One thing to add is that the closer the overhead mic is to the cymbals center, the less cymbal sound you will get -The further the mic is from the cymbals center (closer to the edge of the cymbal) the louder the cymbal will be... Cheers and thanks for the no BS detailed information and multi-angle filming!!! All of this applies for in the studio, as well -Exact same principals apply. Except in the studio you get a little more into room mics and different overhead techniques and stuff, but yeah -All the same stuff. This is pretty much all you need to know right here...

This is the type of engineer you want for your church or for your live shows. So much passion for sound quality, love all the content you put out. God bless you brother

Holy cow, this guy's videos are some of the best engineering information I've found on the internet. All the information is presented in a very accessible way and I get the impression all his videos would be rewarding to watch more than once, as it spans information that's relevant to the beginner and people who've done sound for a while. You have a new subscriber and a big fan, my friend.

Drum mic'ing can be such a pain. It takes the longest to set up in the studio. I like how you explain each option for each mic on the drum and how that changes the sound your capturing from each. Thank you for a great utorial on live sound setup!

My favorite recently adopted thing is using a Sine-wave generator as a sort of low-end "trigger" on the kick. The Behringer and Midas consoles have this, I'm sure other digital ones do too. What you do is gate a sine-wave and have the gate side-chained to the Kick mic channel, and when it opens the gate, it plays the sine wave (I like 56hz) for a short burst while the gate it open, giving you that almost unattainably low end punch that we're all looking for! Then when combines with an aux-fed sub setup, you put that "Kick Low" channel as I call it to the subs and the "Kick Hi" to the mains. If you wanted to get extra fancy you could use more of a blend than that if you need the extra dynamic range, but for us, just doing that is so much better than a traditional kick mic setup I don't find that necessary.

Yes! I always look forward to your videos! Awesome content and you have exactly my kind of humor as dry as the sahara desert Haha Keep up the great content!

I have been struggling to get my church's drum mics set up well and this helped so much! Thank you for your great vids man, you earned my sub.

I just love the way you present information. Thanks for sharing!

"If you do jazz in your church... Maybe I should come to your church" lol How about latin jazz? Cause that's how we play.

Definitely, it is the most useful video among all other of this topic

I LOVE your energy!! Thank you

First time this has ever happened to me: I’m just watching a random drum mixing video when I realize that I’ve met the drummer😂 Travis is incredible. He’s not doing anything to crazy here, but he can really go when he wants to.

This is extremely well made and was very helpful!

This is handy stuff, off to record on Wednesday, miccing drums is my weakness, clips like this are gold.

I like your videos. You're very funny too. Your humor reminds me of the 1980s culture that I grew up in and that you still have that, which is great.

Great video! It's so easy to forget about phase when soundcheck time is limited.

This was incredible. Thanks.

Always great, thanks so much. Jesus bless you.

I think this is so far has been the best video I've seen yet. I have a PreSonus DM-7 kit and I have not had the pleasure of using it yet but I would like to get two of them so that way if I have extra snares extra crash extra time extra anything even if there is an artist that has a double kick drum setup I can be prepared but I like to pan everything when I did have an odor set about 10 years ago I always like to pin everything according to its position and I always like to Mike every single piece and slightly pin everything in the position of where it would be at so it would be as much of a stereo effect as possible I do notice that people might have let's say a 10-piece drum set but only 7 mics so you're hearing a hi-hat and a crash on the same channel instead of septic channels because you don't have enough mics for the kit but like I said this has been the best video I've seen so far

Dude this channel is amazing !

Man that drum kit sounds so fucking crisp. Great video, thanks for taking some edge off my first live sound gig.

Those toms sound great mixed with the whole kit

Thankyou..! And God Bless you.

Great info! Got a lot out of this video. Thanks!

That video was Great! super informative! thank you

Most excellent! I have learned. Thanks!

Gonna Subscribe to this guy. They are so very informative with a sense of humor.

Thanks a bunch! I've learned so much in just a couple videos of yours. Also thanks for not being a big jerk like lots of sound guys. Funny, yes, but not joking. 😁

Great work. we enjoyed you're video :) thank you

Beautiful well done

Oh man, now I can never just put a mic in front of our basedrum en boost lows, cut mids, boost highs, compress compress compress to get that great basedrum sound ever again haha. Thanks for the video this will help us so much come next shows!

Very cool. Great info and nice editing. Kudos!

Great vids sir, i love that fllow and knowledge.

Quite fantastic........ very helpful

Love the info n sense of humor!

I have never seen this video, till now it was recommended. I wish I saw this when I sending you some samples I’ll have to show you one of the setups at a church I’m at with 3 mics on drums.

fantastic & Amazing

is it weird that I got excited on how you presented this topic lol? I enjoyed this so much and its also very useful too :)

Great presentation you make it sound interesting 😆

As a church sound guy, I can say for sure that the drummer is my nemesis all the time (jk we're best friends but yea, y'know what I mean lol)

Great Video

Great content and presentation Thanks

Awesome content

I like the measurement guides for the height and distances for overheads and snare mics.

I'd like to give you another option for kick drum mic. Turn the mic backwards and mic the inside of the front skin, just watch your phase as can become tricky. Cheers Pete. PS. good job on the advice, very accurate.

Good info 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

Travis! I believe the names Travis and Soultone are synonymous. Certainly recognize the white ice DWs from years gone by.

wow this is detailed and solid. mahalo

Super 😮

thanks it help a lot God bless

Thanks, Have you done any videos covering the FOH booth and how you use the SSL in your setup (instrument/mic connections, fader layout, outputs, etc?

NICE BRo AWESOME!

Thanks !

This video Deserved that like

Like this presentation. I am a singing drummer, in church, and in what I lovingly call the Aquarium. I just bought a Shure Beta 56A for my vocals. What set up would you suggest for my overheads.

I typically don’t use overhead mics in live settings like churches because the cymbals are already super super loud without microphones + I get enough cymbal bleeding through the other mics.

A great video, thanks! I'm playing Roland VAD506 with TD-27 drum module, both at studio and live, but I've been thinking that maybe I should swap the hi-hat and symbals to acoustic ones. Should I get individual mics for the HH and each symbal or would overheads still be the way to go? The electronic snare, kick and toms make quite a snappy acoustic noise which I wouldn't want to mix with the symbal mics. And which kind of mics should I look at for the overheads and/or invidual symbals and HH?

Jajaja poor, Nick jajaja 😂 it was a great lesson, thank u!!! 😳

I dunno if you just said it backwards, but actually when a mic's pointed more across pointed at the middle of a drum, you're going to get more stick attack, and punch/definition, and pointed more towards the rim will give you more tone, sustain, resonance, pitch, and less attack.

I like to mic the bottom of rack Tom’s and snare. These get no polarity reversal. The floor Tom’s on top but do get reversed. This works on kits where the drummer tunes the resonant head meticulously. Side benefit is the mics don’t get hit. I get really good cannon sound from toms.

This is great, James. I have a question tho: how do you pan the set? Your perspective, or drummer's perspective?

5:00 something is up with that middle SM57. It has way less high frequency content than the other two, in both poaitions you demonstrated

THANKSZZ

Great tips. BTW - how did you get Kevin Bacon in the studio? (11:03)

i always had a hard time setting up Kick drum mic mixing, really can't produce what i like to hear. The quickest easiest solution i found was to use a drum module, use an acoustic drum trigger. Presto, it's quick & i like what i hear (kick & toms only). I put drum mics though on the snare, hihats & cymbals. It works for me who often need rushed set up.

what output would you use? what do you connect all the mics to in order to project the sound?

Thanks James, great video - i notice you've dragged the kit out of the booth (I'm guessing just for this video) would you mic the kit in the same way of it was in the booth? many thanks

“If you can’t get the snare drum to sound right with a 57… it’s not the 57’s fault. It’s your fault. 🤷🏽‍♂️🤨” best quote of the entire video for me 😂😂😂😅 bout time someone says it lol. I’ve asked my church why the 57 sits in the mic box while we use some other random mic on the snare top. They told me because one of the other guys said it was better than the 57… I’m like 😐… no. 57 has always been tried and true for snares. Not saying it can’t work well with other mics, but… yeah he said it 👆🏽

I like the third mic on the snare it gives that fat crisp sound

Love the videos. How would U setup your drum set on stage? Do you put the classic drum shield? Do U add acoustic panels all around ? Some sorte of drum 🥁 box so if you have a small stage it won’t bleed in mics. Drums are so much louder than the rest of the band and always bleeds out of the stage into the crowd!! What’s your take?

Hey James! Question for you! Complete the sentence, “What you need to watch out for when mic’ing completely enclosed(caged) drums is - _____________” I feel that ours feel big and boomy, lacking a bit of clarity. Almost as if they have been put in a muffled box, go figure haha….! Not sure if you have quick go to tips for the aquariums out there.

I always liked X/Y overhead. Any opinions on that?

This excellent video answered my question about using gates on drums (don't do it!). Do you find the same to be true for vocal mics? We have 5 singers in our group--of course, not all are singing all the time. Could a gate on each vocal mic help reject spill from other instruments? Or will this have our sound guy 'chasing the technical' as you describe so well? Many thanks for your comments!

Nice video, very helpful! Which model of mini mic stand is this?

The answer for tom & kick gating: key filter. Low-pass at 100 or below for the kick, nothing else will trigger it except maybe the low toms but the threshold is easier to set. For toms, use either a bell set at the most prominent freq in the drum, or a low-pass for the low toms and get the threshold just above where the kick won’t trigger it, but the tom will…

Hi..your videos are very helpful .. thaks for that . I am a new FOH engineer (120 people room for Greek music) ,and a singer . I love Audix mics and i use the OM11 for my vocal . I am ready to buy 3 pieces Audix i5 to use them on acoustic guitar , mandolin , cello and other acoustic instruments , and a Audix OM6 for female vocals . In my ears the i5 has more clarity and high details than the shure 57 or beta 57 , and i want that . What is your opinion about those mics ( only for acoustic instruments , i have no drums ,snare , bottoms ) . Thanks ... and keep make videos...

Quiero lo mismo que toma este amigo antes de hacer los videos! :)

So do you personally recommend mic'ing top and bottom snare? And kick in/kick out? Or do you find them unnecessary?

if you can you should make a tutorial where you delay your snare and maybe toms, kick with overheads to get maximum phase :) when you use overhears for full kit.

I was NOT ready for that Mike Vick joke 😂

which microphone do you recommend for a hi-hat? thanks for the coolest vidos!!!

All of your's tutorials it's valid to outside live shows?

4:56 when you get to the third and higher elevated mic it kinda just makes the same sound as the first mic. I’m guessing angle matters too.

reducing cymbal bleed in the snare drum is an absolute must right now. any pro tips??

What microphones are you using for overheads in this video?

How about a video for us drummers who home record with limited gear? I have a 4 channel audio interface, 4 mics and Logic on my MacBook, I've found inserting samples for snare and kick gives the sound of a six mic setup......

Would you place the mics the same way for a studio recording?

So, I get don't want a spaced pair point inward, but I don't get quite why you don't recommend an XY pattern for OHs. Care to expound on that?

finally the "right way" to mic a drum set :) -- so in the end you use a Beta on the snare?

We use a Shure VP88 as an overhead mic creates a wide stereo image and eliminates all phase incoherencies.

Question: If you are spot micing cymbals, would you still make sure that they are equidistant from the snare??

what console are you sitting in front of in this video

Im having trouble with cymbal bleed into the vocal mics. Any videos or suggestions?

Stick that PZM under the snare close to the kick pedal for some awesome midrange thickness.

1:14 I imediatly thought about Iron Man by Black Sabbath ^^

❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️👍👍👍👍

That boundary mic sounded WEIRD. Also the second 57 sounds way different not only because of the position on the drum. Great video!

How come i dont hear any difference at 14:10 and further when polarity is switched? I listened to it with headphones, but could not hear any noticable difference... has this something to do with ears aged 54? (beginner live soundengeneer)

Is there a way to run your drum mics through a small mixer at the kit and then use a single output to the main soundboard? The result is the sound guys only have 1 channel on the main board for drum volume and effects?

How do you think about micing toms from below?