Recording Drums - Overheads

The Ultimate Guide to Overhead Drum Mic Placement Techniques

Long before I gained enough experience and credits to dare to call myself a "mixing engineer" I was a good old-fashioned recording engineer. At the very beginning I learned recording acoustic drums is one of those things that people seem to think is difficult, but it is also one of the most fun. I will cover recording kick and recording snare comprehensively in other posts, so today will cover the various overhead mic options you have when it comes to getting those drums down in style. It's one of the main things people seem to struggle with tracks I get sent to mix, so I hope this helps someone out there!

What Mics Should You Use?

My advice would be a pair of the best mics you own, probably condensers, though ribbons also work really well as long as you have a bit of ceiling height. Ribbons are figure-of-8, and shoving them up near a ceiling isn’t helping anyone.

1. Mono Overhead Setup

Most of those old 60's records had one single overhead placed up high somewhere over the snare. Wherever works. Maybe that's what you need sometimes!

If you think that’s minimalist, I am going to raise you one, or well... lower you one: how about NO overheads?

A lot of other records were made with one ribbon mic located down low below the snare, next to the kick capturing the kick, snare, and hat balance. The rest of the kit? Meh, it will be in there somewhere! This was also used on a lot of those 2000s retro-sounding records. Think Amy Winehouse’s Back To Black.

Throw a wallet on the snare for extra authenticity. I stole this from Mark Ronson, who apparently stole it from Salaam Remi, as I set it up on a session I tracked for Salaam, and those were the first words out of his mouth! Not sure who HE stole it from, but hey, now it’s your turn! If you look up the Amy Winehouse song "Between The Cheats" that's an example of this exact drum recording technique that I used when recording the drums for the song.

2. XY Configuration

In this configuration, a matched pair (ideally, or two of whatever you have if you don’t) is placed in a V facing towards each other as close as possible at 90 degrees up above the cymbals. This puts the capsules in effectively the same place, which avoids any phase issues and creates a nice, clear, very stereo picture.

You also see variations of this technique:

• NOS Technique: The mics face outwards with capsules 30cm apart.

• DIN Technique: Mics physically cross in an X at 90 degrees.

• Stereo Mics: Single-body mics designed with two capsules using this technique (such as the Royer SF12 or Rode NT4).

  
  

3. AB Spaced Pair

This basically means two mics spaced apart, pointing down at the kit to capture an overall picture of the drums. Place the mics for the best cymbal balance, and always check the phase. If I'm doing this, I'm going to make sure the distance from the snare to each mic is the same, as I like my snare in the middle of my overhead picture - the cymbals will make it in there just fine, don't worry.

4. The Glyn Johns Technique

This was developed by the legendary Led Zeppelin engineer to capture the maximum tone with the minimum number of mics.

• Mic 1: Placed directly above the snare, up over the drummer's head height-wise.

• Mic 2: Placed at the exact same distance from the snare as Mic 1, positioned to the right of the drummer (assuming a right-handed drummer; reverse if left-handed) at shoulder height or so, looking over the floor tom.

  
  

Pro Tip: Feel free to NOT roll off all the lows in your overheads with this method. Pan wide to around 45 degrees left and right for pure rock & roll goodness.

5. Close Micing Cymbals

This one is less common. I worked with producer John Leckie as an engineer, and the one thing he changed in my drum setup was moving the mics to close mic each cymbal.

Yep, that’s right: one AKG 414 about a foot above each cymbal with the pad and low-frequency roll-off engaged. We also had a Coles ribbon above the kit pointing down, but that was for more of an overall kit vibe. Unsurprisingly, this gives a very fast and direct sound.

An example of this is on Doves "Winter Hill" and "10:03" from the session I mentioned.

6. The Baldy (For Low Ceilings & Crappy Rooms)

Got a low ceiling? Got a crappy-sounding room? Don’t have enough inputs for a hi-hat and ride mic?

This one doesn’t even have an official name, so I will call it The Baldy, after myself!

In a crap room, try an A/B setup placed to the left and right of the drummer's ears at head height, slightly facing in towards the kit coming from behind. The main rule here is to make sure both mics are the exact same distance from the snare.

There will be a ton of hi-hats, you will hear the ride clearly, the toms will sound slamming, and I am sitting here wondering why I haven’t done this in a while!

Final Rules for Dialing In Your Overheads

What looks right sometimes isn’t what sounds right with mic placement, and this is especially common with AB setups.

• Listen to your overheads: Pay close attention to where the snare sits in the image. I like it in the middle and tweak my overheads accordingly so it stays in phase. I would rather have the cymbal balance compromised slightly than my snare sounding crappy.

• Don't default to filtering: Do not decide to roll off the low end by default. Use your head and decide what is appropriate for the song.

  
  

One of the beauties of recording is that one size doesn’t fit all. Feel free to experiment and try all of these techniques the next time you are recording; your mixing engineer (that's me!) will thank you.

Let me know how you get on, and happy recording!

Want a free ebook all about recording drums? Check out How To Record Drums.