"I mic each piece of the kit separately, which I guess is no surprise, however, to me, the most important aspect of the drum recording is actually the tuning, not the miking. Not to say that miking isn't important, but just that tuning is more important, to me.

I like to tune the drums to their lowest useable pitch, without distortion, to maximize their natural resonance. I'll tune the top and bottom skin of the toms to the same pitch. I'll also make sure that the toms are tuned in harmony with one another. I also feel it's important to use the same skin type on the top and bottom head of the toms, and for me, I'll usually use clear ambassadors.

The snare drum, is the most important drum on the kit, and more so than any other piece of the kit, has the ability to place the drum sound in a particular genre, so I'll spend more time getting that right. I like to use a coated ambassador on the top. I'll tune the snare drum to the tonal centre of the song, and adjust the damping according to taste.

The kick drum is a little more tricky, 'cause most drummers have gotten used to a certain tension on the batter head that they use to "play off of", so I like to tune it as loose as the drummer will allow, again without it distorting or flapping. I like to use quite a lot of damping inside the drum, to create a dry, "thud", that I find most manageable.

I don't do anything out of the ordinary when it comes to miking. Pretty much standard practice. 57 on the top of the snare, 112 on the kick, large diaphragm condensers for room mics and overheads. I like to use AKG C418's on toms. These sound really articulate and full on toms, compared to dynamic mics, which I find too constricted sounding by comparison. I'll use pencil condensers on the hats, ride and bottom snare. I like to make sure that I'm positioning the overhead mics in such a way as to give me an accurate stereo image of the kit, that will translate well in the final mix." (Brent Quinton)