FaderWear Guides - Aggressive Drums: The Recording Guide

Aggressive Drums:
The Recording Guide

	Forewords
	Drummer
	Drums
	Drumheads
	Drum Tuning
	Cymbals
	Recording Room
	Choosing the Right Microphone and Placement
	Cymbals
	Snare Drum
	Kick Drum
	Toms
	Ambience
	Drum Triggers
	Things to Do Before the Recording
	Setting the Levels
	Building a Headphone Mix and a Tempo Map
	Sampling the Drumkit
	Combining the Takes
	Microphone Preamps and Pre-Processing
	Final Words
	Sources
	Search

FaderWear Guides

	Guides Index
	Aggressive Drums: The Recording Guide
	Extreme Master Bus Processing: Compression and Saturation
	Parallel Compression
	Guitar Re-Amping
	Split Harmonizer

Choosing the Right Microphone and Placement

Snare Drum

The first thing to make sure of is that the drummer is hitting the snare in the right spot. The best spot is usually around the center of the drum. After you find the spot, you can mark it with an X (or a pentagram!) to guide the drummer.

I like to set my snare mic at a pretty flat angle aimed at where the drummer hits. Just a little bit over the edge of the rim is a good starting point for placement. Many dynamic microphones work well with the snare, the Shure SM57 being the most obvious choice. I usually start with comparing at least three different microphones. One of them will always sound better than the rest. The Electro-Voice Co4 is one of my favourites. Not a very common microphone, but it has a nice "gritty" sound, though it will not always work. Some other good microphones: Audix i5 and Sennheiser MD421/MD441/E905.

The bottom mic is important, because it it helps in controlling the crack and brightness of the snare. Sometimes it can be very low in the mix. I prefer small-diaphragm condensers here. Some bright sounding dynamics are good too. Place the mic in the same spot as the top mic, but don't use a very flat angle, because you don't want to capture too much kick drum bleed.

Solo your snare tracks and invert the phase on your preamp (or DAW) to hear if it sounds better inverted. The sound that has more low-end is the way to go. Some smaller snares like piccolos don't necessary require phase inverting. Use your ears!

The snare drum is the loudest element in a metal mix, so better to make it perfect!

Separation

The snare drum is the most difficult to record because you get a lot of bleed from the hi-hat. When you place the mic, make sure the backside of the mic is facing the hi-hat. Make the drummer raise the hi-hat as high as possible and as far as possible from the snare, and use a baffle between the mic and the hi-hat. Buy one or build one yourself (see Auralex Aural Xpander). Listen to the bleed very carefully when placing the microphone, not only from the hi-hat but also from the ride. Bleed will be your worst enemy in the mixing stage! You don't want those lo-fi cymbals in your mix!