Thanks! There's nothing weird going on. Beta52(I think) on kick, 57s on snare top and bottom, 421s on toms, KM184s on overheads, hihat and ride and a pair of DPAs as room mics(probably muted in that bounce). But we had a good kit(Tama Starclassic with fresh heads), a great room, the drummer was well prepared and we had time to tune the drums. I bought a tunebot a couple of months ago, and it helped A LOT! He was using heavy sticks, and with the fresh heads the snare's fundamental tone would drop 20 Hz in no time.
There is no golden way to capture good real drums. It depends a lot on what kind of music it is and which sound you are going for. If you don't want to replace the drums you need a good room, a good kit, a great drummer and proper tuning.
If you're in a great room and you want the drumkit to sound like a drumkit it's a good idea to get the kick and snare in the centre of the stereo image of the overheads. That way you'll be able to turn up the overheads and keep the low end of the overheads intact. It's very important for softer stuff! If you're in a crap room with a crap drummer and will end up replacing most of the shells and high pass the OHs really high you don't really have to think so much about the kick and snare in the overheads since samples will probably dominate. Then the important thing is to capture a good balance of the cymbals. You have to do that either way, but if you ignore the position of the kick and snare it's often easier to get the mics closer to the cymbals and get a balance between them. Somebody already mentioned putting some sort of cloth on the kick drum to get it out of the overheads - good idea if you know you're going to be replacing the kick.
Most metal drummers use LOADS of cymbals which can rarely be captured fully with only a stereo pair of overheads. Chinas are LOUD, and most drummers have their china right above their ride. So if you want to be able to balance the china and the ride without excessive automation you will need to close mic the ride. I also always put mics on the hihat and splashes(especially if they are small and not very loud). Otherwise, come mix time, the drummers will complain that the china is much louder than the splash in their china+splash fills. I wonder why
Be careful with how hard the drummer hits the shells compared to the cymbals. If the snare is a lot louder than the cymbals you will have lots of snare in your overheads - this can be a good thing or a bad thing depending on the direction of the production. I usually don't bitch too much to the drummers, I let them do their thing and adjust the mics accordingly. For modern, technical metal I usually prefer not to have that much snare in the OHs since our main room is pretty ambient. But for softer stuff it's absolutely invaluable, especially when the room sounds great.
Be careful with tom hits which have cymbals going on at the same time. If the drummer is playing the ride and floor tom at the same time(or in the same fill) and you are compressing the floor tom the ride will become very overbearing(same for rack toms and splashes or crashes). Take samples, worst case scenario is that you can just replace the annoying drum hit.
Just use your ears and try to identify problems as early as possible. It's easy to move a mic(or even a cymbal if the drummer is cool) while tracking, and it can save you a lot of time during the mix. There are so many variables when tracking drums. But if the drummer is good, the room is good and the kit is tuned properly you will really enjoy it
There are few things which I enjoy more than tracking a really good drummer.
