Got a mic? Then you can record your drum kit! If this video helped you let us know by hitting like and subscribe🔔Thanks for watching!

If I'm miking a set with only one mic, I'm doing it right in the middle of the kit - put it low, right over the kick, in between the high and mid toms, pointed at the snare. It works unbelievably well to pick up everything on the kit and doesn't get much of the room in comparison to the single mic position shown here.

You bet! (New drinking game)

I really appreciate not only how informative this video is, but how positive these two are towards all the methods. I'm working with a four mic setup right now, but hearing how good the mono setups sounded made me much more confident in my abilities and resources currently available to me. At no point did I feel like I was being talked down to. Really appreciate this, guys. Thank you.

Examples: 1 mic 1:25 2 mics 3:00 4:18 3 mic 5:20 6:31 8:56 4 mics 10:56 6 mics 11:58 8 mics 13:02

The Glyn Johns method all day for me. You could add a room mic to that setup to get control over the “roomy” stuff. Pull down the 300Hz snare boxing - the honk - and increase the tops and you are good to go. Also put the right side mic a bit higher away from right side crashes.

Pure 5 star video content, guys, thank you to Sweetwater for setting the bar so high and doing this awesome side-by-side video and discussion!

The outro with all the different setups was dope. Good idea to all those involved.

Fantastic video. Thanks, Mitch and Nick! Both superb as always. As drummer since '82, I've tried many mic techniques, with the classic Glyn Johns being my favorite by far for "live" sessions and demos.

It's amazing that Nick was able to give such a consistent performance that you could do that final edit with all the setups.

How valuable! Thanks guys for making this video! I was expecting to go down a confusing rabbit hole, and here you were! Thank you, so much!

Great of Sweetwater to make these videos. Highly interesting, and builds a lot of goodwill.

Editor must have had fun lining that up at the end lol

Very thorough, thank you! That was an excellent summary of microphone techniques for drums, and I liked the extra focus around 2 and 3 microphones, for us that like to keep it simple and phase issue free!

This is super helpful for guys trying to get into making professional KZfaq videos. Thanks Sweetwater🤘🏼

Putting all snippets at the end is nice way of comparing. Great idea!

Single mic sounded great. Nicely tuned kit with a tight player.

Fantastic job guys! most complete approach on variations ive seen on the capturing drumset sound ive seen . thanks so much.

ive found that placing a 57 about a foot above the bass drum beater, facing directly upwards gives a fairly good sound, and gives a deacently balanced sound.

Every gig I've played in the last 17 years I've always had the bass drum mic'd up even in a small pub corner / cafe gig. Due to convenience I think I limit at three: bass, left overhead and right overhead. Any more and it's more gear, cables and time setting up. But more importantly that is a beautiful looking kit.

It's amazing how the Glyn Johns method still sounds cooler than using 4 and even 5 mics.

Literally just bought my first mic kit and this shows up! Edit: bought it from Sweetwater: Samson dk707

Ok the sound of that one mic in front of the kit sounds INCREDIBLE, a lot better than some close mic setups I’ve heard

Miking live a set of drums by 1 OH and 1 kick, Glyn John technique, and also 1 kick 1 snare and 1 OH... Overall, these 3 technique are the best for me on a situation with limited slots for mic input on the mixer.... I do use dynamics for close mic like kick and snare and a condenser with a large diaphragm for OH...

That’s one nice drum set!

That one mic method sounds better than some kits i've heard with 10 mics 😂

That ocean sunset looking drum finish is GORGEOUS

That Glyn Johns really left me speechless. Really need to try that with my kits!

This is a great video to bookmark, as there are many times when I’m confronted with a situation outside the studio, where they have limited numbers of mics. You opened my eyes with the idea of a single overhead with direct mic’ing of kick and snare. I have achieved good results also with a pair of overheads plus kick. As for Glyn John’s, you took the mystery away from that, and the next time I’m limited to four mics, I may try it. Glyn John’s plus two room mics would also be very flexible, as you mentioned. Thanks again!

About LZ: my fav Glyn Johns drum sounds are those of LZ III (and also 'Dazed and Confused' from LZ I). If he managed that with only 3 mics as you say, that's pretty amazing (Jimmy likely helped in his production role too). IMHO, LZ II & IV sound overly 'live/raunchy', HoH sounds 'muted' somehow and PG sounds 'boomy' on a lot of the tracks, etc.

Just what I needed! Gonna start recording soon!

I love the show but I’ll love to see how you EQ your overhead mics and room mic as well.

There aren’t many resources like this, other than Glenn fricker, who just does metal.

Got my Tascam US 16x08 from u guys a couple months ago , am learning , thanks for the help at my over half a century of age !!!!! nice to have options on drums as a guitar player I need this

The Glyn Johns sounds amazing. Their seams to be an openness to it that is very appealing.

I like the single mic.. very natural sounding.. no phase

This is an excellent video. Honest teachers. No doubt that you care about sound and songs. I didn't feel like this was a video that was overtly trying to sell me something. I felt like it was just a fantastic summary and I'll share it.

So nice to hear a kit from the audience perspective vs the drummer's perspective. I prefer to hear it that way even though I'm a drummer. It seems wonky to hear a mix that places the listener behind the drum kit.

I think that Mid Side mic techniques could have also been explored in this video, for example using a cardiod pattern mic pointed at the snare from above (mid) and using a figure 8 mic turned 90 degrees (side) pointing at the first mic.* I think it's a very good way to get a stereo image, especially in an imperfect room. *The "side" signal would be duplicated, hard panned left and right, and one of the 2 signals would have polarity reversed.

Cool edit at the end!

Great video, lots of useful info packed in there. If you're doing a follow-up, it'd be interesting to hear different stereo recording types. We only got to hear two here, the Glyn Johns and the A/B-pair. It would be really cool to be able to compare X/Y, ORTF, M/S and Blumlein stereo setups in the same vein as this video.

We need more Mitch and Nick videos.

i really like the first one

The Glyn Johns Method really surprised me !! Great sound and in my opinion even better than with the snare mic

Can't forget a nice crush/crotch mic. My choice is the blue hummingbird or beta 87c. You can use just about anything! Lots of compression!

Great and usable video. From my perspective with all the different variants of 1-3 mics it was only the toms that seemed to really suffer. Their pitch being higher sounding and somewhat distant, but still usable. Tuning the toms differently could help with that maybe, not sure. It's amazing how well 2 good overhead mics can pick up the cymbals so well these days.

Great video, thanks for the comprehensive comparison!

These how to videos are very informative. The big question is do you use the same techniques/placements with a 5,6,or 7 piece kit?

Love nick's videos always they are great!

Drinking game idea: take a shot every time Nick says "You bet".

I have 1 mic no stand what i do lye it on the floor right by snare hihat and kick sounds great cheers from holland

very interesting video! just got my first acoustic drum kit and will try some of those tricks for sure!

These two are the GOAT.

1 mic: 01:25 2 Overhead: 03:00 1 Kick, 1 Overhead: 04:18 1 Kick, 2 Overhead: 05:20 1 Kick, 1 Snare, 1 Overhead: 06:30 Glyn Johns Method: 08:56 1 Kick, 1 Snare, 2 Overhead: 10:56

Now not all mics are created equal lol... What mic did you use for the single set up? That Sennheiser MKH 416 shotgun? Things like 1,000 bucks lol. Oh man I'd hope it would sound good. Edit: it's awesome watching two gents who are amazing in their respective fields giving honest opinions to using minimal items to record one of the most difficult instruments to record. The knowledge between these two is priceless and I'm sure they've got stories for days. (Yes Nick to me knows his stuff, especially being a spoke person for Sweetwater he has hands on knowledge and is a great player. His Sonor kit sounds 2nd to none!

Great info well presented. Exactly what I needed to know.

Great, informative video! I’m just a home amateur with one condenser and one decent vocal dynamic mic. One time I used the condenser as an overhead, and placed the dynamic on the beater side of the kick drum, but facing slightly upward so as to catch some snare drum. With some eq, I actually think I got a decent sound.

❤ this channel

This was so informative, thank you so much. So far I really dig the Glyn Johns Technique. I’m really liking the mono sound. For some reason, the stereo sound is too roomy for me and my music, although I’m sure the engineers can mix it to sound amazing either way. Thanks again!

My drummer has kick in, kick out, kick tone, snare top/bottom, hi hat, ride, 2 rooms, overhead, 4 tom mics and a stairwell mic.

Question how would it sound if I separate the drums etc to separate speakers and separate speakers for vocals?

The sound of setup one and 2 was bass drum heavy because of the port. You could modify this by not cutting open the head. 🤷‍♂️ Glyn Johns method was the coolest is my opinion.

I play in a rock cover band that usually plays in smallish bars and I’d like to mic my toms and snare I already mic the bass drum but whenever I bring up micing the toms and snare I get shut down because “when you mic the toms and snare it makes it too loud” but I just want it for tone not volume how do I convince them that it would be better to mic the toms and snare to sound more professional and it doesn’t make it any louder because you can turn it down.

You are doing great work. Thank you. Respect. Love

very good demonstration!

Nice.super.solid.great.and all the best.good recorded. Sounds.

Outstanding presentation 👏

Can you get a bad recording with Nick playing? I think not. And also, that Mapex kit looks and sounds beautiful.

Wow, the single mic sounded amazing

I'm used 8 mic drum on the Kick Snare top , snare bot Hh Tom1, Floor OvL - OvR

thanks for sharing precious knowledge!!!

Very INFORMATIVE....

Great video.

My drummer has the symbols rather high (hail, hail rock and roll); in this case how high do you put the overheads? Or where do you put them?

Seems simple is best 👍

Awesome video guys!

1 is all you need

Is there a general rule to keep in mind with phase? They mention room mics and a piezo mic attached to the drummer, tom bottom mics. The 3 mic method with one on the side of the kit, they mentioned phase measurement based on distance to the snare, could this make the floor tom out of phase? Is it a compromise? How do you know when there is potential for phase issues, besides just listening to playback in a control room and using your ears.

in the 4 mic tecnique with 2 overheads, you have to set the overheads at the same distance from the snare to deal with phase, like in the 3 mic "Glyn Johns" method?

This is a very good video.

Everyday is a learning day, @Sweetwater

I’m assuming there’s some really good DAW work happening to get this good of sound out of 2 mics

Two mikes out front had a nice jazzy sound in the crashes. Overall ... probably gotta go Glynn Johns method.

1:27 3:00 4:21 5:21 6:23 11:00

Another great video guys. What was the panning of the Glyn John's more or less? I've seen videos of him saying he never hard pans them but never seen any mention if they're still equally panned or if one mic is panned more than the other, etc.

Is there any resource that explains how to mix these many mic inputs? Would it be a hardware mixer?

Amazing, informative video.

What if I don't have a drumset, can I still mic it?

What about for in home use?? I play tracks off Spotify, but can never hear what I'm playing on My drums!

I like this video very much! But It made me wonder where to find recordings with the 8 mike setup. In my opinion all recordings (with acoustic drums) should sound like this 😃 So please link some recordings with this technique (8 Mikes) in these reactions❤

What cymbals were used in this vid? I‘m especially wondering about that right hand crash.

in the two mic overhead set-up ... curious as to why sometimes I've seen people aim the two mics pointing directly down at the kit (6 oclock position) - and other times (like you're doing here), pointing toward each other (3 or 9 oclock position). Why is that? different mic types? thanks.

This is Excellent, will be taking this knowledge into the studio next month, do you think these techniques would have sounded different recorded on oldschool tape?

Excellent work.

Is this with the mics straight into the recorder or are they connected to preamps?

Hie, thank you for the video! I would like to ask would the setups shown here be any different for a live setting?

What’s the ride you using on the kit? Thanks

Thanks for this superb vid. A question. Say I use two overhead condensers. Two dynamics on kick and snare. If I take these into my Zoom MRS-8 recorder..one into each track... Will I then EQ and pan to my liking, then bounce onto one track.. ??... If so..will that, then, be a single, stereo, track? I'm not using pc technology. A beginner.. basics. Thanks. Nick

How about a mixer? Amp?

the two miks 2.55 aren´t in phase. in mono the one mik sounds better, and mono is what counts. but the miks sounds really nice. it´s only the placing i don´t like ^^