Let's talk about recording toms.

I tune mine barely above wrinkle, lowest note the tom can hold. Use a heavier head like a pinstripe with a little moongel. The heavy head will give a "whack" sound and the moongel will quiet the ring a bit to give the impression of more attack.

The overheads give more of the definition of the drum IMHO, so I ruthlessly gate the toms (or I now edit them so that only the attack and a second of decay are there) and once in the whole mix, they sound fine.

One of the best things you can do is move the mic BACK off the drum a bit. Usually 6-8 inches. this give some room for the fundamental note to develop before hitting the mic. On very large toms and floor toms, super close micing really chokes off the deep notes. I aim about halfway between center and the rim.


EDIT:  also, never forget to tune the bottom head properly either.  I usually tune mine a bit higher than the batter.  Most people neglect the bottom head and it really chokes the whole drum sound.

Yeah, I'm a 2b user and I smash my drums, strip silence works but I usually have to run my toms through Rbass to get any usable low end out of them. It's just annoying. 

Clear heads will help. Clear Emperors will give you a lot of stick sound.
Also, tuning a bit higher than where you think it should be, helps. By the way, what kind of drums do you have? What's your technique like? These things matter a lot.

Also, you might just be hitting the drums too hard...

They're Ayotte customs which reminds me I need to post a pic of them one of these days on here. 12 and 14.
I'm a rock drummer so I hit very hard and dead center. I'm going to look into getting a Tunebot and some different heads on them.

Do you always tune a tom to it's lowest pitch?

I'm not a strict "Tune in key" guy, but I'll nudge a drum a semitone down or up if it's gonna make life easier come mix-down.

I pitch them up, if you want low, get big diameter drums and pitch them up, and back ur mics away a bit, ringy overtone don't translate well with a little distance, drums tuned lloose have bad feel playing wise IMO

Beside the givens..good drums, good tuning, good playing, good space, In order for a drum to sound like a drum, it needs space or room to breath and develope into a "drum" sound. Close micing too close doesn't work well IMO, svarts recommendation is spot on here of backing off close mics, also drum tone is pulled out of a drum, not bashed through, a great drummer pulls tone out at equal volume to someone who bashes, with little effort, it's all about sound in the studio, so bashing serves not, tune higher than u think, the boingy overtones disappear over distance, distance equals depth, especially on the defining OH's, if u need a tighter sound, use gates after a great capture, but don't expect a mic that is one inch away from any head to sound natural.

Good luck

Btw, I have a drum dial and a tunebot, both pretty cool tools, I've used them to measure my tuning for quick head replacements, and they work pretty good. I will use a tune bot to spot on pitch tune a snare with pretty good results, but one crack and she's gone every time, I'm all ear tuning 99% of the time.

My tomtom two cents:

Regarding the tuning, as a starting point for most styles with electric guitars, I go for maximum volume, which really is maximum potential volume, as in maximum dynamic range. This allows for more expressive playing. Although you alter perceived pitch with the tuning, the tension of the drumskins (more importantly in my opinion) dictates the volume of the drum. There is a tuning where the drum will be louder. This gives you more toms in the room mics and a sound that usually "cuts" better through the mix. It also gives you more tom signal in the tom mics versus that tom nemesis, the cymbals (specially in the higher mids). Once you have this "loudest" tuning you can shorten the ring with a little masking tape on the bottom head. This might be necessary on the floor tom if the drummer uses it to play rhythm. Moderation is called for when dampening drums, as a little goes a long way. Dampening always reduces volume as well as shortening the sound. I find that between a quarter and an an eighth of a moongel is usually a good place to start with. Even tension in all the lugs will give you an even pitch. The bottom head controls resonance. Both heads at the same tension gives maximum sustain. At a certain tension, the drum will be its loudest. This tuning is not the lowest possible tuning. If the loudest possible tuning is to high a pitch for the drummer's liking, I usually back it down a little, until we find something he is happy with. Thicker resonant skins will make the drum's sustain sound thicker. Even more so if they are coated. You can shorten the sustain by tuning the reso head slightly higher than the batter head (a good method for very fast/complex patterns). Heavier batter heads will require harder strikes to achieve the same resonance from the drum. I usually have two ply heads mounted for the batter because I dont always now how hard the drummer will be hitting. I try to keep a variety of heads at the studio. In the batter position, clear heads give you more stick attack, coated heads more resonance. Right now, in Spain hardly anybody wants clear heads, they seem to be out of fashion, even with the metal guys.

Regarding the cymbals (ay, ay, ay...). What I have found to be the biggest problem with certain cymbals is how bright they sound, not just how loud they are. I find it useful to have a set of darker cymbals in the studio for drummers that have a hard time adjusting their playing style in the studio. Larger, thinner cymbals help with the spill. 

All of this (tuning, tryng different cymbals) taking into account that there has been a previous conversation with the band where it has been established that they don't want the cymbals/hat to be the loudest part of the drum kit, let alone the mix : ) The band's sound has been discussed, references listened to, etc. 



I struggled with toms for a very long time. I was taught to put a dynamic (maybe a cheap condenser) aiming at the top skin and use gates to deal with cymbal spill. This method never really worked for me. I needed to eq the hell out of the tom tracks, turning the cymbal spill into audio poison. I would always prefer the tom sound in my overheads but I needed more control most of the time (needed drier toms, needed louder toms...) I tried 412s, sm57s, ev408s, cheap and not so cheap condensers. As I have always been impressed with Steve Albini's sounds, I looked for pictures of his sessions and found robust small capsule side address condensers with moderate proximity effect and sensitivity on the top and bottom heads. I like to try techniques from engineers whose work I admire. This one worked great for me. I am unable to afford four (ideally, six) e22s, so I exchanged the characteristic "robust" for "cheap". Four Audio Technica ATM450s is what i finally settled on for toms. The top mic is aimed at the towards the center of the drum for hard hitters or towards the edge for lighter playing. The bottom mic is placed so it "looks" at the centre of the bottom head. Both signals are summed to one track. I check the phase relationship between the top mic and whichever are my reference mics (usually the room mics, sometimes overheads or FOK mics), from there, usually, the polarity of the bottom mic's pre is flipped from whatever it is on the top mic's pre. From the top mic you get the attack/definition/harmonics deppending on the playing, and from the bottom head you get the sustain, the fullness, the weight. You can adjust the relationship between these two signals for each song as the playing style changes. The cymbal spill is more manageble with this micing technique: that is almost the main criteria for choosing tom mics, "how does the cymbal spill sound?". The small capsule condensers are more precise in the very high frequencies due to the capsule's size. This can affect how the cymbal spill sounds. However, I have also used large capsule condensers and have preferred the results to what I was achieving with dynamic mics. Ideally, your micing position should be that where the microphones proximity effect is most complimentary to the sound. Because of cymbal placement, this is not always possible. The closer to the tom, the more boominess you will get. Some eq might be necessary, specially for the top head mic, where placement is also dictated by "drumstick stricking range". Those cheap 450's have taken a few strikes like champions. The e22s is extremely solid. I usually use it for snare top (as, unfortunately, I only have one). I once read that Bob Weston tested this mic by driving a nail through the wall with one. It still worked. Don't know if this is just an internet legend, but holding the Josephson mic in your hand you feel that it is certainly possible.

The console's pres are a very practical option, as the technique involves summing two mic signals two one track. We have the Jensen 115k-e loaded mic pre's in our Harrison. When I need to compress the tom tracks I usually go for something on the transparent side and pay attention to how it affects the cymbal spill.

I don't edit or gate the tom tracks. In a quest for obtaining better results faster, both these techniques were brought into question after realising that many records that I admire the sound of have no gates and no digital editing (and were recorded in a relatively short period of time). In my opinion, the spill in the tom mics should be complimentary to the rest of the drum tracks. That would imply, that if a track has no toms, you would still put up your drum tracks because they make your kick drum (for example) sound they way you and the band want.

A note on room acoustics. In smaller dryer rooms I always struggled with the floor toms as the bottom end of the sustain could easily become overbearing. Natural sounding cymbals were also difficult to achieve. A real eye opener for me was the first time I recorded drums in a large, well built room. This became the main motivation for building my own studio.

Sorry this has turned into a tom Odyssey! Got a bit carried away...

A good and simple way to send yourself on the way toward a great drum sound, is to start by putting 1 good condenser mic about 6' out in front of the kit, about 3' off the floor, if the toms and snare are tuned properly, they will jump into the mic, if they are tuned improperly, they'll be flaccid and back, toms will certainly be louder than cymbals when u get it right ime, if u can get a really good drum sound this way, youre more than ready to mic it up as u want, if not, you need to work on the kit in whole, till it sounds great with this single mic. I personally only use head combos for textures and sustain, never gels or damping tape(though others do successfully). Also, contrary to popular belief, a SINGLE drums tuning sweet spot is not very wide, each drum should have a spot where it sings and plays responsively, and then plays well together with the other drums, but sadly, a lot of drums don't have a sweet spot at all, then ur kinda screwed.

I think I do something similar (in concept) to tonycamphd's "condenser mic in front of the drums" by standing in front of the kit and asking the drummer to play. I sometimes ask him to swap the snare drum to something I know (one of the studio's snare drums) if I need a reference to figure out if something is wrong. I have become pretty quick at spotting problems with tuning or relative levels between parts of the kit as I have listened to many kits and drummers in our live room.

I start with finding the location in the room that doesn't have phase cancellation buy moving a floor tom around to where it sounds deepest. Then set the kit in that sweet spot.
Myself I prefer single ply heads top and bottom for attack, volume, dynamics. Medium on top and a little thinner resonant tuned a little higher, and the drum tuned in that sweet spot of the room. It seems that tuning a little higher than what sounds good to the ear helps toms record with better projection. Sometimes a small piece of gaf tape or two if needed, or a few cotton balls (synthetic) pushed in thru the air hole resting inside on the resonant head can give a natural controlled decay without effecting projection. Less material on the top head is better.
I've found that not all drums/bearing edges from kit to kit, sound best with the same combination of top/bottom heads. So I experiment with various heads top and bottom when I get a new drum kit. Also the type and quality of bearing edge and can make a huge difference to match your style of playing and making a so-so drum sound pretty good.
To my ears two ply heads decrease attack and volume and sound a little dull, besides hearing two peaces of plastic slapping together is a turn off, and cancels some of the stick attack.
Condenser's with transformers are more sensitive to stick attack IMO and the tranny gives more punch than transformerless I think. In fact I've switched to all tranny mics. I use ribbons on OH and think that thinner ribbons pickup transients better too.

OR just get a bunch of Transient Designer's !!

Lots of great info in this thread!

I've had good luck in our room with m160s and 4038s as overhead mics.

^^This.  I have a stack of heads about 3ft tall of all kinds.  Mostly snare drum heads due to the radically different snare sounds.  Toms and kick are a lot easier since their sound isn't such a defining sound as the snare is