I'll agree, but for me, the sheer amount of "audio-information" from all those mics is just so much monkeying around. Play the bass drum, close mic on floor tom picks up the natural resonance of floor tom excited by bass drum hit. Guess I need a gate on floor tom now. Ooh, rack tom too. Wait...now bottom snare mic picks up snare wires excited by bass drum hits, mic on snare top has hi-hat bleed if not positioned carefully, etc. I guess one can go the route of eliminating all natural resonances of drums to facilitate the multiple miking, but now the drummer is left playing something that doesn't audibly resemble what he/she is used to thereby affecting the performance.
In no way, shape or form am I being critical of those that use multi-miking. Probably more than anything, I'm just not very good at anything more than 5 mics max? Just too many sonic options and too many problems for my pea-brain to figure out.

everyone has their limits!

When I started out recording, I usually miked up my drums with 4 mics. Kick, snare, and two overheads. I figured out my preferred placement of the the overheads to get 'enough' toms because I very often did not have the channels for individual tom mics.

Now that I can have all the channels I want and plenty of microphones, I still start out that way, with the 4 'core' mics. Then I simply add another 10 mics "just in case".


I never feel obligated to use them, but I also never know which ones I am going to want. The way I see it, as soon as you go from one mic to two or more mics, you have already opened Pandora's box.

I always drop the standard 200hz. then I pump up the volume a bit, and that drastically boosts the entire low end. If you get a mic that captures low end well, it's going to be there to boost. and if you cut the crap freqs and raise the volume, the smooth low end gets boosted nicely.

Mind you, I'm not going for hip hop rap kick. I'd add a sample that already included that monster LF, if I want that. I'm just aiming for balanced, fairly real sounding kik, but with low end that adds that dimension tot the recording. Old school.

I've done the outside kik mic thing, and find that it just complicates my life. I usually record myself, being artist, engineer and producer, so I need to simplify as much as possible. There are things I leave complex, because I think they add something that is easily noticeable to the average listener. But a ton of drum mics is not one of those things. It's not like I'm doing stuff that features the drummer, like massive trio stuff al la early Zeppelin. I need serviceable drums that don't sound bad.

Yeah, I strongly disagree with the idea that 14 mics on a kit is excessive!

If you want a strong stereo image, I find spot mics on hat and ride are essential - in the overheads, the ride tends to stay where it is, but the hat gets EVERYWHERE - so a little close mic helps focus it in the stereo picture.

Kick in/out - depends on the style, but an outer kick never gets you the actual attack I find. The inner kick mic is all about the attack. Position the two well, you get a good blend that works together. This guy clearly did not!

Same thing with snare - it's fine not using an under snare mic if that's the sound you're going for, but it's a lot easier to bring in the mic than it is to try and fudge the brightness afterwards!

2 kicks, 2 snares, 3 tom mics (I do draw the line at micing the bottom of toms!), a "flavour" mic somewhere in the kit...then hat/ride, overheads and rooms - there's your 14. What's excessive about that?

As a mix engineer, I'd much rather be sent that to work with than the single kick/snare/tom/hat/room I had to work with the other day...so if I'm tracking for someone else, I'll make sure I give them a balanced option to play with (as well as a flat fader balance that "works".

But it's not indecision or ego or anything at that point. It's experience in knowing what you want!

(and at this point, if I'm mixing the track, I might add a tiny bit of kick click and snare attack from a sample (plus a room sample), but rarely more than that. Whereas if I'm trying to get a bigger sound from smaller micing, I'll be doing all sorts of additions!).

What do you mean by adding a room sample?

auto allign by sound raddix does this quite well

I generate a midi trigger from each snare hit, and then use that to trigger the recording of a room mic snare hit.

It's not a new idea - Andy Wallace and engineers of that generation would do the same thing using samplers and AMS delays and similar.

It just gives you a more controllable room sound from your snare.

If you've recorded in a great room, you might use a sample of that room. I have a good recording I like that I use regularly.

Or you can just get something like slate's trigger and turn off all the direct samples.

It depends a lot for the sound you're going for.

Stick a single mic in a great sounding room with a well tuned, well played kit...and you don't get something that resembles the drums on record! even if it sounds good in isolation, we often want a "larger than life" punch or whatever to cut through.

Real drums don't have much of a stereo image, unless you're the player. Listen to a kit (protect you ears!) from across the room, the toms all come from pretty much the same place...but on record, we often like a bit of a stereo picture.

It's all an illusion.