Find a big , somewhat lively room and set up your drums and room mics . Spend plenty of time getting the drums tuned and damped just right . Try different cymbals you my need to find thin , dark , or quieter cymbals if the drummer isn ' t good at balancing their cymbal to drum volume . If you don ' t have many quiet cymbal options , try damping them with moon gels . Move your room mics until you find a position where the cymbals , drums and room ambience are well balanced if you don ' t have a separate control room , check this by making test recordings , just listening through headphones in real time can be misleading because of outside leakage . Then place your close mics . When you mix , use the room mics for about 50 % of your drum sound and use the close mics to add punch . This technique only sounds good if the drummer plays very consistently because you will not have as much control over the balance of the various elements of the kit during mixing .