Original subtitles

hey guys this is Jessica Burd oh and

Matt Jordan over at reverb and today we

are going to show you how to tune and

mic a drum set for five different genres

walk through everything from the mic

setup to the drum tuning to mixing tips

so without further ado let's get started

star wipe

[Music]

all right so let's talk about classic

rock specifically the Glyn John's

technique Glyn John's is a really

well-known producer an engineer who

worked with some of the most famous

classic rock bands of the 60s and 70s

his drum miking technique only takes

three microphones there is a dedicated

kick drum mic as well as two ribbon mics

one is placed right above the snare drum

kind of capturing the whole kit the

other one is off to the side peeking

over the floor time looking right at the

hi-hat both are spaced equally about 40

to 60 inches away from the snare to

avoid phasing issues so with this

technique you're gonna get a big boomy

classic rock drum sound it's not very

articulate there's no close mics

involved aside from the kick drum all

you need to do in the mixing phase maybe

EQ a little bit maybe compress a little

bit and just bring all of those faders

up so that all three channels are the

same volume for our classic rock sound

we're gonna want a wide-open medium

tuning our resonant heads to be pitch

slightly higher than our batter heads

and then also a little bit of muffling

on our kicking snare

[Music]

alright let's talk about making up a

drum kit for jazz again we're only gonna

utilize three microphones here we've got

a pair of small diaphragm condensers

right above the kit in an XY pattern at

90 degrees that's gonna give us a nice

stereo image of the whole kit but not

too wide and then we've got a shure KSM

353 ribbon on the kick it's gonna give

us a nice warm round punchy kick drum so

for our jazz tuning we brought the pitch

of all of our heads up and then took the

muffling off of the kick drum and the

snare next we're gonna cover indie rock

and folk we're gonna use four

microphones in this setup we've got a

space pair of ribbons that are

equidistant from the snare behind me

we've got a shirt KSM 3:53 ribbon on the

kick and then an sm57 on the snare so

when mixing we're gonna rely more

heavily on the space pair of ribbons and

then add the kick and the snare mics to

taste this is going to give us a really

dry but open sound and the reason we

have the mics behind the kit is to

strike a better balance between the

drums and the cymbals since we're only

using four microphones for our indie

folk rock sound we have a much deeper

tuning on all of our drums heavy

muffling on our snare moderate muffling

on our kick drum and our Tom's and

that's going to achieve a darker drier

sound

[Music]

so next up we're going to cover the

smooth dry tight drum kit sound that was

so prevalent in the 70s what we're doing

is we're close miking each drum so we're

using a kick snare rack tom and floor

tom Mike they're all dynamic microphones

and a space pair of overheads which are

small diaphragm condensers in the mix of

this one we're probably going to be

favoring the closed mics over the

overheads to get that really tight

punchy hits you in the face type of

sound for our smooth 70's drum kit sound

we added towels to the heads to dampen

them and kill a lot of that sustain and

we did the same for the bass drum but we

removed the head and stuffed it with

this synthetic sheep-like item

[Laughter]

[Music]

next we're gonna cover a miking setup

for a standard modern rock drum kit we

have a shure beta 57 57 on the snare we

also have closed mics on the rack and

the floor toms we also have a pair of

small diaphragm condensers as overheads

spaced equidistant from the snare but in

a space pair configuration and a pair of

room mics which are sure KSM 3-13

ribbons so the first thing you'll notice

in this configuration is we're using a

lot more microphones the reason for that

is the name of the game is control in

modern music so if we hit a chorus or a

hook and we want to bring those room

mics up to make it sound more explosive

we can we also have focused tones for

each individual drum because we're using

closed mics on each one for a modern

rock sound we want medium low tuning

with moderate muffling on the kick and

snare to keep it nice and punchy

[Music]

all right so there you have it there's

five different ways to make a drum kit

for five different genres we hope you

can take what you learned in this video

and apply it to your own record as

always all these mics are available on

reverb comm let us know what you think

in the comments and we'll see you next

time

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