I always use one mic on toms following the same guidelines as on the snare, "just over the lip and pointing towards the center of the drum", but you can put one on the bottom if you would like to experiment. There are phase issues to worry about similar to using a bottom mic on the snare drum. There are a few main aspects that are key to getting a great tom sound. The mic used, the processing applied to the track, and the sound of the toms in the overheads.
You can get by using Shure SM 57s on Toms, but I always find the sound to end up kind of weak. Sennheiser 421s give you that industry standard chunky tom sound along with some of the newer audix mics. You can use a condenser like an AKG 414 to get that crisper jazz toms sound, or my personal favorite is to use another kick mic on at least the floor tom, but all of them if you can afford it.
The processing of a tom track depends on how well it is recorded. If you use a great mic and mic pre you don't have to do much of anything for it to sound great. If your recorded tom track is lacking the first thing to do is pull out the mids. Be brutal and start EQing out a lot of the mid range. Move the frequency around until the tom starts sounding tighter. The second thing to do is compress the crap out of it. A thicker and slower compressor always works well like an LA 2A or 1176 plug-in (or hardware version).
Lots of engineers stick to the idea that overheads are cymbal mics and therefore the close mics pick up all of the drums. I was taught early on by a wise engineer who challenged me to get a balanced sound of the drums in my overheads and then add in the close mics for support. This technique has become more popular in recent years as roomier drum sounds have become more popular. I have mixed records where the overheads and room mics are the majority of the sound. So next time you set up your overheads listen to how the toms sound.
Overall toms are usually seen as an accent and not part of the core sound of the drums (unless you’re doing wipe out our something with heavy toms), so the question often is how much emphasis should you put on them in a mix. You might want to use some of the above suggestions to make the toms pound the listener’s chest like the kick drum or just add a nice accent to the drum groove. Either way, the way that toms are recorded and processed can have a huge or minimal effect on the sound of your final mix.
-Ben Harris |
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