This isn't “Gospel” by any stretch of the imagination, nor was I in any way an “inventor” of these techniques, merely a practitioner.

These techniques were pioneered by the real “heroes/legends” of our industry, guys like Glynn and Andy Johns, Geoff Emmerick, etc. Over the years I managed to stumble across the techniques, and in my own inept way have attempted to implement them. The session talked about in this piece is from a record called "Autobiotics" by the Boston band El Camino.

Since the original was written, I've also taken the liberty to add a couple of things.

Enjoy (but take it all with a big grain of salt)....

How do you do this with the overheads ? Where should they be in height, distance, aimed at? And are KM84 usually good tools for the OH (overhead) pair? Will there be any polarity problems if I throw in a snare and room mic?

There a half a dozen "three mic drum techniques" that I'm familiar with. Here are a few of them: I usually start with a mic in front of the kit. It could be six feet or one foot off the bass drum. The object of this mic is usually to get the "front of the kit". I look for a good bass drum sound, but also the bottom of the toms and a bit of snare. Cymbals will also exist here.

The tuning of the kit, the proficiency of the drummer, the mic selection and placement are all pretty damn important. You can do a little EQ to this, but not a whole hell of a lot. When you use equalizers on this mic, you will find that you often mess up the balance of the drums within the context of the kit. Depending on the tone you're looking for, a ribbon, large diaphragm condenser or dynamic might be the most appropriate.

For ribbons my choices are usually Royer 121's, RCA-77's...for large diaphragm condensers, Neumann 47 FET's, M-147's; Soundelux U-195’s/U-95S’s and/or U-99’s; dynamics MD-421’s; AKG D-30's often work pretty well, but they're a bitch to find and I don't own one. Sometimes [rarely] a Shure SM57.

Now, in mono, one speaker, I put up a second mic. This can go anywhere from directly over the snare to over the drummers right shoulder...or anywhere in the arc in between. The key here is to add that mic so you get the snare, hat, top of the toms and cymbals without the cymbals being out of balance with the rest of the kit. If the drummer can't control this balance, you're pretty much screwed and should revert back to the close miked SR methods they teach at the recording schools.

The reason I do this in mono - onespeaker is to insure that I'm not going to mess with the bottom of the bass drum because of an inconsistent phase relationship with the front mic. For this I will often use a ribbon, like a Coles 4038, or a condenser. U-67's often work. I find that as I get closer to 'behind the drummer', a small diaphragm condenser, like a KM-54 will often work a bit better.

Mic number three is often placed next to the floor tom, just peeking over the rim of the drum at the snare. It's usually placed equidistant from the over mic as it relates to 'ground zero' [where the drummer actually hits the snare drum, not the center of it]. As always, one speaker mono is your friend.

Another set of fun ones...a pair of small diaphragm condensers [I usually like an SM-2 Neumann for this] about 4-5 feet over the front mic, aimed at the outer edges of the crash cymbals. I like an SM-2 because I have to worry about the phase relationships of the two mics less, but still worry about that relationship as it relates to the 'FOK' [front of the kit] mic.

Lately I’ve been using a Royer SF-12 in this application, and absolutely loving it. Big , clear, open, not too brash, yet no shortage of high end “silk”. Absolutely my first choice these days.

There's another I've done where I use two lg. diaphragm condensers [like 47's] and spread them out. Like one in front of each rack tom [on the side of the toms. When I do this one, it seems that if all three mics are equidistant from 'ground zero' my setup time is pretty well reduced. Don't forget mono one speaker, or you may end up wanting to drink Drano when it comes time to mix.

Adding room mics are often cool, it kinda depends on how you're tracking. I hate musicians performing with headphones, so I like to get everyone set up in the same area so they can hear themselves. Like the old record said,”Let It Bleed”. The biggest problem with doing this is the bottom of the bass bleeding into the FOK mic and causing the bottom of the bass to get really smeary sounding. You may have to move the bass amp around for a while until you can get clear audio and the drummer can still hear and lock up with the bass player.

Sometimes a small speaker like a 10- or 12-inch done as a satellite speaker, placed in the null of the pickup pattern of the mics will work wonders getting the drummer to lock with the bass player while you move the bass amp farther away from the drum kit. Gobos will often come in pretty handy too.

I find I get a lot of my guitar reverb/ambience, at least on the basic track, by moving the guitar amp so the little bit of bleed in the drum mics makes it a cool ambience for the guitars but doesn't overpower the drum kit.

You will be surprised (I know I was) the first few times you do these tricks how little bleed there actually is between instruments. If there are two guitar players, I recommend setting them up on opposite sides of the kit, that way you'll get a better stereo picture when you disengage the mono button.

So, room mics. Now that you have the whole band set up in a room, it’s time to mic the room. You should get a reasonable balance of all the instrument, and .it should sound like a band in a room (fancy that!!) The mono button is still in until you're positive that you're not totally fucking up the clarity of the bottom of the track.

Need more snare you think (first of all, if you really do, the drummers a pussy and should learn how to hit the things). But in those applications, a Shure SM57 aimed about a foot off the side of the center of the shell of the snare drum usually will add all you need without complicating the rest of the balance.

A few other notes...First, the drummer *must* be competent...Second, the kit should sound good, and be well tuned or you're screwed. There will be damn little EQ that can be applied to any of this without totally screwing up the whole picture, so it's gotta be right the first time.

You will also find that a large room, or at least a room with a high ceiling. comes in damn handy or this can start to sound boxy in a hurry. I usually try to get soft things around the drum kit. Front gobos as needed, usually just a gobo between the amps and the kit will work pretty well at helping you control the bleed.

This usually alleviates the bounce and splatter that will be caused by reflections off of hard walls. Depending on where you position the kit, these reflections (especially on the cymbals) will come back to haunt you as "Haas Effect" stuff.

There are times when you're artist is going to need to play loud. Often, this means that the other players won't be able to hear the drummer when they're playing. This is when you really need a great big room, because you go to the old phone book/Rolodex and call the local SR company.

Now, mic the kit as if it were a barroom, with those mics only going to the SR speakers, the mics to the tape are still the original mics you set up earlier. You can run the SR mics to the tape if you want. Most times I don't have enough desk to bother, sometimes I'll just take an extra stereo feed off the SR desk, thought I find it's the first stuff to go if I run out of overdub tracks, or perhaps I'll add a little in and do a drum bounce if I need more tracks...

Last one I did like this, we used 4 by EAW KF-852T & BH-852's a side (about enough system to do a 1,500 seater with some headroom). I also use this system if you're having the band play to loops. For larger acts that are already using "in-ear" monitor stuff...you can bring their monitor engineer along to set this kind of thing up (saves you beau coup hassle), but rather than treating it like a headphone system (which it actually is), I still try to maintain "gig"/stage levels.

If you don't need to get loud, then the musicians will usually balance themselves. Scratch vocal? Yeah, sometimes they are needed, aren't they? Well, if you're using an SR system, that's where it goes, if you have the 'ear monitor' option, a little in there too. If they're playing relatively quietly, like they don't need any of the SR stuff...often the singer can just belt it out over the band, other times a little guitar amp on a stool will work nicely (The mic being a handheld. Record it just for giggles, sometimes you even get on the bonus plan and get a performance).

At times, a floor monitor (like at a bar gig) will work well. Make sure you can EQ the monitor so the little bit of bleed you get from the scratch vocal track can be used as a vocal reverb when it's time to mix. Sometimes it's a way, way cool thing to have the reverb of the scratch track be the main vocal reverb. Not only are there always performance variations, but if you're trying to place the singer in the same room with the band. It works like a charm. Just like the guitar and bass amps - you may need to move it around for balance.

Most of the time the singer will actually gravitate to the spot in the room where the band's balance is best. Sometimes using a stereo mic like an SM-69 (or on the last one I just did.. Guysonic's Mr. Liteguy stereo head at that spot works like a dream. With Mr. Liteguy, we got a doo-rag on him, a pair of shades and a cigarette hanging out of his mouth pretty quickly. We called him 'Curtis'...that way everyone pretty much forgot he was hangin' around...he was just another dude on the venue, and one who didn't cut in front of you on the dinner line - most excellent of him.

Tracking my basics like this I find I use fewer effect overall. The overdubs require fewer effects, and the overall outcome is usually 'larger' sounding than when I do use a bunch of effect. The downside is that you have less control over the individual tones. You can't really do a lot of "muscling it around" engineering.

I know a lot of brothers feel it's their God-given purpose in life to move a whole load of knobs and stuff, so these methods will often cause a whole bunch of stress as knobs become less involved in the process, but you can use compressors to really make the whole thing come alive. So there are some knobs that can be turned.

Other problems: if you're working with shitty musicians, there is a bit less you can do to obscure the fact that they suck. Fixing individual mistakes in the basics becomes more difficult depending on the level of separation achieved, and how bad the clam is. This mostly applies to bass players, but depending on how much guitar is in the drum mics...and again, how bad the clam is… It can be a bitch. This, from my experience, happens rarely.

I've also found that more often than not when someone makes a clam, it drags down the groove for a bar or two. If they're performing to a loop, then you can often cut in that section from another performance. If the drummer/band is really tight, they might have even done multiple performances at the same tempo. Cutting takes together, I gues,s is kind of an old school thing.

I still work analog, so this is relatively easy to accomplish in my world...it's probably pretty workable if you're working to hard disk as well...but might, as in probably, will be a bitch and a half to deal with if you're using VCR's.

Good luck...oh yeah...don't get discouraged...the first half dozen or so times you goof with this stuff, it gets really overwhelming. Practice on stuff that really doesn't matter that much. The first time I gave myself over to 3 mics on the drums, I was up all night the night before sweating it, puked before I left the house, and wasn't sure if I wanted to continue with the program all the way into the second day of the session.

Once I got past the anxiety and the “everything I know is wrong” phase of the mental part...it started to get easier.

At this point I doubt I'll ever go back to the "too many mics" thing...but it took a while to get there. Another bonus...last project I recorded, I had three full setups, three drum kits, three guitar rigs, three bass rigs all set up in different environments, all coming up on a 40 input desk.

All three setups were bussed to identical tracks, and I used the automation grouping to select which environment I was going to record. We had the "Mainstage" (the one with the big PA) as group one, the "Memphis Room" (small amplifiers in a smaller, walled off dead area) as group two, and the "Iggy Room" ( Big-assed room what was finished in barnboard with hard floors and a high ceiling. We called it the Iggy Room because the tone of the room reminded me of 'Lust for Life').

We also fed the loops off the main recording console to each of the environments where they were required. There were a couple of songs where I had "turn off the loop" cues. These were either in like one bar breaks within the song, or to let the band take the out of the song without the loop keeping time.

Being terminally lazy, muting the loops from the control room became much easier. Now, another consideration, because there were no headphones involved. I was monitoring the band off the machine in repro - when I had a mute cue, I had to return the deck to 'input' or I'd be tardy on the cue. Because the band wasn't monitoring off the deck, I could switch back and forth at my leisure. We used the "loop send lines" if the musician needed to monitor the track to do a fix punch.

We could try any of the songs in any of the environments simply by selecting them with the automation group masters, and moving the musicians to that room and having them play. I think it made the record pretty interesting and diverse sounding, it also seemed to aid in getting some pretty bitchin' performances from the musicians. Which, after all is said and done, is what this sport is really all about.