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Drum Recording Techniques

14 min read

Drum Recording Techniques

Overview

Abstract

Drum recording is one of the most discussed and debated topics in the recording-talk channel, with over 1,800 substantive messages covering mic placement, tuning, overhead techniques, room mics, and the philosophy of capturing drums. The community consensus is clear: the sound of the kit in the room matters more than any microphone, and phase alignment is the single most impactful technical step an engineer can take.

Community Consensus

  • The room and the player matter more than the mics — Fix the source before adding microphones
  • Hit the drums harder than the cymbals — cian riordan’s most-upvoted drum advice
  • Start with fewer mics and build up — Get 90% of the sound with kick, snare, and overheads before adding spot mics
  • Phase/polarity checking is non-negotiable — This alone can make a recording sound “100x better before you even put an EQ on”
  • Drum tuning is more important than mic choice — A well-tuned kit through cheap mics beats an untuned kit through expensive ones
  • The Glyn Johns method is overrated — The community (led by cian riordan) argues the iconic Led Zeppelin sound came from the room and the player, not the technique

Overhead Approaches

cian riordan’s L-C-R Method (Pinned)

cian riordan (2022-06-28) — Pinned

“If I’m recording a drumset and I’m not handing it off to someone else to finish, my general aesthetic is to just go larger than life. I think means that the individual elements sound separated and defined with the ability of existing very wide in the mix. So with overheads, it’s almost always 3 mics: L-C-R. The role of the center can change. A lot of times the center will be 85% of the drum sound, so I’ll pay less attention to what the sides are doing — I’ll just see them as cymbal mics.”

Positioning details:

  • Center mic on a middle-tack between kick and snare
  • Left over the outside edge of the hi-hat, leaning toward the left crash
  • Right between the outer edge of the ride and floor tom rim
  • Keep sides equidistant to the snare and the center overhead
  • Always check phase and make adjustments — “It’s always insane to me when engineers setup drum microphones, hit record, and expect good results”

XY Overheads

  • Provides a natural stereo image that doesn’t fall apart in mono
  • Less width than spaced pair, but safer for phase coherence
  • BatMeckley: “I tend to xy above the drummers head, or space them like ears”

cian riordan (2023-02-01)

“X/Y like that won’t get you much width, the goal is a very natural sounding stereo image that doesn’t fall apart in mono. I tend to prefer a more extreme stereo image which will inevitably challenge the phase makeup of the drum mics… but usually sounds ‘larger’ and more exciting to my ears.”

Spaced Pair

  • Eric Martin uses spaced pair “very tight, more like cymbal mics” with a mono kit mic above the snare
  • NoahNeedleman (from a mixing perspective): “X/Y is a much safer bet than a spaced pair with regard to having the OHs play nicely with the close mics”

Blumlein

  • Eric Martin: “I also like blumlein ribbons for softer stuff, either a stereo ribbon or mics that are easy to setup blumlein”
  • Iwan Morgan used blumlein R84s for contrast with spaced omnis on strings

The Glyn Johns Critique

cian riordan (2025-10-05)

“Glyn Johns method sucks. We as a collective need to move on from this concept. You could stick a 57 inside the bottle of vodka next to John Bonham and it would sound like that, it wasn’t the dumb micing technique.”

Kick Drum Miking

  • Inside mic + outside mic is common for maximum flexibility
  • peterlabberton: Uses only an outside mic with tuned/dampened resonant head — “I don’t use an inside mic at all. I have the res head tuned and dampened in such a way that the right mic outside does most of the heavy lifting”
  • Dynamic mic under the snare pointing at beater hit point serves as secondary kick perspective
  • oaklandmatt used a U67 on kick with great results
  • Common mics: Electro-Voice RE20, AKG D112, Beta 52, Sub Kick, Neumann U47 (outside)

Snare Miking

  • Shure SM57 remains the default — “The 57 is still the 57 on snare”
  • Top and bottom miking with phase flip on bottom mic
  • Hi-hat bleed management is critical: have the drummer raise and angle hi-hats away from snare mic
  • Zack Hames: “Have your drummer set their hi-hats higher and farther so you get less hihat bleed in the snare mic”

Room Mics

cian riordan (2025-01-21)

“Everyone else out here doing room mics over the drums” [implying an unconventional placement philosophy]

  • montrose recording: “using mics that are already up on other instruments are my favorite room mics. esp piano mics on drum kit etc”
  • Ross Fortune: R88 close with TG1 “fairly slamming” plus wide far Coles 4038 “driven into deranged madness with a pair of Distressors in Nuke”
  • Zack Hames: “The SSL channel compressors set to stun on room mics seriously do so much” for Phil Collins-type sounds

When NOT to Use Room Mics

BatMeckley (2025-12-27)

“Unless you’re going for that coveted ‘small hard walled phasey slap’ sound, I wouldn’t even bother with room mics. Room mics should capture the room, and this doesn’t scream ‘room I want to capture’ and to be fair, MOST rooms I don’t want to capture. It’s why Ocean Way can sell room impulse responses; it’s hard to find a good drum room.”

The “Crawl Before You Ball” Approach

BatMeckley (2025-12-27)

“Listen to how the kit actually sounds in your room. If it sucks, fix THAT first. Then literally bring up two mics, kick and snare. If that’s not working, stop there. Fix it. Then just a pair of overheads. If you can’t get your drums 90% of the way there with those four mics then you’re fucking something up. Get that sounding right. Then if you need spot mics to bring something out, bring those in WHEN NECESSARY.”

Drum Tuning

Albini’s Method (Pinned)

Edward Rivera (2023-08-17) — Pinned

“What Albini taught me was that there were three conventional tunings: classical, jazz, and rock. He would knock on the drum shell to find its natural dominant resonance and tune the batter side head to that. For classical, the resonant head would be the same note as the batter head. For jazz, the resonant head would be higher than the batter head. And for rock, the resonant head lower than the batter head.”

Tuning to Key vs Natural Intervals

cian riordan (2023-05-11)

“The problem I find with tuning drums in key of song is when they’re in, it’s wonderful. But as soon as they start to drift, they start to sound very off in the song. You have to constantly be checking and tuning if you go this route. I find just getting a natural interval balance between the drums to be more forgiving. (Source: have spent thousands of hours helping Eric Valentine do this).”

Drum Room Philosophy

cian riordan (2024-07-17)

“As someone who really takes a lot of pleasure in recording drums, I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. What makes a great drum room? I think that’s an easy question to answer. The harder one is: what makes an interesting drum room? I think most would agree that the answer to the former is a medium to large sized room, with tall-ish ceilings, non-parallel walls; not too slappy sounding, and not too boomy sounding. Control is the key word here.”

  • Barefoot Recording (Eric Valentine) was cited as an incredible example of using various acoustic spaces
  • hyanrarvey: “Motown = drums played VERY LIGHTLY and mic pres CRANKED”
  • jonmatteson: “play the drums half as hard as you think and they will sound twice as big”

Preamps for Drums

  • David Fuller: “I’m just here to say, again, that API Preamps are GOATed for drums”
  • Zack Hames found that NOT using tube preamps or ribbon mics for big rock drums was “a huge shift in my thinking”
  • Neve 1073 remains a popular choice for warmth on close mics

Phase and Polarity

Zack Hames (2023-02-23)

“CHECK PHASE/POLARITY on all the drum mics!! This alone can make your recording sound 100x better before you even put an EQ on. You may realize you don’t need as much EQ.”

  • Always check phase between every mic pair
  • Overheads should be equidistant to the snare for phase coherence
  • Close mics need polarity checking against overheads
  • Bottom snare mic almost always needs polarity flip

Tips from the Community

  • Overheads don’t need to be super far from the drums
  • peterlabberton: “Do LCR overs and like 3 pairs of room mics and mic the bottom of the toms — and then next session just use 1 mic” (on the value of experimentation)
  • 18 mics on drums is not uncommon for a full session (Zack Hames’ session workflow)
  • Always leave setup time to check phase and adjust — never just hit record
  • Figure 8 pattern on overheads can yield interesting results by rejecting bleed from certain directions

Common Mistakes

  • Setting up mics and expecting good results without checking phase — “It’s always insane to me when engineers setup drum microphones, hit record, and expect good results”
  • Using room mics in a bad-sounding room — Most rooms are not worth capturing
  • Hitting cymbals too hard relative to drums — Destroys the balance at the source
  • Over-relying on the Glyn Johns method without understanding why the original recordings sounded that way
  • Defaulting to maximum mic count instead of building from minimal and adding only when necessary
  • Not giving yourself time to tune the kit before the session starts

65 photos shared in recording-talk. Showing selected highlights.

Zack Hames (2022-01-13) — This was exactly how it was setup. The left crash still didn’t speak great, the toms are ultra wide but balanced.

Shadowherb (2022-02-11) — wondering if anyone has tips/tricks for this - due to the limitations of my space, my upright piano is about 3 feet away from my drumkit, separated by

Zack Hames (2022-02-27) — I picked up this comically large kick drum (28x10). Any tips tuning this insanity??

Zack Hames (2022-03-29) — So at my spot, this is the only convenient spot I have to put my drums but the metal ceiling above it, seriously fucks up a lot of the sound. I can’t

Calvin Lauber (2022-05-23) — Drum tracking from a few weeks ago. I’ve been on the road playing some shows, excited to get home and back into this spot 🤠

Zack Hames (2022-06-14) — I am borrowing these 351’s for a session tomorrow! I won’t have time to experiment so I wanted to ask what sources do you all think I’d get the most m

Calvin Lauber (2022-09-11) — Recording some drums and giant fuzzy guitars today

Calvin Lauber (2022-09-11) — Recording some drums and giant fuzzy guitars today

Slow Hand (2022-09-17) — The funniest moment for me is when Glyn asks a question about putting dampers on Ringo’s drums and John gives him shit for not having the studio ready

Eric Martin (2022-10-01) — todays drum sound brought to me by Silvia Massey and a Yeti cooler

peterlabberton (2022-10-03) — I wanted to record myself playing drums, and some guy at guitar center told my parents this mic is all I’d need. Got it for Christmas one year, and di

Eric Martin (2022-10-17) — this one

thecoleyoung (2022-11-16) — Here’s my dumbass moment of the day: working with this 4 mic drum setup (57, d12, km184s) for a tight dry sound, which normally sounds great setup her

*Ross Fortune (2023-01-15) — Sunday eve, rejigging the room to fit in a kit at the back of the room (under the acoustic guitar).

Total shitshow at the mo, but in a few hours I wi*

*Ross Fortune (2023-01-15) — Sunday eve, rejigging the room to fit in a kit at the back of the room (under the acoustic guitar).

Total shitshow at the mo, but in a few hours I wi*

*Ross Fortune (2023-01-15) — Sunday eve, rejigging the room to fit in a kit at the back of the room (under the acoustic guitar).

Total shitshow at the mo, but in a few hours I wi*

cian riordan (2023-01-18) — Made a handy dandy note to guide you on future drum mic’ing endeavors:

cian riordan (2023-01-23) — This garage sale junker

peterlabberton (2023-02-01) — @cian riordan beat me, I just snapped this for this very purpose

David Fuller (2023-06-02) — Also, reasons I prefer tight polar pattern condensers on toms

See Image Index for all 65 photos.

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Channel: recording-talk Matches: 1,863 Key contributors: cian riordan, Zack Hames, BatMeckley, Ross Fortune, peterlabberton, Eric Martin, David Fuller, Edward Rivera, hyanrarvey, montrose recording

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