Photo by cottonbro
Regardless of musical style -- traditional, blended, modern, etc - if your church has a drum kit, it likely takes up a large portion of the audio mix. And while drums take up a lot of space in a mix, it’s also difficult to make them consistently sound great. Between maintaining the drum heads, knowing how to mix for different drummers, to managing all of the microphones within the drum cage, it can be a challenge to get quality sound out of even the most expensive drum kits. While this article can’t fix all of the issues that make mixing drums difficult from week to week, maybe we can help you think about drum mics a little bit differently to help make mixing them easier.
When the drummer is changing from week to week, it becomes increasingly difficult...
This might sound counterintuitive but, one of the best ways to make your mix better might be to use fewer microphones. This could be a case where less might be more. Why would fewer drum mics be better for a church mix? One of the most obvious reasons is because so many drums in churches are in drum cages or boxes. While these contraptions help make drums quieter within the room, it makes it harder to get great sound. Why? Because the box they are sitting in is a reverberant chamber. Even in good drum enclosures, all of the drum mics pick up the reverberant sound. This reverberant sound makes it hard to control what each microphone picks up. Many people try to use gates to deal with this problem, but if tom mics are gated hard enough to really solve this problem it can sound choppy when they open and close. Also, gate levels would need to be adjusted every week because of the volume differences between the drummers.
When fewer mics are used, it can be easier to teach engineers how to get the drums in the mix consistently from week to week.
Another problem that comes with using a lot of drum microphones is an increase in comb filtering. Comb filtering is what happens when the same sound arrives at a given location (in this case a microphone) at different times with a very small delay between the signals. This can cause a muddy or hollow sound to be heard. For example, when the drummer hits a snare and it is audible through two tom microphones, the snare mic, and both overheads, all at different times. This can make the snare sound terrible. While there are a variety of ways to fix this, but when the drummer is changing from week to week, it becomes increasingly difficult to make those changes every weekend. Often, people think this is a microphone quality problem, but it is actually more about the environment of the drum kit than it is about the mics themselves.
Another reason fewer mics can help make higher quality and more consistent sound is because of the diversity of people mixing sound. Many churches have multiple people mixing from week to week, each with their own skill level. The issue with this can be that one understands how to mix a drum kit with two different snare microphones, a high-hat mic, and six other drum mics. Other people may not. When fewer mics are used, it can be easier to teach engineers how to get the drums in the mix consistently from week to week. Again, a solution to this problem is to use less drum mics.
Try experimenting with different mic placements, angles, and even different mics.
Now, this may require using higher quality mics than what is currently being used, but it is amazing the quality difference that can be created by simply using fewer microphones.
Try using a four-mic configuration: two overheads, a kick, and a snare microphone. Place one of the overheads directly over the snare, and then place the other overhead on the opposite side of the drum kit over the ride cymbal or floor tom. Both overhead microphones will need to be equal distance from the snare. The microphone that is directly above the snare will need to be higher than the other overhead to accomplish this. Making sure this distance is accurate takes care of a lot of comb filtering issues. Then set the snare and kick mics in your favorite configuration and give it a listen and see what it sounds like. For example, try placing the snare mic at a 60-degree angle across the drum head facing the drummer’s seat. If your kick drum head has a hole on the far side, try placing the mic completely inside the drum, aimed about three inches off-center from the beater head. Or if you want more low end, place the mic at the mouth of the hole. Try experimenting with different mic placements, angles, and even different mics. Often the overheads will need a little EQ’ing to take some of the brightness from the cymbals back a little.
While there are many solutions to make drums sound great with a variety of microphones, sometimes less really is more. It is amazing how much easier it can be to create great sound by simplifying your mix with fewer mics.
