Goode Sound Advice with Josh Goode - Microphone Placement













Microphone placement for a drum kit.
In my last little blog, we talked about microphone suggestions to mic up a drum kit.
This time I wanted to talk about microphone placement on a drum kit in a live performance environment.
Once you have selected your microphones of choice, we need to put them on a kit in a way that will give us the best sound.
 
I will go through the kit separately to describe techniques for each part of the kit.

BASS DRUM
There are a few ways to mic a bass drum, mostly dependent on how many mics you are using and whether the bass drum has a hole in the resonant head.

  1. Single mic in front hole: place mic so the diaphragm of the mic is about 1-2 inches inside the hole pointed towards the bass drum beater.
  2. A plate style condenser mic (like a shure sm91) inside the bass drum resting on a pillow, and another mic (like a shure beta52) positioned as described in point 1.
  3. If the bass drum doesn’t have a front hole, place the microphone about 1-2 inches off front bass drum head (note : this technique will give a more jazzy sound)

SNARE DRUM
Snare drums also give us a couple of miking options.
Usually the snare will be miked with 1-2 mics (usually dependent on enough free channels/mics)

  1. Mic the top head about 2 inches in from the rim and about an inch from the head.
  2. If you are using a second mic, point this at the resonant head about 3 inches in from rim and about 3 inches from bottom head.

 
TOMS
Toms are pretty easy to mic and are done so in a similar way to the top of the snare drum in that we mic the top head about 2 inches in from the rim and about an inch from the head.
This is just a guide though and experimenting with this will give varied results.
 
HI HATS
 
There are a lot of opinions on the best way to mic hi hats, I’m just going to give you the one that works for me.
 Place the mic about and inch from the hi hats and about an inch above angled at a 45 degree angle.
 
CYMBALS
 
Miking cymbals is another one where there are a multitude of options.
I will give you two of the ones I use the most.
 
Place mics about 3 feet from each other one on the left side and one on the right side of the kit. You want these about 2 -3 feet from the cymbals.
 
Lately I have been under miking the cymbals.
Same left and right technique, but about a foot below the cymbals.
This technique allows you to mainly capture just the cymbals.