Choosing the correct microphone for the job is key to achieving excellent mix results. Nowhere is this more apparent than when you’re miking a drum kit for a live show. In this course excerpt from the Microphone Techniques for Live Sound Production course, you’ll learn the right way (and some of the wrong ways) to mic a drum kit.

We polled members of the Drum Department at Berklee on the drum grooves they love the most. Some of the usual suspects are there—Ringo and Bonzo—but some of their choices may surprise you. Drumroll, please! …

Learn creative solutions for practicing drums in an apartment without annoying your neighbors. Drum mute pads, brushes, blankets, and old fashioned courtesy all come into play.

Cindy Blackman became Lenny Kravitz’s drummer after a lifetime of jazz drumming. In this wide-ranging interview she discusses being visited by the spirits of the jazz greats she befriended during her time in New York City, and how she and husband Carlos Santana stay in harmony, onstage and off.

You know Butch Vig as the drummer and producer of Garbage, or the producer of mammoth 1990s recordings from Nirvana and Smashing Pumpkins. But there is a lot more to him than that. For one, he has been playing with most of the people he makes music with for nearly 40 years.

If you’ve heard any reggae music in your entire life then you’ve heard Sly Dunbar’s drumming, or at the very least, his influence. As one half of Sly and Robbie, Sly says he’s probably played on a million songs.

Joe Wong has been in and out of indie bands since the late 1990s, starting a touring life at the age of 17. He has played drums for the likes of Marnie Stearn, Parts and Labor, and Mary Timony. At the age of 40, it seems like he has finally arrived, with a solo debut and scoring gigs for popular Netflix shows.

You may know Andy Stack as one half of the duo Wye Oak, along with Jenn Wasner. But he’s also one whole of Joyero, whose debut came out on Merge in 2019. He talks about his solo project and the future for Wye Oak.

Eric Lewis, a 20-year veteran of the United States Navy, has faced the sort of difficulties through his life and career which might be unfathomable to a civilian. But music was there with him.