The Famous Glyn Johns Drum Miking Technique

There's just about a 100% chance that on any rhythm section recording that you walk into these days, you'll see at least a mic on every drum plus a couple of overheads.

It wasn't always this way though, as most drum recording was done with only a very few microphones back in the heyday of the music industry - from the 50s through the mid-70s.

The drum sound from back then could be huge, but engineer/producer Glyn Johns got a particularly great sound with just 3 mics on those early hits of Led Zeppelin, The Who and many others.

Many have tried to duplicate his technique since, but few come close to capturing the sound.

Here's a real treat, as Glyn himself describes the perfectly simple setup in this very home-made video. Of course, you can also see the technique described detail in my Recording Engineer's Handbook 3rd edition.

By the way, don't miss him give the real key to sound about half-way through, which is to run the mic preamps 10dB hotter than you normally would and back down the fader!

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