Snare-drum Multimiking: Four Recommended Microphone Positions To Mix & Match

In this video I demonstrate the sound of four different recommended microphone positions you might use when multimiking a snare drum, showcasing the sound characteristics of each mic position with audio examples. In addition, I discuss how you might go about combining them at mixdown.

If you have trouble downloading or playing this video, here’s a mirror file on an alternate server.

Table of Contents

• 00:00 – Intro

• 01:19 – The Four Microphone Positions

  • 03:08 – demonstration: over-snare cardioid mic
  • 03:28 – demonstration: under-snare cardioid mic
  • 03:49 – demonstration: side-snare figure-8 mic
  • 04:09 – demonstration: side-snare figure-8 mic (vertical firing)

• 04:29 – Mixing The Multimics

  • 05:24 – demonstration: mix of over-snare and under-snare mics
  • 06:16 – demonstration: comparison of side-snare mic versus under-snare mic (in mix context with over-snare mic )
  • 06:46 – demonstration: mix of over-snare, side-snare, and under-snare mics
  • 07:31 – demonstration: comparison of vertical-firing side-snare mic with over-snare mic (in mix context with side-snare and under-snare mics)

• 08:10 – Credits (Total Running Time 08:37)

Related Resources

• Mix These Four Mic Signals For Yourself: Here’s a ZIP archive containing the four raw mic signals. If you load this into your own DAW system and line them all up, you can experiment with mixing the signals for yourself. Although I’ve taken the liberty of inverting the polarity of a couple of the mics during the recording process, don’t forget to try out different polarity settings on your own system to see how dramatically this affects the combined sound.
• What About Spill From The Rest Of The Kit?: Having seen this video, you might reasonably ask what the ramifications would be of using these different mic positions within the context of a full drum kit – especially for the two ribbon mics, of course. In the case of the ribbon mic that’s aimed at the drum, in my experience it shouldn’t pick up any more spill than an over-snare mic, as long as you’re careful not to position the kit with a close reflective surface on the snare/hi-hat side. I clearly remember the session when I first tried this side-miking trick about 10 years ago, because I got stung really badly with hat spill for that reason! (Ho-hum. “You live, you learn” and all that…) The vertically aligned ribbon mic is a slightly trickier call, and you may find you get unhelpful levels of spill if there’s a cymbal right above the mic position. Fortunately, I find there’s often actually quite a lot of leeway in terms of where you can place this mic, with at least two approach angles usually available to chose from in most situations, so there’s often something you can do to mitigate this concern at source. However, a little limited-range gating can also do wonders with the vertical-firing mic. As many of you may already know, I’m no huge fan of gating drums in general, and prefer just working with the spill if possible, but here the mic’s main appeal (ie. its hefty low-mid attack) makes it unlikely to suffer from serious processing side-effects if you do gate it sensibly, so I wouldn’t think twice about gating it myself if I couldn’t get the balance control I needed otherwise. In the worst case, you could always low-pass filter that mic too, especially if you’re using an undersnare mic in conjunction with it.
• A Tip About Placing The Vertical-firing Ribbon: In case you’re wondering how to fit a vertical-firing ribbon mic in around all the other bits and pieces in a drum kit, remember that the microphone doesn’t need to have its end pointing at the drum (as it’s set up in the video). It could also be rotated in the horizontal plane however you like, just so long as it remains firing vertically.
• Blending The Timbres Of Different Mic Models: If you want to try mixing together the sounds of several different classic snare microphones on the same drum performance, check out these mic shootout files.
• More About Multimiking Techniques For Different Instruments: For a more in-depth and wide-ranging explanation of instrument multimiking, check out chapters 7 & 8 of my book Recording Secrets For The Small Studio.