Getting good and solid drum sounds at home
is one of the most difficult things the home recorder can do. Getting the equipment you need to do it right is expensive and the time it takes to get it right is extensive. But if you have the time and money, and can figure out a technique that works, the plusses are many. You’ll be in the comfort of your own place, and there’s less pressure. You can relax and being relaxed is key to getting a good take.

Keith Dempster from New York’s Ground Control Studio spoke about some basics when it comes to recording drums at home:

What are the first things you do when you are getting drum sounds at home?
Keith: Hide the bong. And hide all bonglike apparati.

What’s more important, good mics, or good preamps?
Well, the most important thing in home recording your drums is the room. The room dictates the drums' sound more than anything. If you want a big drum sound, you need a pretty live room. You want lots of reflection. People may only have a small room to use, or rooms that are carpeted. But there are still things you can do to liven it up:

Get three or four 4x8 foot sheets of plywood and put them up against the walls of the room. And place one on the floor, right in front of the kick drum. This adds reflective surfaces to that room.

Also, try the garage, if you have one. Try all the biggest rooms in the place. You want reverberation. You’ll need to get long mic cords so the mics can reach your mixer.

What’s a special Keith micing trick?
It’s not that special, but after you’ve mic’d the kit, tuned the drums, and there are no phasing issues, try putting an extra mic just outside the door. It'll catch additional ambient sound. It’s nice to have that when you’re mixing. It could give your sounds character.

Talk about phasing.
When two mics are picking up the same sound, the problem of delayed sound causes phase issues. Things get worse when outputs are added together at the mixing desk. When two signals are close in frequency and level but out of time with each other, there is a phase difference. The peaks of one signal are in time with the dips of the second signal and the result is a cancellation of the signals’ energy. Your drums sound weak. Someone told me it’s like someone pushing on a door at the same time another person pulls on the same door - it doesn’t move.

To get around phasing issues in multiple mic set-ups the 3:1 Rule is used:

Two mics should be placed apart from each other at least three times their distance from the sound source. In this way, the sound waves that each mic receives are different enough to minimize phase cancellation.