Quote:
Originally Posted by
Sonor John
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I agree with that. In my close to 50 years of playing drums and 40 of those years playing with recording drums, my conclusion has been that the more mics you put on a kit, the more problems there are and generally speaking, the worse it sounds. Who listens to a snare drum with their ear 3" away from it? Who sticks their head inside a bass drum to listen, etc.? Should an 8x10 tom have as much girth and presence as a 16" floor tom? (no)
So much emphasis seems to be placed on multi-miking techniques which to me, treats the kit as separate pieces. A drum set is ONE cohesive instrument. I think many drummers approach it that way from a tuning and playing perspective. Multi-miking in my opinion presents drums in a flat, one-dimensional way to me. I guess that's why there's so much talk of "room" mics" in addition?
In my experience, choosing the right drums/cymbals and being able to adjust one's drumming technique to fit what's required is way less stress inducing and yields far better results.
So...I'd start with one mic and work from that.
we're essentially having the same discussion (minmal mic setup vs multi-mic approach, coincident vs spaced mic techniques, recording vs mixing) over at the location recording forum.
also, it's worth noting that there are a couple of good reasons for NOT using just a single mic on an entire drum/cymbal/percussion kit: there's an interesting video from schoeps on that topic and i recall notable drummers (jon hiseman, bill bruford, james gadson, tony williams etc.) being dissatisfied with the results...
...but what often bugs me even more than the typical soundfield resulting from a single mic approach is how the groove gets affected (if not 'destroyed'!) by audiots who have no idea how to dial in the attack and release time of dynamic processors (used on almost every track)!