How To Record Drums With 6 Mics: Full Ambience 6

This approach takes Eric Valentine “No One Knows” full room described in another post, but adds an extra overhead condenser microphone with a cardioid polar pattern pointed at the back of the kit directly over the drummer's head, around 5 to 6 feet off the floor, facing the kit. This mic will pick up a sound closer to what you hear when you play, adding a nice balance to the sound of the other 5 room microphones. 

This approach, which we’ll call ‘Full Ambience 6” (since it is an approach comprised of 6 room mics, capturing the drum set from every angle), would then look something like this: 

*center mic should be at the same height as the “side” mics. Floor included for perspective.

And here’s the outline: 

1. Set up Eric Valentine “No One Knows” full room:
1. Place the “sectional” front mics (left, center and right) equidistant from each other. 
2. Place them around 4 feet off the floor. You don’t want to place them too high, otherwise you’ll lose a lot of low-end. 
3. Make sure you’re pointing them towards their corresponding section of the drum set.  
4. Place an ambience mic around 12 feet high (depending on your room), on the left side of the kit. 
5. Place an ambience mic around 12 feet high (depending on your room), on the right side of the kit.
6. Move them around in the room until they both sound balanced between the bass drum and the snare and are roughly equal distances from the snare drum. Make sure there’s a relationship between the height of the left/center/right mics and the ambience mics, in order to ensure phase-coherence. In this case, if the left/center/right mics are at ~4 feet off the floor, then the ceiling ambience mic is at ~12 feet, which maintains the 3:1 rule. 
2. Place a 6th mic pointed at the back of the kit directly over the drummer’s head approximately 5 to 6 feet off the floor (you can go lower, like right above your head).

Pros of this technique:

• A holistic sound of the drums, with great stereo image possibilities with the left & right mics, with a centered mono signal with the center-front and back mic. 
• If your drums sing, this approach will sing too. 
• You’ll get full advantage of your drum room sound. 

Cons:

• You depend a lot on the room. Dry room, dry sound. 
• Your bass drum might still sound a bit dry, so be mindful of that when you EQ this mix. 
• Like the Glyn Johns method, your balance determines the final sound. This approach by itself can be very unforgiving.