great thread
 me
  i just did a 10 drum tracked song with
 bass snare hats crash 4 toms 2 overheads its good overheads are nice to have
but i did a new song lastnight with the same kit same room 4 mics
with the others for guitars bass vox
 and the drums sound 80% but with the tools in sonar its hard to tell the difference.
 i run a delta 1010 in our band studio a cheap card with 8 inputs 2 are XLR
 i mixed the song on sonar on the spot and never even fired up my home studio
i would if i could by that tascam above thought it would be perfect for my moble studio

Yes, You can use 10 mics on each drum if you wanted to., as long as you have enough mic preamps. THere are no limits in recording in Sonar. The only limits are yourself

One can get a perfectly good recording of drums w/ as few as 3 mics.  Look up Glyn johns method (hint, he did Zepplin among many others - of course it helps if you have a castle).

yes, a soundcard is first on your list of things to buy.  It needs mic preamps - one for each instrument you wish to record.  then the mics themselves- one for each drum element you want to record.  Figure $100 to $1000 for each one.  You can get a better sound w/ 3 or 4 decent mics than recording w/ one of those ENTRIE DRUM MIC KIT for $300.  Now that I think about it - I'd stick w/ a mono overhead.

Your best bet is to spend your money on less channels but better transducers. That way you won't be replacing it all next year. 

The tascam looks good.  I've just presonus which is fine.  Just be sure you can return an interface - not every one works w/o hassles on each system.  The difference in sound quality isn't so great between digital hardware until you start spending lots money.

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Hi,

Thanks everyone for your input!  I have a lot of research to do and you are all very helpful!  I also need to set aside a budget as well!  I like the Tascam US-1800. I am going to visit Sam Ash this weekend and see what they have!  Thanks again for your time and your help!

If you are short on cash, see if you can use a friends mixing board. you can then mic each drum/overheads/room (if the mixing board has enough channels), mix it properly on the mixer, and record the stereo output of the drums into your soundblaster. You can't do much to it once it's recorded, so you'll need to try several scrap takes and adjust the drum levels and any effects (reverb) on the mixing board until it sounds usable. I did this method for years recording mono drum tracks into a tascam 4-track cassette (but stereo is perfectly fine for what you are doing). Then once the drums are in the computer, you can then use the mixer to record additional tracks (example guitars or vocals) as overdubs.  This method takes a little while to dial in, but excellent demos cas be done this way if you have the patience. Once you start adding in other instruments you may find that the kick is too loud, or the toms are too quite, so you have to adjust the mix on the board and rerecord the drums. So just do a few quick takes and add a few instruments in to check your overall levels before commiting to a ton of time on a project.

But to agree with everyone else. multi-input interfaces are the way to go. (the more inputs the better, for tracking drums)

Great point badso,

This is one of the great things about programs like Sonar.
Using it on stereo drum mixes do to limitations on inputs,

Copy and Paste the track 3 or 4 times onto seperate tracks,
Label them
Kick
Snare/Toms
Overheads

Then use your Gates, Compressors and EQs to dial each one in th suite that particular track
This will let you adjust each track to a better level and tone and send them to their own Sub Buss for overall control.

ProChannel HPFs and LPFs are great when doing this

A nice tool to drop on that buss is the PX64 with "the Heat" Preset and adjust it out to your needs.

Like bandso stated, you can make pretty nice demos this way

Best of luck

Yeah the PX64 Percussion Strip is pretty awesome at letting you tweak individual parts if you are stuck with a stereo track. It's a powerful beast to tame though. Too much sauce and it can really garble things up.

As for mic-ing and recording full sets there are numerous techniques.
I've gotten very good results using the Glyn Johns technique.


Here's a list of different ways to skin this cat.


Just as a personal note. I don't mic the hi-hat anymore. I used to just in case but I found that I never used it so I just don't bother anymore.


Mike 

I have a collection of mics that I wanted to use for mic'ing up the drums but I was wondering if a pair of drum overheads mics are better than say the Rodes NT1?
 
This what I have
Audix D6 for Kick Drum
Audix i5 for Snare
Rodes NT1 which is my main vocal mic for right now but can be used for an Over Head
MXL900 which I dropped so I think it does not work properly but could be used for an over head
MXL991 which is an over head mic I think
My first mic and it has been with me for years Behringer XM8500 not sure what to use it for on the kit need help there
My kit setup is simple no middle tom 20' Ride in that spot , 16 and 18 crash and that's it, I am want a good quality sound of toms do I have the mics to achieve that?
If you suggested mics for over heads or toms what would you suggest?