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In Figure 1 the microphones are positioned about two feet above the drummer’s
head. This placement will provide excellent results in a drum room or an acousti-
cally treated small room. If you do not have a drum booth or are in a larger room,
you can also use another variation of the X/Y pattern by facing the microphones
straight down (see Figure 2). In this case the microphones should be one or two
feet above the drummers head and about one foot in front of the drummers face,
looking down.
Figure 2. Overhead miking with VERTICAL X/Y positioning
Closer Overhead Miking
There is a closer miking approach that we also used in our sessions. This method
would be ideal for those who do not have a drum room or drum booth. Closer
miking will reduce some of the ambient room sound while picking up subtle details
of the drum set. This method is shown in Figures 3 and 4. In Figure 3, you can see
the positioning of the microphones from a front view and Figure 4 shows where the
microphones are pointed. This was the miking technique utilized on tracks 27 and
28 of the Earthworks DK25 Series DrumKit System Demo CD. All other recordings
of the drum set on the DrumKit Demo CD were done using the horizontal X/Y
positioning shown in Figure 1.
