Miking And Protools - Posted on 2014-02-05 by Raymond Callahan

    This week we were given the task of miking a drum kit and recording signal on ProTools. We were to choose which mics we thought were appropriate for each part of the drum or room. We were told to use different miking techniques including a spaced pair, X/Y, Blumhein X/Y, and my personal favorite, M/S. With M/S you take a bi-derectional mic and set it perpindicular to a cardioid mic, then pan the bi-derectional mic left and right too produce a stereo sound from an analog signal. That just blows my mind.  We decided to mic the toms and bass drum with boomy, low-end, bassy mics, to mic the snare with a mic that had could capture good hign mids, and the high hat and cymbols with bright mics. For the ambient and distant mics, we chose mics with good clarity. The way my classmates and I set everything up, I was willing to bet my pants that we were correct. I mean, we double and triple checked every detail. When Glenn came in he just lauged and pointed out at least 5 things we had done wrong. Our distant mics were comically high, the close mics were in danger of being beaten by the drummer, the mic stands were being incorrectly used, and there were phase issues with some of our mics. After fixing and learning about our mistakes, we headed over to her majesty, The SSL 9000. After learning that one of our condenser mic's external power source wasn't on, we all got the chance to send signal from the mics and through the sound board. After adjusting and solo-ing the different signals we then recorded to ProTools. Looking back on all this, it is just a little unreal that I'm able to understand and use all this equipment that was so foreign to me only a month ago.