Recording Large drum kits?

I am slowly learning the fine art of recording through the needs of my own music projects. Up till now, I've been recording my own acoustic rock band, who has traditionally played with drummers using either a nice elctronic drum kit, or at the very least, a smallish acoustic kit.

It appears we are about to hire on a drummer with a much larger kit... He has a couple YouTube videos out there where I see him playing a 7 drum, 8 cymbal kit. I've never been a pro at recording drums to begin with (and haven't had to be, with the benefit of an electronic drum kit, and I'm not a drummer, so I imagine I'm over/underestimating the need for such a large kit), so I'm not sure the best way to go about tracking a kit this big. I have a decent home setup, with an M-Audio 8 channel interface using SONAR 7. So, I guess the bottom line question is, how do I record a 15 piece kit on 8 channels effectively?

*Computer horsepower is not an issue, as I just got done building an 8-core machine with 16GB of RAM. Would the best course be to beg borrow or steal another 8 channel interface? Not necessarily saying I can get my hands on one... How would you do it using just the one?

Ikaru,

maybe look at the "reason drums" video on youtube.. might give you a few idea's about mic placement.

I use that pack ,but you have to be a reason owner . I don't have the facilities to record a drum kit properly, and I like it anyway.

Sooo....link us up to your drummer's videos.....let's see this kit - and him playing it???

With limited channels, the importance of the ROOM becomes more....well....important. And the room is equally as important as the kit and the player. Even without limited channels, the room is uber important....but you can close mic things to help punch stuff up a bit.

Does the kit sound GREAT in the room, or does it sound kind of boxy and strange? When the drummer plays, does the sound of the kit IN THE ROOM make you say "HOLY CRAP!! THAT SOUNDS GREAT!!"? Or...does it not sound so great? If not, fix the room - try to make it sound "good" to you. Listen to the kit...are the cymbals balanced with the drums? If not, have a talk with the drummer....let him know what you're hearing so that he can adjust accordingly. He may need to hit cymbals harder or softer depending on the room...and your ear (and communication) may be the only thing that makes the drum tracks workable.

THEN...focus on getting the kit sounding great with just a combination of OH mics and ROOM mics. You've probably just blown through 4 of your 8 channels right there. Add the close mics for Snare and Kick and you're down to two available channels for toms or whatever. As mentioned above, you can split the two channels left for mics between toms if you want. I probably would if I could.

If I can't mic ALL of the toms, I don't mic ANY. AND.....if your drummer has too many toms for you to mic them all, simply urge him to lose the correct amount. I've always been pleasently surprised how often a drummer is willing to sacrifice a tom or two to make the record better. From my exerience, a great drummer can adapt to these things and not let it get in his head. The crappy drummer fall apart with the slightest change to cymbal height or anything that gets them out of their comfort zone.

I suppose the next questions is....do you have the right mics to correctly capture the various pieces of the kit, and make them sound good?