Drum Recording with the best setup.

Drum Recording

Drum recording starts with the basics. Let's talk about space and sound absorption. You cannot, and I repeat cannot, successfully record a drum in a small room. Let's think about it, if you setup your drums and the walls are too close, you record and you hear all the sound bouncing back at you. Drummers, you know who you are!

In order to record percussion without all that bounce back you have to start by recording in a larger room. This allows the sound to take more time to bounce off the walls before it gets back to the microphone. Now, that's not the final word. You also have to have your room properly treated. I mean think about it, you hit the bass and you feel it thru your body right...so think about those walls. They're going to hit, some will go thru, other sound will bounce right back. How do you fix it? You have to have the room treated. That's another talk for another day.

Now, let's talk about mic placement. Let's make this real simple. The snare drum needs to be placed 1" in from the rim, 2-3" above it, and make sure it faces the center of the drum at a 45 degree angle. Oh, another good point, please drummers, make sure it's pointing away from the hi-hat...common sense right. You will be using a sm57 with Future Sounds Studios.

The kick drum is always fun as well. Make sure you place in inside to get the beat of the song. So, guess what? If you don't have a whole in your skin, you better remove it. You want that great sound right? Well, get to it. Now, we got that down, place the mic about 12" away from the beater, slightly off-center and pointing directly at it. The further away from the beater.

If this is too intense for you, don't feel bad, some drummers don't have access to record in big rooms. Some can't afford to treat it accoustically. So, do you know what you need to do? Give Future Sounds Studios a call for your percussion recording needs.

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