Recorderman Drum Recording

Recorderman Drum Recording

Posted on Wed, May 23, 2007

I've been hearing buzz about the Recorderman method of recording drums, but it always seemed kinda strange, so I never tried it. I've really been missing out. Here's the basic idea:

• Put one overhead mic directly above the snare, looking down, at a distance of two drumsticks.
• Tape a piece of string where the beater hits the kick drum, run it to the mic, and down to the snare.
• Pinch the string where it touches the mic, and move it behind your right shoulder. Set up another mic there, pointing at the snare. Check that the second mic is two drumsticks away as well (it should be).

This makes both mics perfectly equidistant from the bass and snare drums, aimed right at 'em. Here's the A/B comparison with a song I've been working on. It starts off with the Recorderman method, and then goes to the way I had it before, then back and forth.

It really has a beautifully clean sound. The best part is that the snare drum is so much more present, and in some songs, wouldn't even need a direct mic. I added a little bit of gated direct mic with heavy compression and a medium attack time, just to give it a nice "crack". The phase coherency is truly noticable, and the stereo image is much better. I'm totally sold (as soon as I stop giving "love taps" to the the shoulder mic). Thanks Des and Recorderman!

EDIT: Link to the sample audio fixed - sorry!