Microphone Placements (Lesson 5) - Posted on 2017-12-02 by Hunter Rick

Today I was taught different miking techniques for a variety of instruments. Zack taught me the standard set up for drums, which is two over heads, an outer and inner kick drum mic, a snare mic, and tom mics. If you angle the mics off axis so that they get the best pick up of a drums sound, this also helps eliminate bleed from different mics. Some bleed is actually good if it fits the aesthetic of your song (usually rock songs work well with this). He also taught me a three way miking placement for drums that he prefers. he uses one room mic at least 3 x as far away from the other mic, one mic used on the kick, and the one is an overhead. To achieve width from his drums he solely relies on reverb and otherwise leaves them mono.

For guitar cabs and amps he taught me that its best to give it some room to breathe. Often times people will put a mic up very close to an amp, but if there's no room the sound wave won't get to fully finish and the sound won't be very true to its nature. This is especially true with basses and lower frequencies because they take longer to develop. An XY miking technique is common for amps to get a stereo effect. The mics are always facing off axis from the amp itself as to avoid harsher midtones.

Finally he taught me that often times recording directly through I/o and sending it back through the amp post recording and recording it with a mic is a good way of doing things if you really need to avoid bleed but still want that exact same sound.