Tips & Techniques

Drums recording and mixing techniques

Watch leading recording engineers talking on camera about recording in the pro and home studios. Learn their unique and special recording tips, learn how to record and mix better.

Drum Recording Without Tom Mics classic Drum Recording Techniques
Drum Recording Without Tom Mics Classic Drum Recording Techniques

Armchair recording pundits may recoil at the idea of recording drums like this, using no tom mics, but a drummer in the expert recording hands of Owain Fleetwood Jenkins can be assured that the sound that they need for a particular track can be captured...

Mastering the Beat a comprehensive drum recording tutorial
Mastering the Beat A comprehensive drum recording tutorial

Shot at ARC Studios with Damo Webster playing the drums and 2 x Grammy winning Cameron Craig producing, this short video captures the spirit of the studio and the engineers expertise and helps explain why Matt Taylor won the British MPG's Rising Star award 2022.

Drum Recording with Dave Pemberton
Drum Recording with Dave Pemberton

Dave Pemberton's Drum Recording session walkthrough - Dave shows how he recorded a classic Ludwig kit.

Drum Recording with a USB Mic tracking drums
Drum Recording with a USB Mic Tracking drums

Can an affordable USB mic with multiple capsules give results good enough to make a record? Recording engineer and musician Russ Cottier tests a unit from SSL (better known for mixing consoles) out to find out how technology has advanced - Put on your headphones...

Drum Recording with Dan Weller
Drum Recording with Dan Weller

Renowned in the metal scene with bands including SikTh, Enter Shikari and Young Guns, Dan gives us a behind the scenes look (and listen) at his drum recording setup with a tour around the kit to look at mic's and tuning etc on a session...

How to Record & Mix Drums (30 minute special feature)
How to Record & Mix Drums (30 minute special feature)

Grammy winning engineer Mike Exeter shows his great sounding Drum Recording methods with top session drummer Karl Brazil.

1 SM57 for Recording Drums a single SM57 can produce Great Sounding Drums
1 SM57 for Recording Drums A single SM57 can produce Great Sounding Drums

Top recording engineer Mike Thorne shows how to get a great drum sound in his recording studio with limited equipment - using just one microphone.

Drum recording with two microphones comparing AKG 414 and Coles 4038
Drum recording with two microphones Comparing AKG 414 and Coles 4038

We are planning a full studio tour and video interview with Andy Bowes at Catalyst Studios in the next few months but for now, we hope you enjoy watching this short video that we recorded with Russell Cottier pre-COVID on comparing two pairs of mics...

Drum recording ideas with Mike Exeter & Clint Murphy
Drum recording ideas with Mike Exeter & Clint Murphy

Recording drums is a bit of a hot topic, certainly here at RP it is and you can never get enough tips and ideas to get a better or more interesting sound so it's great to be able to bring this new feature shot in...

Drum recording with Clint Murphy & Mike Exeter
Drum recording with Clint Murphy & Mike Exeter

Woodworm Studios was the venue for our recording masterclass focused on rock and metal production - this was our drum recording section which we have edited to hopefully not run too long and we think that these methods would be of great interest to anyone...

Mark Rankin talks about recording drums
Mark Rankin talks about recording drums

Mark Rankin discusses his approach to recording drums. Nick Poortman visited Mark to meet up and chat about some of the unique working methods and approaches, this is a short snippet out of the longer video, click here to watch the full interview.

Dan Logan talks about recording drums at Orchard Studios
Dan Logan Talks about recording drums at Orchard Studios

Russ Cottier met with Dan Logan at Orchard Studios and talked drums. Recording drums is one of those subjects where you just can't get enough information and opinions - we think, anyway.

Andrew Scheps drum recording techniques
Andrew Scheps Drum recording techniques

Russell Cottier talks with recording engineer and mixing legend, Andrew Scheps.

Clint Murphy kick drum sample technique
Clint Murphy Kick drum sample technique

Clint Murphy's unique series here on RecordProduction.com continues with Clint showing us his methods for kick drum replacement with samples and how to tune the kick to be sympathetic to the song.

Parallel compression for drums with Clint Murphy
Parallel compression for drums with Clint Murphy

Continuing our exclusive series with top mix engineer Clint Murphy, this video takes a look at how to create parallel drum compression to get a much more expolsive sound in the mix.

The Floor Mic Technique with Andrew Lowe demonstrated at Wolverhampton University
The Floor Mic Technique with Andrew Lowe Demonstrated at Wolverhampton University

Andrew Lowe decided to experiment with the Floor Mic technique for recording drums championed here on RP by Clint Murphy ( click here to watch that video ) but thwarted by not having a lovely wooden studio floor he decided to experiment.