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“Recording Toms”
Joe: The key to miking toms is getting the right balance between attack and tone. This is determined by the tuning, the choice of mic, and the placement.
Joe: I always look for a sense of size and fullness, and yet I never want a mic that’s too slow so that the front edge of the midrange attack is blurred. The clarity of attack determines how much the drum will cut through the track, as well as how it will hit the effects like reverb and delays. When the attack is just right it will make a reverb sing without adding too much. It's also important that the mic be able to handle the sound pressure level from the drums without overloading or folding the diaphragm of the mic. If I choose dynamics, I usually choose a Sennheiser 421 or Shure SM57. If it's condensers, it might be an AKG 414. The floor tom I’ll mike with a U87 or EV RE20 or an ATM25.
Joe: In most cases I go for the preciseness of the attack. This means I aim
the mic at the center of the drum where the stick hits the skin. This always
takes a little nudging around to get perfect. The closeness to the drum will
determine the balance between low-end tone and attack. The higher the mic sits
off the drum, the more natural it will sound but the more chance that impact
will be sacrificed. Very close miking can sound powerful, but in turn will sometimes
sound boxy and unnatural. Joe: The most unusual technique can sometimes be the simplest -- no tom mics. A great drummer can balance himself internally and the toms can sound just right in the overhead and room mics without the need for close mics. I've achieved some of the best tom sounds with a properly tuned kit and just one overhead mic on the drums. In this case I tend to use large condenser mics like Neumann U47, Neumann U67, AT 4060, AKG C12, Blue Kiwi or the Blue Bottle with a 47 capsule. Joe: I like to record toms without compression and gating and then will EQ the drums as needed while recording. I try to record them to separate tracks, but occasionally I’ll combine large six-tom kits to two tracks and make sure my balance is right in tracking. I like the challenge and try to do as much premixing as possible; this ensures a quick and painless mix session. Joe: Analog tape does offer you a bit of built-in compression and extra low-end
that digital doesn't give you. The trick with analog was always getting the
right level to tape -- too much and your floor tom sounded like mud. With digital
the danger is clipping; however, the precision of digital can be great for the
attack as well as the definition in panning a large set of toms across the stereo
spread. Joe: Different types of music do require different techniques, most especially in the choice of drums and the tuning. In terms of the recording, for most pop and rock recording I do close-mic the toms. For jazz and certain alt-country type things I tend to use less mics. Perhaps I’ll even use the old technique of tom toms sharing one mic set in bidirectional; in this case I use something like an AKG 414, a Neumann U67, an AT4050 or a Blue Kiwi. Joe: Recently I produced a glam-rock artist for Warner Australia named Mandy Kane. We really wanted to capture that early-Seventies T. Rex, Elton John type of sound. The first thing we did was rent an old set of single-headed concert toms. We tuned them to notes in the key of the song and miked them from the inside with Shure SM57s on each drum. This instantly gave us the retro tone we were looking for. I also had the pleasure of recording Elton John’s last album. His longtime drummer Nigel Olson played on the sessions. Nigel arrived at the studio with a brand new set of 2003 DW drums. These drums sounded fat and punchy and full, which unfortunately made us all disappointed. The objective of the sessions was to capture that old Sixties or Seventies Elton sound. By the time the recording began, the drums were gaffer taped and covered with wash towels to dampen all that lovely tone and ring of the new drums. The drums were close-miked with Sennheiser 421s and miked with Blue Dragonflys as overheads for the kit. The close mics picked up a bit of tone and the overheads picked up a bit of clarity. Together the sound was just retro enough but still modern and alive. From prestige artists like Julieta Venegas and Cafe Tacuba to critical and
commercial favorites such as U2 and Beck, producer and engineer Joe Chiccarelli
has helped create a wide array of special music during his 25-plus years in
the business. We’re honored he’s agreed to share his thoughts on
recording low-frequency instruments with us in this ongoing column.
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