Recording a Jazz Drummer
This is a great article I ran across online and it touches on a very important concept:
“Jazz drummers relate to their kits in a different way then pop/rock players do. They tend to regard their entire drum kit – snare, kick, toms and cymbals – as a single, integrated instrument, rather than separate elements.”
That’s a HUGE concept, and can make or break a recording or live miking of a jazz drummer and his/her kit/drum set/trap set.
Jazz Drum Miking Different Animal Part 1
Recording Jazz Drums Part 2 Single Instrument
Miking Mazz Drums Part Three Wrapup
At least in the 80’s and 90’s, when I was doing a lot of outdoor and large venue gigs, this concept was absent form most sound reinforcement techs. It must not have been taught in school or something, as I was almost always arguing with sound engineers about it on stage. At a venue in Canada, the sound man actually pulled out a knife and was preparing to cut a hole in my bass drum head to place his mic into. I believe my reaction to this was best described as “going ballistic on him”.
The takeaway here is that when I’m playing jazz, I do think of my whole kit as one instrument, not a tightly stacked rack of separate percussion instruments. It’s really great when I have the luxury of being recorded and/or reinforced that way.
From an online discussion I had with a very experienced sound engineer about recording jazz drums:
Fewer mic’s are your friend. A good ribbon or condenser out in front of the kit and a nice pair of overheads should be the basis of the sound… close mic’s only for filling in. For the close mic’ on the bass drum, mic’ the beater head with the snare drum in the null point of the mic… Also, since jazz is about .5% of the market, very few people have a clue how to record it. Definitely missing Jan Erik Kongshaug (ECM Recordist that passed about a year ago) these days…
For Front-of-House (FOH) live… everything is a crapshoot. I don’t know if you saw Brian Blade playing with Wayne Shorter a couple of years back at revolution hall, but his kit was mic’ed with two pencil condenser overheads… I believe they were DPA 4011’s. That was perfect for FOH. It sounded like brian except loud enough to fill the room. ~ Bob Stark
Also, this blog post from 2023 gets the concept of recording the whole band: https://majormixing.com/10-tips-for-mixing-jazz-music/