Ok her it goes:
Initially the channels were to be as follows
1 kick
2 snare
3/4/5/6 toms
7/8 overheads
but on the day of the recording the drummer realises that the songs that we will be recording he doesn't use the floor tom. Unfortunately we didn't have another condenser to mic the hats so we mic'd under the snare.
now the channels became (plus mics)
1 Kick AKG d112 (plastic beaters hitting a danmar metal kick-pad)
2 Snare top Shure SM57
3 Snare Bottom Shure SM57
4/5/6 Toms Shure Beta 57s (top skin only, mic'd from inside)
7/8 Overheads Rode NT5s
The room was unusual to work with. It was about 10m x 5m with a tapering roof starting at the narrow ends of the room at about 2.5m and meeting in the centre at about 5m. Half of the room was fully exposed to the roof while the other had a mezzanine floor and from it you could look into the other half from 2.5m above. All the walls were covered with wood pannels and the roof was plaster. I instantly knew that this would summon the comb filering demons that would kill my overheads. Out came the gaffa tape,a ladder and a sh*t load of blankets. We ended up creating a small space about 5m x 3m with the blankets hung by one edge on the edge of the mezzanine floor and roof opposite it with blankets flat against the walls and roof. In here we tracked the drums.
We planned to do some experimentation with the over heads, but happened upon a great sound upon the secdond mic set up. We tried X/Y first using a mounting bracket, but it was too tight. Then i reversed the position of the mics in the bracket so that the rear ends of them met, not the capsule end. Halleuja, great spread and great mix of the cymbals, plus as an added bonus this set up didn't have as much tom or snare spill as A/B or X/Y mic'ing.
I'm sure someone with more experience could have pulled a better sound, but we also had to deal with the fact that the engineer and I are limited in our experience and we had to get the tracking started ASAP because the drummer was good with his technical skill, but his timing needs work, thus there was going to be many overdubs.
14 hours later we had our four tracks
Mixing:
All tracks were compressed, but not to today's extreems, we just wanted to restrict some of the bigger peaks. We wanted the drums to sound human.
Kick has some shelving EQ for the top and bottom end. Nice and clicky with a bit of thump.
Snare top and bottom has a gentle peak at about 3.5k for some crack. When mixed together there is much more top than bottom for body.
Toms had a rounded peak at 100Hz for resonance and a relativly steep peak at 16k for some tick.
Overheads had a HPF at 100Hz and were panned 80 L and R
In about two weeks I will post the mp3's

of the tracks on our mySpace page.
visit
www.myspace.com/sabretung for the demos that are currently there.
Thanks for all the advice