Ahhh that is kind of you mate. Thank you.

Love that snare!

Sounds great!

Thanks, Ward.

The entire final mix for broadcast worked out smashingly well.

spent the last few days here at my private home studio tracking an instrumental trio.

drums, bass, keys all live in the same room.

drums were my cherry solid shell craviotto kit and zildjian k custom dark cymbals.

old zildjian new beats and istanbul agop hi hats. coated evans g2 heads with clear evans resonant heads. a small evans pillow in the bass drum, both heads were solid. fiberskin resonant head.

toms and snare had various muffling depending on the song. usually the snare weight leather dampeners and some of the new tandem drums weighted dampeners plus lots of gaff tape on a few songs.

kepplinger and craviotto snares

most drum mics were my grace 801 preamps which i'm becoming obsessed with. they capture such a full range of every single source. so much clarity and punch and top end and openness and they seem to capture so much low end out of things like kick drum and toms.

kick front head was telefunken m82
snare top was akg d190e
toms were clip on sennheisser 602
close mics on hat and ride were beyer m160 ribbons
stereo room/front of kit was aea r88 stereo ribbon mic

all of those mics were run into my grace 801 preamps from the mid 90s.

then i had a few random drum mics for some extra room sounds and other vibes to blend in.

i had a mono coles 4038 over the center of the kit. this was going into a capi vp26 and one side of my manley elop. this was the bulk of the drum sound.

ev re15 into a chandler tg2 on the beater side of the bass drum picking up the beater attack as well as some snare side of the snare.

stager sr1a large ribbon into a capi vp26 and daking limiter was placed in front of the kit pointing between the toms at the snare and moved to get the low end i needed out of the kick and toms.

ev 635a into a chandler tg2 and daking limiter sitting sort of over the bass drum pointing mostly at the shell of the snare

bock u195 FET into a daking preamp out in front of the kick drum

neuman u89 back about 15 ft from the kit into a daking preamp and the other side of my manley elop limiter

i also multed the kick, snare and mono coles to one of my old altec 1567a tube preamp/mixers and printed that mono signal as an alternate kit sound to use in sections or blend with the other mics.

felt like with this instrumentation that a mono kit sound just seemed to work so well, but i had the stereo aea r88 out in front of the kit to blend in to add a little stereo ambience and width to the drum picture on certain songs.

all tracked to universal audio LUNA with universal audio apollos. in the rough mixes i'm using a lot of the studer a800 and atr 102 tape emulations as well as the neve console emulation.

it just blows me away the sounds i can get with LUNA and the tape and console emulations plus some nice mics and outboard in what is essentially the lower level of my home.

will try to get some sounds up soon. just been so busy and then got sick.

Why the blanket on the bass drum?

Songwriting session.
Going for a tight, dry, semi oldschool soul vibe, more Al Green than Motown or Daptone.

OH KM86 cardioid
Kick D12VR in passive/dynamic mode (not easy to see, even after boosting the brightness of the pic)
Snare MD431 (quite a revelation)

All into API 3124MV with healthy gain, plus the 3:1 transformer switch in on the snare.

I have used the Sennheiser MD431 on snare for many years back in the day. These days, my go to snare mic is a Neumann KMS 105. I rarely leave home without it.

I'm currently walking the same path, but the other way...may be due to the fact that I only got the 431 recently.
So I'll live with that a while, just to see...
It's got the same realistic basic vibe as the 105, I just might find it more adapted to scenarios that don't call for the über-realism of the condenser, yet still need to be authentic.

Fun Fact: The MD431 uses the same capsule as the MD441.

So I've heard, yes.
Though I always felt the 441 to be too ... "friendly" for snare drums, too smooth.

Back in the late '80s into the '90s I have used the MD441 on drum overheads. I placed them similarly to how I place M160s on drum overheads.

I do own 6 of them, and could easily borrow a dozen more.
I still plan to some day make a complete production with only 441s, all going through our Studer 963 pres and EQs, at least on the way in.
I just haven't come across any music that I thought might benefit from it, yet...

on some songs i had a larger bass drum out front of the main bass drum and id have that packing blanket covering both to keep a little bleed out of the front bass drum mic. i mostly left it on there because the mic stand holding up the ev mic over the. bass drum was slipping and i didn't want it to damage the finish on the bass drum.

interesting. i did not know this.

I wish I had at least six MD441s. I only have three of them.

Yes but it sounds different. I've used the 441 on snare before and didn't like it...but the search for the perfect snaremic ended when i put the 431 on (classic mic setup of course). when i'm doing something more old school/mono with ribbon mics or depending heavily on close mics i'll use a c451or even a c1000. Yes those shitty AKG mics, they are brilliant on snare in certain settings.

The 441's really are incredible mics. We only have two and I find myself using them more and more. Superb on acoustic guitars, percussion, anything drums and vocals.

They should hit a Studer tape machine as well.

I never used a MD441 on snare. Not sure why I didn't try it.

I like how the MD431 sounds on the snare unit I started using the KMS105. It has been my go-to mic for snare ever since.

I have used a C451or KM140 in combination with a SM57 in the past. Never wanted to own a C1000 for the obvious reason.

Yes the kms105 can be cool on snare but it's too fast for normal setups. And for other stuff the c1000 is sufficient. 451 when going to tape.

not much love for dynamic mics on snare top...

...but then, nothing wrong (besides size) with md-441, m-201, gefell md-100, sm-57 etc. either.

i'm often using a kk184/km-d combo on snare top.

I’m looking to permanently set up for my cheapo drum set. I have only kick, snare, hh and crash&ride cymbals. It’s going to be used for some modern jazz stuff and lofi indie folk, pop music. Of course for actual recording drummer will bring his kit but for now I want to experiment with mic placement.
I have m160 x 1(hope to buy another one soon)
Cm4 x 2
Lrm-2b ribbon x 2
Tlm170 x 2
Beesneez m49 clone
M88
Sm57,58
D112 for kick. I’m going to bass drum head open, and put some towels to muffle them up as that’s the sound I’m going for.

What I want to archive is get decent drum recording by using 4-5 microphones. The music needs not so wide drums but sometimes it’s good to have options..

Any suggestions for mic placement or technique such as glyn John’s, etc… ?

ive recorded many projects with 2 m160's as overheads. either in a glyn johns sort of setup with one right over the snare and the other pointing at the snare peaking over the rim of the floor tom. i just move that side mic until i get what i need from the floor tom and the image seems cool.

ive also used m160s so many times for rooms.

with that set of mics i'd have the m88 in the kick drum. m160s as overheads. maybe 57 on the snare. the pair of ribbons or tlm170s as stereo room mics. i'd probably put the m49 out in front of the kit as a sort of mono front of kit mic.

oh. i missed that you only had one m160

i'd still probably use that as my main overhead over the kit.

then use a pair of the other mics out in front of the kit a bit to give you a little stereo imaging.

i do this so often with my coles 4038 or a single beyer over the center of the kit above the snare. this gets the bulk of my kit sound, then i'll often have my aea r88 ribbon sort of in front of the kit to give me a little stereo image and another layer of depth.

CM4 x2 or LRM-2b x2 : OH in A-B
M88 : HH
SM57 : Snare Top
D112 : Kick In

You don't have toms?

Yeap unfortunately heh. Got DW kick from drummer as gift, also some zilzian k custom cymbals but not snare and toms. So jut bought used cheap snare and this kit is for my practice(drum recording practice)and rehearsal purpose.

When budget allows I’ll get decent kit but kick and cymbals that was gifted are good ones. Might able to snag some Toms but hard to find them on used market.

That's already a nice setup. K cymbals are usually very nice. You have nice microphones if you tune your kit with fresh heads you'll get a really nice sound.
When recording funk or jazz you don't need room mics anyway, you want it dry and controlled. You have everything to get this boom-tchak beat à la Billie Jean. Good luck!

Kick-M88
Kick Out/Kit-M49
Snare Top-57
Snare Bottom-D112 (or58)
Hihat-M160 (or condenser if using ribbon overheads)
Overhead AB-though one, i don't know that CM4 and the ribbons and last time i used tlm170s for overheads was a very long time ago. But i think i remember it sounding good. So experiment with what you have but my gut feeling is telling me tlm170
Stereo Room-Ribbons or TLM170