Drum miking 101
To mix drums, you need to understand miking techniques. There are two fundamental types: close and ambient.
Close mics are positioned to capture the direct, ‘isolated’ sound from one drum or cymbal in the kit. The other drums will inevitably be picked up in the background – this is called bleed or spill. While it usually needs to be reduced with EQ and gating, you don’t necessarily want to eradicate it entirely, because a bit of bleed makes the kit sound more natural and cohesive.
Toms and cymbals are almost always singlemiked. One microphone inside the kick drum is generally sufficient, but some engineers also tend to use an added outside kick mic and maybe a special ‘sub’ mic to capture the low end. These can be blended to taste in the mix, provided they’re in phase (which we’ll come on to shortly).
The snare drum most
