look and the vibe it brings