Drum Tracking - What's Your Normal Tracking Technique

I own one 57, and it lives on snare. unless it's a super light touch brushes thing then it may get a KM140 or Octava 012 omni.
Toms can be RE-20, RE-38, 666's, 421, 414, UMT70S, K47H/012, 012 omni, again depends what it is.
Kick can be 666, RE-20, 602, Red/012, K47H/012, UMT70S.....
OH is almost always M130/M160 mid side, matrixed to stereo on the way to print.
Room tends to be Samar MF65 out front around mounted tom height, but can be another Samar custom stereo or even a SASS-P.  Mid side if it's the ribbons.  
Lately the 1932 Carrier model 94 tube mic gets used as a mono room mic for thickness aspects.
Sometimes a Shure 300 behind the drummers body so they are baffling it off a bit, smashed up with an RCA BA-78A talkback limiter, which is a pre/limiter combo in one. Among the most smashed things I've ever heard. They need a good bit of tech sussing to sort out best practices with, you won't buy one off ebay and have it work well without sorting the right associated support circuits. Not used if the Carrier 94 is employed.

HH:  never.  just not needed.  

Approach is usually such that close mics might not be employed in the end, if they aren't needed.  They are viewed as support rather than OH/amb viewed as such.   I pretty much never double mic kick or snare.  I don't mic terribly close with the 'close'.   I don't reinforce with samples unless a kick is totally hopeless, then that one drum might get a bit mixed in, really only one guy locally I can think of I've used that with.  

Very similar

I use KM184's OH AB
Snare top - 57
Snare Btm - 57 or i5

Rack top - d2

Rack btm - e604

Floor top - d4

Floor btm - e604

Kick in - d6 and Beta52 and orig 91 and E 602-II 
Kick Out D112 and home made sub kick
Room U87 or Cad179

Anyone doing recorderman with their OH's?

On the cheap side of things the CAD e70 are bad ass... Almost as good as my km184's
I use the e70 for HH and Ride... 

I've been blessed with two great rooms to record drums, and a drummer who is a great friend that is a monster player and knows how to tune his kits...

First :

Drummer
Drums
Room
Mics

Then :

Me. :-)

If you get the first things right, it's kind of hard to screw things up. I mean, you CAN, but if you have a decent degree of experience, it will be pretty easy.

I always start with OH's first. I like em fairly high and prefer an ambient sound as part of the "kit" sound. I have a distant memory of a pair of C12's from OHenry's that I LOOOOOVED. But for me, the $30k+ of getting real C12's will never happen. So....I've been searching for the holy grail OH mics for a couple of decades. At this point I have a pretty large mic locker, and I ALWAYS come back to Gefell UM70's or M71's in spaced pair on OH's. The sound is alive, 3 dimensional and exciting. What else do you need?

After that, Kick is generally a UM70 on the outer resonant head in Fig8 with the null facing HH, Snare and/or cymbals. Depends on the kit. Inner mic is generally a Audix D6 near the beater.

At this point I should be able to "stop". The sound is there. If the drummer is balanced in his performance, the Gefell's get as much of the snare and toms and cymbals as I need. The kick mics are there for the beef. But I almost always keep going anyway for safety.....

Snare changes a bit, but I tend to start off with an old Shure 545 unidyne and a KM84 on the SIDE of the shell. No underneath mic. Other top of head mics include Audix i5's, Beyerdynamic M201, various 57 variants, and the 441 gets use as much as all the others combined. KM84 is also awesome on the top of the snare, but I rarely risk putting one in harms way.  If you want a condenser tone, the MXL 991/603/604 is surprisingly good, and I don't care if they get wrecked.  I don't have any anymore, but they are definitely useable.

Toms are generally Michael Joly 219PE's, with CAD M177/179's as a backup if it's a more "modern" sound. I HATE, HATE, HATE 421's as their off axis ruins my drum sound if left open. I like leaving the tom mics open if they sound good, and the way I do it, it always sounds more "alive" leaving them open with not being played.

I don't generally go for a stereo "room" sound, but always have at least one mic in the room and often have 2 or more mics up. The Joly 205's are awesome and have seen a lot of use here. HUGE sounding and flat (-3db) down to 8Hz. Big sound. Condensers get used less. Currently my fave is my RCA 77DX. Something magical about that mic, and it just compresses so much more elegantly and sweetly than anything else. I guess I need another.

I'll often put ether a 205 or my MK47 out in front of the kit 6 feet or so and balance K/Sn in that mic. It's a great sound if your room is good.

Come mix, this combo generally just "sits" without any serious EQ or compression. I never track the drums with compression unless the drummer sucks, and honestly, I haven't had to do that for a loooong time. The rooms will get compressed eventually for "that" sound.

Preamps are Silver Bullets (my new go-to) as I have 4 of them now, CAPI VP28's/26's, AML 1073's, D&R's occasionally, Purple Biz's occasionally, and the ACMP 73/84's often  The Silver Bullets on cascaded mode of API into Neve is unbelievably awesome for that trashy alt rock / hip hop sound. Something I'd looked for for years, but could never quite attain.

Come mix time it's more Silver Bullets, old API EQ's, Chop Shops, 528's, SA3A's, Varimu (sometimes), Serpent Splices and on Bus (if I go there) a 4001, and LilPEQr's (the gold originals) to sometimes brighten up the OH's, but generally Brad's killer EQ on the SB has taken over that chore....

Simple right? hahaha!

Awesome info, drbill! (I'm about 100% that's not going to tag you in the post like I'd like...hmmmm...). Thanks for detailing your thought process.

I agree with you about 421s on toms. They "sound" good but their bleed is terrible.

If you're getting good isolation, your drummer is great at really blasting the shells and laying off the cymbals, and you're gating (manual "gating" is what I prefer) the non-tom stuff out then 421s can be super useful - but their off-axis is gross. That's why I've settled on mostly using some SDCs on toms. They're not the best sounding SDCs to be honest but their polar pattern is fairly tight, these can take the level (something like 137db), the top end is hyped from the factory, and the bottom end is there (but needs some boosting)...plus, since it's a condenser, it seems like the transient response is quick and I find I like big transients for toms.

I've also used a 205 in front of the kit (that 6' distance seems great) before, too - I always try it when I'm tracking drums outside my studio. I really dig it. My room doesn't seem to like that position as much - must be something in the acoustics.

What are you hearing in the API preamps (Silver Bullet front end and the CAPI stuff) that makes you like them?

Thanks.  No problem.

I used to use API's (mostly on consoles) exclusively for drums.  Then I found Neve.  LOL  The API's and CAPI's can't match the Neves for huge bottom on kick.  But they are PUNCHY.  That's why I like them.  Plus they are a little brighter.  I'll often use the Neve's for snare too if I'm looking for phat sound over punch.

Downside for 500 series API's - you can't gain stage effectively, and the pad SUCKS.  CAPI's are much better.  No need to use the pad as you've got the output attenuator and they saturate so nicely.

I like the Silver Bullets because of their versatility - I can easily switch back and forth with the flick of a switch between aPI or NEVE.  (best pf both food groups.)  The sonics are large and smooth.  The metering is AWE-SOOOME.  They saturate oh so nicely.  The gain staging possibilities are exponentially better than any other mic pre out.  The EQ is Sweet for simple touches. (not carving huge holes).  It's nice to have a recallable, gain matched stereo preamp.  That's pretty much it.

Oh yeah.....its got my name on it.  :-)

I am pretty basic

KM184s overheads
D6 Kick
Beyer M201 Snare
SM57s Rack And Floor

Preamps

TG500 Kick
Capi VP28 Snare
JLM 99NV500 Rack
JLM NV500 Floor
JLM BA2 Overheads


EQ is Delta Console

Comps DBX160,1176, 54As,STA's (kick, snare. Toms, overheads)


cheers

Wiz

You must be doing jazz or folk styles? Natural stuff?

I am a very organic natural drum sound guy. I just don't care for the soggy, slow, wet Kellogg's box snare sounds or the overly smack-y, basketball bouncing (5K boosted 15 db) kicks that are en-vogue at the present. Here is what I track with. I rarely use all the mics, but it's nice to have the options and not need them than the other way around for me.

Kick in Beta 52    RTZ 9762A preamp,  RTZ 1549 eq,   Neve 543 comp

Kick Out   Cascade phantom powered Fathead 2, nulled from the snare and hat bleed   RTZ 9762A,  Harrison 32 eq and Empress 519 comp

Snare top PM-9 Miktek    RTZ 9762A  RTZ 1549 eq and great River PWM 501 comp

Snare Btm Sennheiser 441    RTZ 9762A   RTZ 1549 eq and great River PWM 501 comp

hi-hat Shannon Roads hot rodded MA-101 Mojave   RTZ 9762a pre,  RTZ 1549 eq and Capi 526 comp

Tom 1 Miktek PM 10   RTZ 9762a pre,  Electra Eq, usually wait till post to compress

Tom 2 vintage 421   RTZ 9762A pre, Electra eq, usually wait till post to compress

Tom 3 Miktek PM 11   RTZ 9762A pre, Harison 32 Eq,  usually wait till post to compress.  if it's a 2 tom session, I will use the Hippo comp occasionally.

Overheads    Spaced Mojave MA-201's and a Stereo Royer ribbon above the drummers right ear and angled at the kit   RTz 9762a's, Elysia X-filter and X-pressor comp

Rooms    stock K2 Rode's with Mullard tube upgrade  RTZ 9762 19" rack preamps straight in with no eq or comp. I move these room mics a lot and they are always a huge part of my sound.  In post the Capi 526's will be my go to here.

Extra ambience mics   4 PZM mics placed as needed for song  I use all kinds of different preamps and outboard depending on the music in the session with these mics. I love the telefunken V-72's, Edwards Audio preamps are great as well, or sometimes I go squeaky clean and use Radial pres or AEA 500 series preamps. Most of the time I wait for post work to do any carving and compressing with these. 

Lo fi grunge mics   Grundig stereo tabletop mics  Ampex 350 preamps and I push the input stage to gnarly and depending on the session, I make them prominent (or not) while tracking to give some edgy vibe when needed. 

20 mics all capturing interesting things that I can take or leave at mix time. My kit is a Tama Star Classic bubinga with a full compliment of Ufip cymbals and is one of the most versatile sets I have ever heard. I was very surprised when I got to Europe with Kenny Aronoff cause he had the exact same kit over there with Zildjian cymbals.  He has 4 toms and my kit has the same, but few drummers want to play the 10" tom, so I got it out of the way and placed safe in storage. It all starts with a great player, a great kit and decent gear to capture it. Here is a pic of Kenny's kit and a pic of Wes Little (Robben Ford's drummer) playing mine.

Default go-to quick set-up.

Kick In = Telefunken M82, kick switch on, Focusrite 220, limiter engaged at 0
Kick Out = Neumann U47FET, ƒ220, limiter at 0
Front of Kick, 3-5 feet out, Blue Kiwi
Snare top, T.Funk M80 or Beta 57, or 57, Focusrite Red 6.
Snare top2, AKG C460, CK1 capsule and adapter, Vintech X73
Snare bottom, Senn 441, EQ flat, Vintech X73
Toms: tops, CAD M179s into APIs. Bottoms, Senn 421s into focus rite 428s
Ride and Hats: Neumann TLM102s into Neve 1272/33041s
Overheads: (Neumann) Gefell M930s matched pair usually in ORTF or AB into Never 1073s
Rooms: Neumann U87s into Toft channel strips.

That's usually the starting point and then I change things up from there, depending on what the kit, song, artist, genre, arrangement calls for.