Originally published in Modern Drummer magazine 255 · February 2001
Ask A Pro: Mike Portnoy On Microphone Placement
ArticleMike Portnoy2 min read
Q: I saw both of your Dallas, Texas shows with Dream Theater, and I thoroughly enjoyed them. I noticed that you mike your snare from underneath. Why do you do this? Does it offer any specific advantages or disadvantages versus placing a mic' above your snare? Thanks for the great music Dream Theater produces.
Andy Ban
Arlington, TX
A: To be honest with you, Andy, when it comes to mic' placement – live and in the studio – I leave all such questions to the sound technicians and engineers. After all, we pay them a lot of money in order to benefit from their experience and expertise. (I'm really buttering them up here!) So with that in mind, I turned your question over to Dream Theater's live sound engineer, Jerry Carillo. Here's Jerry's "expert" response:
"My preference is actually to mike the snare from the top and the bottom. Why both? When a snare drum is hit, there are really three different sounds produced, although they occur so fast our ears only hear them as one sound: 1) The sound of the stick striking the head, 2) the drum and head resonating, and 3) the snares and bottom head vibrating. By using two mic's we can capture a more realistic sound to present over the sound system.
"However, there are some situations where you wouldn't want to mike a snare from below. One might be a jazz gig, where the overall sound of the kit is more important than any one drum. Or the drum might be a shallow piccolo snare, on which a better sound could be achieved by using one mic'. Also, when you use two (or more) mic's on any one source, you have to deal with placement and phase, too."
Jerry is great at what he does, and the information above should give you a great snare-drum sound in a "best-case scenario." But Jerry also secretly sent me the real answer to your specific question, as follows: "Mike's drumset is so big that I can't fit a mic' on the top of the snare. Besides, he spits water all over his drums, and wet mic's tend to sound like garbage. So I put the snare mic' on the bottom."
Aha – the truth as only Modern Drummer can reveal! Thanks for listening, watching, and writing!