One-Mic Drum Recording Technique
Taking inspiration from minimalist drum mic-ing techniques used by engineers such as Glyn Johns (Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, Rolling Stones) and Paul Mabury (iwantthatsoundsamples). I experimented in the studio with recording a drum-kit using only using one microphone. The microphone I used was as Large Diaphragm condenser (AKG perception 820), switching the Polar-pattern to Omni so the microphone would transduce from all angles. I positioned the microphone directly over the kick-drum beater, roughly 12 inches above the top of the kick-drum hoop, angled facing towards the snare and hi-hat. I used this positioning so that I could get good attack from the kick-drum beater and a clear defined balance between the snare, hat and cymbal. I was running this microphone through a channel on the SSL aws948 consol. After I was happy with the positioning of the microphone and how it was recording I ran it through the SSL’s built-in bus compressor.I had the threshold around 10 o’clock and the Make-up around 1 o’clock. I did this so I would have some light compression but I was able to drive the make-up of the channel quite a considerable amount. As for the attack and release of the compressor I had quite a fast attack at 3 milliseconds and had the release on Auto so that it would react to the transient hits of the drum-kit. I managed to get a well-balanced, modest recording of the drum-kit using only one microphone. With the additional use of the SSL’s compressor I was able to get a full, punchy and energetic drum sound that could fool your ears into thinking it was a multiple mic setup.