When miking with two microphones, it’s important to pay attention to balance. You want to ensure that both microphones are not picking up a lot of one drum and not enough of another. Use the second mic to your advantage and move it around in relation to the first to create an overall well-balanced sound.

Stereo X-Y
In our example, we will use two condenser microphones set on cardioid. Place your mics 3 feet above the cymbals and stands on either side of the kit. If you are looking from the audience’s perspective, imagine a line connecting the kick drum and the snare, you want to position your X-Y setup above this line. Then position the microphones to be at a 90-degree angle from one another. Make sure that the horizontal and vertical positions are the same for both mics; they should be nearly touching each other.

For the next setup, we are going to place a condenser microphone overhead and position it at the height of the drummer’s head and look down at the snare. Next, we will use a dynamic or kick drum mic and place it inside the kick drum or just outside. Again, move the microphones if you want to adjust how much of each drum you are hearing.