Nope. Now I'm sure there are some people who have some sort of "magic formula", but I have found that at least for my work, every drummer, every kit and every room has different requirements.

I will often retune the kit between songs to try to find a drum tuning I feel better fits the musical arrangement. I try to mic the kit so it A) works as well in one speaker mono as it does in two speaker stereo [in other words I am very conscious of phase issues]; and B) try as hard as I can to record the drums without the use of equalizers.

Depending on genre, the latter goal is not always the easiest thing in the world to achieve. Like when working on heavier rock stuff I will invariably add some bottom and a bit of "tick" to the kick drum, and maybe a bit of "bap" to the snare drum, but the frequencies of those additions are specific to each recording.

Ranges on the bottom to the kick drum can run anywhere between 40 and 120Hz depending on the tuning of the drum and whether the bottom of the kick wants to settle above or below the bottom of the bass in the song's sonic arrangement. "Tick" on the kick can range anywhere from 1kHz to 12kHz again, dependent upon the rest of the sonic arrangement of the song. A 1kHz-ish narrow bandwidth boost will be for a more 'aggressive' kind of kick texture, a 12kHz-ish shelf thing might be more about bringing out the texture of a loosely tuned head on the beater side of the kick drum. Again, if varies so much from song to song it's impossible to give more than guideline.

My only advice would be to focus on the tuning of the actual drums more than the hardware of the studio. Using studio hardware to correct flaws or inadequacies of the source tone is rarely ever a truly viable option.

Best of luck with all you do.

Yep, Fletcher just about covered it all.

Perfectly tuned drums need little if any Eq.

Also, the sound of your room will be a big variable as to whether you will be able to obtain a good sound or not. No matter how much you try to Eq the drum set.

It also helps to have a great drummer.

Cheers.
Chris

Best drum tones I ever got were with a C24 on the overheads, a C12a on snare / hat and a D112 on the kick .... no eq! But the kit was great and the drummer knew how to play. So much of a great drum sound depends on the talent aspect!

I agree with everything Fletcher, Little Dog and Kurt have said so far. My kit hasn't been moved in 6 years, I leave the dynamic mics in place (the condensors get put away but the booms stay), the room hasn't changed in 6 years either and after 35 + years of playing drums I haven't changed my playing much in the last 6 years. But every song I record requires some tweaking of the Mics, EQ maybe compression, reverb. So as you can see the room, drums, mics and talent haven't changed but the sound must in order to fit in properly with the song. And as the others have said little or no EQ is best. Actually IMO any processing of drums should be kept to a minimum. Spend your time on micing and let the drums speak.

Svebbi,

What kind of sound on the drums are you looking for? You looking for a particular sound that you like off a CD/record?

I always found that if I had a "reference" drum sound in mind it made EFX choices easier.

I agree that drum processing should be to a minimum and the best sound (in your ears) should be found first from the kit and mics alone. Use processing as a last step (or resort) to get the tone you are looking for.

But, post some "ideal" recording sounds and maybe we can list treatments from there.

Chris
http://www.betamonkeymusic.com