Glyn Johns' Acoustic Drum Miking Technique

[Freak Of Metal]

Right, so I think someone on hear referred to the Glyn Johns' technique before but never really went into much detail. I reckoned I'd make a little guide as I've been pleasantly surprised by the results of using it. This won't give you processed metal drums, but if you like a nice acoustic sound, you can't go wrong with this.

Glyn Johns was a famous producer in the 70's who worked with The Rolling Stones, Zeppelin, Beatles, Eagles, Satriani, Blue Oyster Cult, to name a few. He invented a very simple drum miking technique, which if used in a good room with a good drummer and decent and tuned kit, yields fantastic results.

Here's what you need:

2 overheads and a kick drum mic. Thats all! Effective overheads are large diaphragm condenser mics and use a proper kick mic.

Mic placement:

You place the kick drum mic in the kick drum and move it round/use padding until you're satisfied. Then you place one of the overheads above the hihat/snare, pointing towards the snare and the other next to the ride/floor tom. I pointed it slightly down towards the tom but generally you want it pointing across the surface of the tom, towards the snare. Both mics have to be the exact same distance from the snare to avoid phasing issues. This placement will result in a 90 degree angle. Check out the picture below:



Thats it! While recording, you can experiment by inverting the phase on the different mics to fix phase issues. I ended up having to invert one of the overheads, resulting in a much fuller sound. You can also experiment by adding a room mic placed far away from the kit and an sm57 on the snare, for more control if you're afraid of mixing drums with only 3 mics. Glyn Johns frequently incorporated these two extra mics.

For these drums I used a Rode NT-2a on the ride/floor tom OH, a Rode K2 on the snare/hihat OH, an AKG D112 for the kick drum, an sm57 on the snare and (if I remember correctly) an AKG C414 for the room mic. Here's the setup (with all the mics):


Overhead 1 (+ snare mic):


Overhead 2:


Kick drum:


Here's the raw, unedited clip with the original 3 mic Glyn Johns technique (all faders at 0):http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4299941/Glyn...nal%20Mics.mp3

Same + snare and room mics: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4299941/Glyn...nd%20Snare.mp3

After mixing (all mics): http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4299941/Glyn...s%20Edited.mp3

As you can hear, you can get some great drums sounds with a simple setup. Good for people on a budget or pros who want a nice, acoustic sounding kit. They can be mixed much drier but I like the ambience the room mic gives.

Hope this was helpful, cheers.

[HeadCrusher]

Do you have a full mix for that drum performance? The drums sound very natural on their own but I'm afraid the toms migh drown in a full mix.

[BassTard]

Thanks mate! Nice info and good detail. I really like the sound of the clips. Think I'll be giving it a shoot if the chance pops up.

[Plankis]

Sounds really nice!

[Freak Of Metal]

Glad you guys find it of some use

Originally Posted by HeadCrusher

Do you have a full mix for that drum performance? The drums sound very natural on their own but I'm afraid the toms migh drown in a full mix.

I haven't tried yet but they seem loud enough. If its a death metal track with a billion things going on, they might not stand out. But I reckon with some tweakage and in something where the drums have space to breathe It should work.

[black.death]

This sounds really nice man. Good work and nice tutorial.

[exoslime]

thanks for that great tutorial,
i really like the natural sound of the recording, i think this will work great on some jazz stuff, and i want to try that technique out next time!!!
cheers mate

[Fredrik-Ablaze]

I use it all the time for rock/hard rock.. I mic the "tomside" over the shoulder of the drummer though.

[Freak Of Metal]

Originally Posted by Fredrik-Ablaze

I use it all the time for rock/hard rock.. I mic the "tomside" over the shoulder of the drummer though.

Does that work well? Will have to try that next time.

[vespiz]

I do it that way also, the rare times I use it. Never tried the "original" way.

[Jahbulon]

Originally Posted by Fredrik-Ablaze

I use it all the time for rock/hard rock.. I mic the "tomside" over the shoulder of the drummer though.

I do this as well. I've been liking the results i get with close micing and ever so subtly blending in samples. Works well for the rock and roll type thrash we have been writing lately.

[TheWinterSnow]

Originally Posted by HeadCrusher

Do you have a full mix for that drum performance? The drums sound very natural on their own but I'm afraid the toms migh drown in a full mix.

If they are too quiet or the overall tone of the drums are too quiet, drum tracker + samples can augment the limits of a setup like this. In the end it really helps out for those with only a few mics and say only two inputs on their interface and don't have the cash to upgrade.

[Freak Of Metal]

I didnt know about drum tracker. Pretty cool stuff; like an advanced drumagog. Have you had a lot of success using it?

[Jahbulon]

I used drumtracker on a drum track recorded with just two overheads to try it out and it does pretty well at replacing multiple drums, plus it's almost too easy. Best 20 dollars I've ever spent.

[HeadCrusher]

I have a session coming up next week and might try this. Will go for double snare, kick and tom mics as well though. still the overheads should give some nice natural image, right?

[Fredrik-Ablaze]

Originally Posted by HeadCrusher

I have a session coming up next week and might try this. Will go for double snare, kick and tom mics as well though. still the overheads should give some nice natural image, right?

If you got good OH's chances are you'll be finding yourself turning the tom mics down more and more as you mix

I REALLY like this for rock/stoner stuff.. Will be using it on the coming Egonaut album.

[Freak Of Metal]

Originally Posted by Fredrik-Ablaze

If you got good OH's chances are you'll be finding yourself turning the tom mics down more and more as you mix

I REALLY like this for rock/stoner stuff.. Will be using it on the coming Egonaut album.

Good shout! This technique is killer for that kind of style.

[HeadCrusher]

Fredrik, unfortunetaly the mics I'll be using suck. The studio is really just a small basement studio. The best parts of it are probably the conversion (FF800) and the SM57 (in case I decide to bring mine along).

I'm a little worried about the placement of the ride/tom mic. Don't really know where to put that in order not to get in the way and still pick up a useful signal. The first one is easier though. Two drumsticks lenghts straight up from the snare. At least that's what I remember reading somewhere else some time ago.

[ze kink]

Done this a couple times myself as well. Ended up using it on one of the first "real" recordings I did two years ago. Sounded like this with the shitty T-bone mics I had at the time, in a garage, and with me not really knowing much at all about recording or mixing yet: http://80.69.162.40/m/b41/1100212571...eak__Hydra.mp3

Setup was T-bone BD300 in the kick, Sm57 on the snare top, T-bone Sc-150's as the Glyn Johns overheads. I had two room mics too, an another Sm57 and an Akg C1000 IIRC, but I really fucked up how they were placed and only used a little bit of one of them, can't remember which. And I actually checked the Sc-150's before I sold them and noticed I had had them as hypercardioids, which means that they were probably that on this recording too... At least the stereo image is really weird.

[Russtopher]

I did this for a while when I had my Presonus Firebox. Once you get the placement right, you can get some great tones. I prefer it to the Recorderman technique.

When the toms wouldn't cut through the mix enough, I'd copy the OH tracks and cut out anything that wasn't a tom hit. Then I'd process the tom hits to enhance the OH tracks. You can also cut out anything that's not a tom hit and then sample replace, if it's a 2 tom kit - done that as well

[Freak Of Metal]

Originally Posted by ze kink

Done this a couple times myself as well. Ended up using it on one of the first "real" recordings I did two years ago. Sounded like this with the shitty T-bone mics I had at the time, in a garage, and with me not really knowing much at all about recording or mixing yet: http://80.69.162.40/m/b41/1100212571...eak__Hydra.mp3

Setup was T-bone BD300 in the kick, Sm57 on the snare top, T-bone Sc-150's as the Glyn Johns overheads. I had two room mics too, an another Sm57 and an Akg C1000 IIRC, but I really fucked up how they were placed and only used a little bit of one of them, can't remember which. And I actually checked the Sc-150's before I sold them and noticed I had had them as hypercardioids, which means that they were probably that on this recording too... At least the stereo image is really weird.

That's not bad, considering your experience/mics.

[006]

Yeah wow, I actually really dig that kink, really cool sound and vibe going on. I need to try this next time I get something other than a metal band in here.