First of all I want to say thanks to everyone for the feedback. Now, with regards to the micing technique I am curious about the spaced pair. If I were to mic the overheads from above the drummers head, would I just use a stereo bar same as xy but just have the capsules opened up from one another? Also, when I have done a spaced pair (one on the left side and right side of the kit) I used a tape measure and measured from the center of the snare 3 feet. Am I supposed to measure from the cymbals when I do this? I just feel like i'm doing the spaced pair all wrong because I do run into a lot of phase problems.

Off of the overheads for a sec, I am close micing the snare (top bottom) both monotoms and the floor tom. What I was thinking about doing was subgrouping the top snare as well as the tom mics into a single channel on my compressor. The only thing that i'm not sure about is if the snare would receive the same settings on a compressor as the toms. Let me know what you guys think. Thanks again

Your thinking in measuring 3 feet either side of the snare is solid. The idea essentially is to keep the snare close mic in phase as it should be reaching both overheads at the same time. bring up both overheads (keep them the same level)then bring up the close mic and try swithing the phase on it. It should be fairly obvious which is in and which is out.

Bear in mind it doesn't have to be 3 feet especially. Think about the size of the kit you're recording and how wide you want it to sound. Too far apart and you can get a hole in the centre thing (though this can be a handy space for vocals to sit).

Finally, if you run all those mics through the same compressor they will absolutely affect each other. You may like the sound though I'd suspect it would create some weirdness with the uncompressed overheads. I'd lean towards doing the whole kit but I'm not sure what you'd be trying to achieve specifically. And, for the record, I'm a firm fan of the slow attack to let the transient through compression, at least for fairly full on stuff.

morze wrote: the THHHWAACKKKK!!!!
that i'm usually looking for.

in mean, the drums/drummer thing is a no-brainer- which is why i mentioned just hitting something louder etc. i just figured that compression was what was in question- so i just offered a tip on what usually makes me smile compression-wise.

but again, what works for me- may be total hell for someone else.

The THWACK factor has alot to do w/ tuning, head selection, damping, and the less considered element: sticks. The sticks I use have very little "shoulder" and a large round nylon tip. Very little over-all taper, like a dowel with a marble on the end of it.

Very "THWACKY" and not so "BOINGY".

Make sense?