The downside is that you would end up with your drums being in mono, which loses some of their character. It's nice to be able to pan the different drums into a stereo field. But if that's what you gotta do, that's what you gotta do with what you got. It's not the end of the world.

I can't think of any work-arounds for your situation. If you've got a single input, that's what you'll have to live with.

Good luck.

let me see if i'm getting this correct atleast....
if i DO get an 8 channel mixer for instance, i could atleast EQ the drum mics for the sound, and with an Mbox 2, i have 2 inputs, i forgot that. So, i could just run the mixer stereo out into the interface... correct?

That's correct, but you'll have to mix it pretty near perfect going into the M-Box. Once you've recorded 8 drums onto 2 tracks you can still make modest adjustments to the tone, but the proportions between the drums will printed. For example, you won't be able to turn down the hi-hat or turn up the snare individually.

At least now you're rocking the drums in stereo.

Before you buy any new equipment to do this, I'd play around with micing the drums with just two mics. There is a mic placement system called the "RecorderMan Technique" that does a good job of this. It would give good results, teach you a lot about mic placement and phase relations, and not be overwhelming. There are many posts in the archive and a good YouTube video on setting this up.

Not that a mixer is a bad investment, but if you really get into this in the long run you are probably going to move up from a two channel interface. So it's bad (in my mind) to buy a lot of equipment that is specifically geared to working with the two channels of the Mbox. You can learn a ton by working with the Mbox and sticking within its limitations. Save your money until you have moved on to a more versatile interface.

Of course, mics and stands go with any interface. So if you have money that's burning a hole in your pocket you can buy a nice pair of over head mics for the drums and stands to hold them up. (Or you could just throw your money away and invest in the stock market.)

if you only have 2 inputs then the recorderman method isnt what i recommend because you'll be disappointed with the lacking kick drum. with 2 inputs, i'd use 1 overhead mic and 1 kick drum mic. then you have a driving thump from the drums.

1 mic for overhead wont give you stereo, but will capture everything for sure (except the kick drum, which is why i wrote the previous miniparagraph of course)

recorderman is GREAT when you do have a mic on the kickdrum, too!

rockstardave wrote: if you only have 2 inputs then the recorderman method isnt what i recommend because you'll be disappointed with the lacking kick drum. with 2 inputs, i'd use 1 overhead mic and 1 kick drum mic. then you have a driving thump from the drums...

Depends on what you are looking for, of course. If the sound of a close-miced kick is important to you, this is the way to go with two inputs. Recorderman is designed to keep the kick and snare both in phase in the two mics. It gives a good coherent kick sound, but it's not the same as a close miced kick. As you can see, there is plenty of experimenting and listening you can do with just two inputs. (Two mics as an XY pair in front of the set; XY pair above the set; Blumlein pair; M-S pair (both require figure 8 mics).)

Well, my problem is that I have the mic setup for a immaculate sound... my drums are mic'd as follows...

Kick- Shure Beta52
Snare - Sennheiser 421
Hi-hat- AKG 414
toms- a mix between the sennheiser 421's and sm57
overhead- Neumann km184's

But i can get a pretty good sound with the mixer thanks to having monitors coming out of the mixer itself.
And I can EQ all the mics and add reverb or whatever else i need to the individual tracks on the mixer, before it goes to the computer. So, i can adjust volumes, frequencies, and add reverb etc before it goes it's even recorded.

Does this sound practical?

Sure, that'll be great. I assumed that you were starting with less equipment/.experience. If you are getting a good mix already just record it to the hard drive. That's what they would have done back in the old days when they were working with four tracks. Heck they'd have put the drums on one track. You'll have two.

awesome, it makes me feel good that i'm actually being smart about it haha. But 4 years ago i would have been clueless about what to do haha, but i guess with more experience you get more logical ideas

I did a session a few yrs back for the percussionist of a large metropolitan ballet group based in NY City. In that session i used what I call a simple triangle plus(An Audix d6 on Bass drum/sm57 topside snare/ Rode NT5's in an xy configur on a dbl mic stand adapter(1 stand 2 mics) and two old crown pzm boundary mics 12 ft port side and starboard(right and left) of the drums(mounted on Clear sonic acrylic panels 5'x2'). Wow is all I can say! That was probably one of the best, if not the best recordings we've ever done! We were going for ambient huge sounding drums(TAYE Maple's)...they were doing a track with whale sounds and he (the percussionist) was doing the slide your finger across the tom trick to kinda make them sound like whales...along with a lot of mallet on drums stuff!
P.S. Nice mic collection man! With all that, you need advice from us, the working masses?