Hey guys, in this video we’re going to continue on with our multi drum recording setup.
We’ll go over reinforcing the snare drum with both a top and bottom microphone, giving
us an isolated recording that we can tweak a little more with equalization and compression.
Before checking out this video, check out our previous video where we setup our X-Y
stereo overheads, since we’ll be continuing on from there.
The audio interface we’re using is a Focusrite Scarlett 18i20, which gives us enough inputs
to record a full drum kit with isolated microphones.
For this setup, I’m using a Shure SM57 on the top since this is a really common snare
mic.
For the bottom, I just used the included snare microphone from my CAD drum mic, since it
can clamp directly to the drum stand.
The top microphone will get us most of our snare sound and it’s the microphone that
we play with to adjust our tone.
The bottom microphone is optional, and gives us a bit of that snare sound.
This is a nice addition to record with, but we need to make sure it doesn’t overpower
the mix.
Once again, before we actually start recording, we need to get our snare sound how we want.
I’m a little limited by the sound of the snare, since it’s part of a beginner kit,
but I was able to tune it up alright with a tunebot.
From there, it still had too much ring for me, so I went ahead and added a few pieces
of MoonGel as dampening, so let’s listen to that first.
Here’s the drum on its own with no dampening.
Now I’ll add the MoonGel, one piece at a time until I get all 3 on there, and just
listen to how it deadens the snare.
As we play these snare clips back, I’m going to actually isolate only the top snare microphone,
since we’re working with just changing that microphone position, then we’ll bring it
all together at the end with the overheads and the bottom snare mic as well.
My first microphone position here is kind of my default.
I place the mic a few inches above the snare head, part way between the rim and the center
of the head, and angle it mostly, but not all the way, towards the center.
Let’s listen to this.
This is a fairly dark sound with quite a bit of low end, and we lose a bit of that snare
sound in this position.
This can be good if it’s what you’re going for, but let’s try moving the mic around.
From here, we’ll make adjustments and hear what difference that makes to the sound.
This setup is with the microphone pointed straight down at the head, right next to the
rim.
The sound is brighter and snappier, more like what we would expect the snare to sound like,
with a little less attack from the stick, but more high end.
Now I have the microphone pointed directly at the center of the snare.
This is darker sound with more low end and less snap from the high frequencies, but a
lot of attack from the stick.
There’s still of a bit of the snare sound, but not as sharp as when the mic was at the
rim.
For this next position, the microphone is pointed down at the rim, more on the outside
of the rim than inside like it was before.
I’m noticing some more overtones and ringing here, even with the drum dampened, and it’s
not a bad sound.
Like the other clip with the mic pointed near the rim, it’s fairly bright and will cut
through a mix really easily.
Now let’s switch to Cakewalk by BandLab and listen to the drum recording with the
overheads and the bottom snare microphone together.
The first thing we need to manage when we have multiple microphones is our phase.
If the microphones are out of phase, we’ll lose a lot of our low end frequencies and
it won’t sound very good.
If we zoom in, we can see that the top snare microphone is out of phase with the overheads,
and the bottom snare microphone is out of phase with the top.
It is normal for the top and bottom snare microphones to be out of phase, but we do
need to fix this.
To do this, we’ll just flip the phase on the top snare microphone, and then they’ll
all be in phase with each other.
We’re not going to really do any mixing in this tutorial series, and we’ll save
that for another set of videos, but let’s listen to all the tracks on their own, and
then together.
Let’s start with the overheads.
Now here’s the top snare microphone.
Then we have the bottom snare microphone.
Finally, we have the recording with all three tracks playing together.
Thanks for checking out this video on snare microphone techniques.
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