How to Record Drums With Multiple Microphones in Pro Tools

Using several microphones allows mistakes on a single drum to be isolated and corrected with ease.

Pro Tools is a popular product for recording. It has the ability to record live audio or in the "MIDI" format, the standard protocol for electronic musical instruments to syncronize with each other. One unique feature of Pro Tools is that it can record distinct tracks at the same time. This is especially useful for recording drums because producers can use several microphones that turn the sounds from each individual drum into its own recorded signal, allowing numerous possibilities for the editing process.

Things You'll Need

• Drum mics
• XLR cables
• Large interface

Instructions

1. 

   The more mircophones you use, the greater the number of inputs your interface must have.

   Set up your drums and microphones to your personal liking. This will most likely be the same set up you would have if drumming in a live show or concert. Connect the female end of each of your XLR cables to the mics and then connect the male end of each cable to its own input on the interface.

2. Open Pro Tools on your computer and create a new session or open a recent session. Click on the "Tracks" tab located in the menu bar at the top of the screen and click "New..." A small box will appear and will have "audio" as the default type of track, "mono" as the default input signal and "samples" as the default recording method. These should be left alone and the only thing that should be changed is the number of new tracks that will be created. Change that number from one to the same number of microphones you have connected to the interface.

3. Press and hold "control" and then press the "=" button on your keyboard to switch your view to the mixer, or click on the litte gray box immediately above the highest track to open a menu. Then click on "inputs." The mixer will already show the inputs. Click on the "input" button for the first track and hover the mouse over "interface" to pop open the menu showing the interface's inputs. All active inputs should be yellow instead of gray. Assign the first track to the first active input. The inputs will usually be represented by two numbers. This is normal and is set up this way so there is always space for stereo recordings. Set the rest of the tracks each to a different active input.

4. Look at the interface and determine which input is connected to the mic for each drum. For the drum attached to the first input, which will most likely be "input 1" or "input 1-2," find the track that has the same input numbers and double-click on the white "name" box in the upper-left corner of the track. If the mic is connected to the snare drum, name the track "snare." Continue doing this with the rest of the tracks, giving names according to the drum that corresponds with each track.

5. Click the red "record" symbols which are located below the "name" box on each track. The buttons will flash red and the green decibel meters should activate on each track to let you know that they are receiving sound from each microphone. Now click the bigger "record" button, which can be found in the main toolbar in the upper-right portion of your screen.

6. Press the spacebar or click "play," which is located next to the main "record" button. Pro Tools will record all of the tracks with flashing red "record" buttons at once.

Tips & Warnings

• Drum sounds often "bleed" or can be heard by mics other than the one closest to it. This can be fixed by a technique called "gating." If you wish to gate the drums within Pro Tools and you want to gate out as much extra sound before the recording process instead of after, you must insert and properly edit a gate plug-in to each track before attempting "Step 5."

• You should always record at least two takes of a performance. When recording for the second time, you should duplicate each track and remove the duplicate recording or create new tracks.

• You may want to record any overhead mics as "stereo" instead of "mono."

• If you gate the drums before recording, make sure you can still hear each drum in its corresponding microphone at the quietest you will be playing that drum. If you cannot, the gate's threshold is too high as its purpose is to turn off, or "gate," any signal that comes in at a lower decibel level than the level at which you set the threshold.

References

• Avid: Reference Guide Pro Tools 8.0; 2001
• Avid: Pro Tools Menus Guide Version 8.0; 2001