Does anyone have any experience recording live instruments? I have been recording guitars just straight line in from amps and effects and am happy with the quality, now I want to know what equipment I need to achieve fairly high fidelity drum recording, better than with just a vocal microphone. I am thinking a couple of drum mics and a mixer of some kind, but I wouldn't know where to start. Would I need or want a special sound card or anything like that? Thanks in advance.

I just found this old post, but probably need a more basic explanation of why I would need some of these things. I have used Garageband for a long time and so I am happy at the software level. I tried Logic Express a while ago but found that I didn't need anything more than just mixing and some basic effects, which Garageband seems to do very well.

You do need a special soundcard, an external FireWire one is best. Look at brands like MOTU, Presonus, MAudio and Mackie. Why do you need these? They have XLR inputs that professional mics need.

For microphones, look at Rode, Shure and AudioTechnica. You can get special drum kit packs of mics that are packaged together to record drums (you probably need about 3 or 4, maybe even 5 mics, depends on your placement technique). Why do you need these mics? Because they're properly designed for studio/high end recording.

The hardware is the easy bit, mic placement, room ambience and post-editing are the tricky bits.

Post if you need more info

What are you going line-in to at the moment? Straight to your Mac's line-in port?

If so, I'd probably start with a decent sound card/audio interface first, and built up from that. You can also get ones that have a basic mixer built into them, such as the Lexicon Omega, which is kind of an all-in-one recording station (old-ish now, but I have one and it works well, and is pretty cheap these days). The type that you choose mostly depends on the number of inputs and outputs you need, and what kind. So, if you're recording a number of instruments at once, you'll want a few 1/4" or XLR inputs, and however many outputs depending on what you're planning to feed it to.

You'll probably find that just using line level straight from your amps and effects boxes will sound better with a decent soundcard simply because of the way it converts the audio.

Next step, as decryption said, is to grab some mics. What type depends on what you're recording, but you can't go wrong with a couple of Shure SM57 dynamic mics if you want something versatile to start you off.

the MOTU ultralite is good value

I like the M-Audio's-eg. Mbox series. Varies in price-but some $300-$500 ones you may get a version of protools.

Pro recording engineers will usually mic up a kit in something like this manner (remembering, many years back I used to work selling this stuff to recording studios, tv and film producers and the like... so my recommendations are based on what I sold, and should not be viewed as the ONLY answer):

A pair of mics on overhead stands about .5-1.0 metres above the tallest cymbals, one for left, one for right used to gather cymbals sounds and feel.
(something like this or this are what I used to recommend)

A specific low-frequency, high spl kick drum mic on front skin side of the kick drum. (like this)

A few specific close mics for the various toms. Pencil condensers work pretty well, but so do gooseneck miniature condensers. this or this

You'll also want to mic the snare and hi-hat. Some engineers will mic both the top skin and bottom skin of the snare with pencil condensers. Very very few will both to do more than place a single mic over the top, rear of the hi-hat. The 4041's I've linked above work really well in these applications.

If you're getting mad then another low-frequency tailored mic works well on the under side skin of the floor tom.

Now that I've scared the hell out of you... the other answer is a couple of overheads, a kick drum mic and a mic over the snare or snare and hi-hat. That's the minimum. The stuff I've mentioned above is how touring bands will record their drum kits, and how many recording studios set themselves up for a drum take.

Drums aren't fun or easy to record. uncyherb's advice fits my experiences as well.

Another option is BFD: FXpansion - BFD 2 - Now Available!

Not going to get better drum sounds than that for live drums unless you have some serious kit and really know what you're doing.

Need to know what you are currently doing more specifically to know where to go from there.

There are so many variables in this equation.

Drop me a PM areal.. I'll help as best I can.

I'd be interested to see what areal goes with.
*closet audio gear nut*

you will need something with at least 8 inputs.
you will need a kick arse compressor
you will need a amazing room to record in. A Major part of great drum recording.
You need 2 very high grade condenser or ribben mics for drum overheads.
You will need a kick drum mic such as a akg d112
Snare sm57 is the universal standard you might want to mic above and below the snare .
Watch for phase cancellation when recording drums, when placing mics use your ears for the sweet spot.
Recording drums is a whole chapter in a book so wont go on but hope that gives some hints.

Recording is an Art, so you will not master it right away. But the good thing is that the Tools that you can get today are amazing. (Pro Tools, Logic, Cubase etc to name a few) You can get a good Multichannel Mic pre and an multiple input interface reasonably cheaply nowadays and the software generally come with it. But like all Pro Things there is an exponential rule at work here. The quality goes up exponentially as you make little improvements technically. But when you have a large room, great mics, High sample rates, lots of Plug-in FX, great Studio monitors, headphones etc etc etc. It becomes much more than a hobby.
Sometimes it is worth going to a studio and lay the drums down in a pro environment then take the session home to edit and tweak. This is often the best way to get a great recording, plus the engineers often know how to get the best performance from the musicians as well.
my 2c
Simon L.

FWIW, this is pretty normal for rock music but not for everything. It is worth remembering that people used to make extremely high quality recordings of full bands with one or two mics in total. A pair of mics above & toward the front of a drum kit with maybe a kick drum mic as well, is more than enough to start with. More mics add complexity and difficulty, particularly with regard to phase problems. A few good mics in a good room recording good sounding equipment is where I would be starting.

Rule 1:
Have a great sound source (the band)

Rule 2:
Have at least decent gear that you are familiar and comfortable with

Recording audio, live or otherwise is a matter of the quality of the entire chain. Having a great mixer and $50 mics is going to make the recoding sound like an average at best recoding. OTOH, $2500 mics into a behringer mixer is going to sound like an average at best recoding. The best way to do it would be to look at what you need to record (number of channels, types of intput (bass drum, snare, electric guitar DI, amp etc) and then hire some really good stuff. The guys at the hire place will help you (and try to upsell you).

The purchase price of that gear will make the hire price, for even a week, look like a bargain.

The only thing i would recommend purchasing, depending on budget, is an interface (if you're using a laptop check out the MOTU traveller - awesome box and it's FW powered too!) and a control surface. If you need to use Protools, you can get the Digi 003 (not the rack version) and get a good interface and a surface in one hit. Also, protools has a very small learning curve compared to say, logic or even DP.

Hey areal,

There's a few different ways of doing this as you can see! It all comes down to how many instruments you need to record simultaneously.

Put simply there are two ways of doing this, (heavily simplified for time sake)

1) running all instruments through a hardware mixer ( e.g. Yamaha 8 channel mixer) and recoding a final mix into a single input. An external sound card/interface will give you a higher sample rate (i.e. quality) this way each instrument runs through a separate channel and can be adjusted in a final mix. This technique is great for live gig recordings and does require other external effects such as a compressor/limiter.

2) Record each instrument individually through a single input into logic or garageband, again an external sound card will give you a high quality recording. Once you record each instrument individually they can be arranged in logic or even garageband. This method is how recoding studios work. Each element of a song (drums, bass, vocal ...) is separated into it's own channel and the software mixer is essentially the same as the hardware mixer with endless channels and virtual effects.

to complicate this even more you would split your drum kit to separate channels as well (i.e. kick, snare, hats, crash, toms .....)

With both methods especially the second one, you will get a better quality recording than what you currently have, however, that real professional sound comes from experience, practice and patience and of course good quality equipment/hardware/software but with logic your half way there.

Hope this kinda helps!