Drum Overheads - Recording Drums without Samples - Part 1 - Mastering Drum Overheads

New Updated PDF Guide. 8 Pages of my best information on drum overheads: http://creativesoundlab.tv/overhead-m...
Follow up episode now available on the Weathervane Method (Reference as the "McTear Method"):    • Drum Overheads - The Weathervane Method  

Part One of Mastering the Art of Recording Drums without Samples is a video on the drum overheads.

If drums are the start of any recording project, then overheads are the start of finding your drum sound and recording great sounding drum tracks.

The drum overhead microphones act as an outline that is to be filled in by the sound of your close microphones. The drum overheads are the foundation of your drum tracks and drum recording and they record much more than just the cymbals.

The drum overhead microphones determine how the stereo image of the drum kit sounds in a stereo mix. In the video I give a practical technique for dividing the drums so that the most important drums are down the middle, (kick drum, and snare drum) and the complementing elements of a drum kit are to one side or the other in the stereo image. This may seem like a small detail, but in the audio example you can hear that the drum kit that is divided in the recommended method is much more balanced sounding.

I also give techniques to include the room sound in with your drum overhead microphones. In the audio examples, you can hear that the sound of the room increases when I raise the overhead microphone. This is an advantage because you are using less microphones and therefore getting a slightly clearer sound. It's also cheaper to use microphones for double duty too.

The last step to mastering the drum overheads, is to decide on which technique that you would like to use. I give audio examples of several techniques in the four approaches. You can find the full details of stereo micing techniques in the downloadable PDF for this episode.