The May meeting of the Boston Audio Engineering Society was hosted by Emerson College radio station WERS. Carl Beatty, Berklee professor, and renowned recording and mix engineer provided insight into the finerdetails of recording drums. Far more than simply showing "how to" mike drums, Carl provided the assembled horde with details from his "twisted side" from which he draws his most effective and unusual techniques.

Carl started by talking about his conceptual approach to making recordings, particularly of acoustic instruments such as drums. He reminded us that the drum kit is really one instrument and if it is not recorded as such will require a lot of work to glue all the pieces together. He starts by thinking about the room, where it sounds best, looking for symmetry laterally and non reflective surfaces, particularly behind the drummer. Carl showed that often the best, most cohesive sounds are found at the drummer's perspective or even behind the drummer. We all took turns listening to the kit from various vantage points in the room and around the kit. Gobos were needed to absorb some of the reflections from a glass window behind the drummer, but with those in place wonderful tones were evident, as Carl predicted, over the drummer's shoulder!

Carl emphasized listening to the kit as a mic would, as a monaural source, i.e.: with a finger in one ear! Carl pointed out that humans discriminate (can pick out signal to pay attention to in a loud environment) whereas mics do not. The one ear trick helps approximate what the mic will hear. He also emphasized listening to the balance of the kit in various positions. Carl advocates putting mics in position to get the best balance of the kit, rather than the more traditional route of trying to record only what the mic is pointing at and worrying about leakage.

Hence Carl's mic placement choices were a bit unusual. They were, however, extremely effective! He began with the kick drum, which was a unported, double head drum with no damping, by applying a small damper (his coat) to the front head and building a small tunnel out of a rug and mic stand. He noted that whenever such a tunnel is used the key is to have it open on the back side to allow air movement and extension of bass frequencies. Throughout the evening Carl used whatever mics were at hand, eschewing some of the more illustrious mics available. On the kick he used an AKG 414.

Carl's main mic choice was a pair of Earthworks QTC omnis to get the balance between the toms and cymbals. Before you shake your head, it was amazing! He placed one mic by the low tom at the level of its rim point slightly up and toward the left crash cymbal. Get it? Not even pointing at the drums and sitting below the crash! The second omni was placed between the two rack toms pointing sideways at the hihats under the right crash cymbal. Only this mic needed minor placement adjustment once during the session!

Carl taught us a technique he called the "Drummer's Earrings" in which a pair of Shure SM-81 were placed approximately 12 inches from the drummers head on either side facing the kit. He mentioned that often he modifies this approach by placing the mics further behind the drummer and raising or lowering their height to get more or less bass reinforcement. These mics combined with the oddly placed omnis provided the fullest representation of the kit, even without the kick mic on.

Traditional techniques were tried as well with a pair of Earthworks SR71 cardioids placed as overheads, an Audix D1 placed as a top head snare mic, and a Sennheiser MD 441 placed on hihats. While these all turned out to be superfluous, Carl had some key comments about setting them up. On the overheads, he mentioned that he really used them to record the cymbals and not the overall kit balance. As such, he emphasized placing them facing the tops of the two crash cymbals, careful not to look at the edge where sound from the top and bottom clash. On the snare, he suggested backing off 2-3 inches and aiming the mic at an angle to the head rather than downward. On the hihats, he placed the 441 underneath to decrease leakage, aimed again at the body of the cymbal not the edge. When the phase was reversed at the mixer, this provided a very tight, click like hihats sound reminiscent of disco where Carl got his start. Carl mentioned that he has moved toward condenser mics, particularly small diaphragm ones for nearly all drums because he has found them to respond better to equalization applied later.

After the kit was fully miked, and we had listened to and considered each combination of techniques, traditional and Beatty-style, Carl played a series of multitracks he had recorded at various Boston area facilities. It became clear that mic choice really is secondary to skill of the engineer in understanding the instrument and the room in which it is being played.

The Boston Audio Engineering Society would like to thank Carl Beatty for his generous gift of time and education, and to thank PJ Melanson who played the drums throughout the session.

-- Jordan Tishler