I'm recording a drum set, I have one microphone, how can I get the most out of it?

Use your condenser mic with your Shure58

I have to Sennheiser Condenser mics, not the best quality. But I seem to able able to get a decent sound out of them, with some Reverb, Compressor, and EQ settings.

People have told me to position the mics about a foot out, and a foot higher than the drumset, angled down and inwards towards the drummer. One at the left and the other at the, kind of like two spotlights.

I personally have gotten better results sticking one mic right in front of the bass drum and using the other mic as an overhead mic, aimed towards the snare drum. These condenser mics are pretty sensitive, and will pickup background noise, so don't worry too much about the mic not picking up the rest of the set.

This way, you will have a strong bass coming through, and with proper EQ settings, you can get the rest of the set to sound pretty decent as well.

Experimenting with what you have is the best way to improve your mic positioning technique. Just keep trying different positions and see which one works best. Also, try to get some extra mics if you can, many drummers use at least 8 mics to record their drums.

Adding tons of mic's is usually NOT the way to go. The more mics you have, the more issues with mic bleed, phase cancellation, etc will pop up. You don't want that kind of a headache... so here's a few suggestions.

Focus on capture the cymbals, and use a drum trigger plugin to add samples for the kick and snare. your recording will still have the feel of a live recorded track, but if you pick the right samples at the right volumes, etc, then it will still sound like you've got a good solid kick and snare in the mix. The cymbals are the hardest part to get right, though, you can't fix them with triggers!

If I had just one mic, I would keep it above the cymbals, in front of the kit, pointing towards the drummers head, approximately. This will get the most cymbal I can reasonably get, and should still pick up enough kick and snare to trigger them in later.

If I had two mics, then I would do the same thing, but in stereo - cross them, ie, point them at a 45-90 degree angle from each other, towards the kit, from at least chest height, again pref above the cymbals though. Drums in stereo sound soooo much better!

Ideally, condenser mics are the way to go, especially for getting a good cymbal crash.

Even better, for stereo mics, is if the drummer is playing by himself, ie, playing along while monitoring the mix in his headphones. As he's playing, walk around the room until you find the "sweet" spot.. where it sounds perfect. Put your pair of condenser mics right there, in the xy configuration I mentioned earlier. Another mic? Put it on the snare, and/or put one on the kick - but no more. Any more and you risk phase cancellation, bleed, etc. Let the sound of the room do your job for you - some judicious multiband compression, eq, and maybe some tape saturation and you're good.

Hmmm. I think that's about it. In your situation, I'd give the gooseneck condenser a shot, but I wouldn't necessarily expect magic out of it. Put it for the overheads, the 58 on the snare, and use a trigger plugin ( ktdrumtrigger, for instance ) to add the low end back in afterwards. Won't give you stereo, but it's a start.

Saul

I used to record to a 4-track using only my band's two vocal mics. I'd recommend you get another mic and then position them so one is pointed downward from a boom about two feet above the kit. I'd keep the other one in front of the bass drum, perhaps a foot away. You can tweak the mic positions after listening to a few test recordings. It's kind of daunting trying to record drums on a tight budget and you won't be able to get studio quality, but getting solid, usable tracks is still doable. Good luck!

Behringer are budget mixers but good value for the money. Why don't you go on Youtube and type in "recording drumkit" and see what you get ? If you are willing to take a chance on used equipment, you can get some really good multi-channel mixers on Ebay, there's always someone upgrading or retiring, and bands breaking up. Yamaha, Peavey and Mackie mixers are better than Behringer, you'll get more mixer for less money. If you want to try before you buy, you could wait until something comes up locally, and don't bid unless they let you try it out first.

Your better off using a condensor mic.Sm57 is a decent snare mic while a Sm58 is basicly a vocal mic.I use a basic condensor mic and record with cool edit pro and everything seems to work ok for me.

If you get another mic, have one either side of the drumkit.

But... As im sure you know, bass is undirectional, however treble and mid are, so place the mic in the middle above the drumkit, so its as central as possible, plus some height.

Ideally you want a microphone for every drum, cymbal etc that you have. the more microphones the better. If you can't get that many, just place what ones you have at a distance from the kit so one drum doesn't dominate over the rest of them and cross your fingers

More mics.

My drummer uses 10 mic's when he records his.

3-5 i think would cut it, but honestly i doubt 1 will

This site: http://www.kimcheerecords.com/articles/drums/ has tons of info on how to record drums!