Micing and Recording a Cajon or Acoustic Percussion Drum Box Tips

This post illustrates a method on how you can record a cajon or acoustic drum box. To further illustrate the complexity; consider an acoustic live band scenario where the cajon is recorded together with other musical instruments such as a bass guitar.

The recording can be challenging if the aim is to capture the natural punch and sound of the drum box to your DAW.

Gears/Equipments Used in this Setup

In this setup the following gears and equipments are used:

1.) Focusrite Saffire Pro40 audio interface
2.) Rode NT1A condenser microphone for micing the Laney amplifier
3.) Laney AH200 amplifier
4.) SM58 dynamic microphone for micing the cajon drum box.
5.) Reaper DAW in Windows XP PC
6.) M-audio BX5a reference monitor
7.) Two musical instruments- one bass guitar and one cajon acoustic drum box

The signal flow of the recording is as follows:

One important technique here for sound quality is to use a power amplifier which will handle all incoming music instrument level signals. These signals are then feed to the Saffire Pro40 audio interface via the condenser microphone. For example in the above screenshot; the power amplifier used is Laney AH200. This amplifier can also handle all types of signals whether coming from a bass guitar, acoustic/electric guitar, keyboards, drum box, vocals, etc. The good thing is that most live venues do include a power amplifier cabinet.

Also one big advantage is that you can apply individual EQ and effects for each music instrument with Laney AH200. In this setup, you won’t need a hardware mixer in your home for the live recording. On the other hand; Laney AH200 can accept up to six individual music instruments in the line input.

Micing the Cajon

SM58 dynamic microphone is used to capture the natural sound of the cajon acoustic drum box. Some drum box does include a line out circuitry which will be feed to an amplifier or something. But I do not recommend using this for recording because it cannot capture the natural sound of the cajon drum box.

The recommended approach is to put the microphone (SM 58 in this example) directly at the hole of the cajon drum box such as shown below:

Do not place the microphone inside the hole because it cannot capture the ambiance and natural reverberations of the room. In addition, placing it very far from the hole can decrease the punch of the bass drum sound.

The Gig Setup for Recording Cajon and Other instruments

The SM 58 output of the acoustic drum box is then feed to the Laney power amplifier. Other musical instruments can also be connected to the Laney amplifier. Then you will tweak its settings first to get the best sound for recording. Important settings are the EQ and effects.

Once you get a great sound; its time to put a microphone to the Laney power amplifier. This time, I am using a Rode NT1A condenser microphone to capture both the low end and the high frequency range of the recording very well.

Micing a power amplifier can be tricky. Laney AH200 is around 165 watts (can be very loud!) so you won’t be putting the condenser microphone directly on the cone of the amplifier. Instead, to get the best sound you will put the microphone somewhere farther up, like shown below:

This will also capture the tight ambiance if you are recording in a small room. I then connect the Rode NT1A to Saffire Pro40 audio interface. I switch on the 1-4 +48 volt phantom power switch and switch on the “Inst” button to amplify the instrument level microphone signals.

Finally I opened up Reaper digital audio workstation and watch the levels to make sure it won’t clip. I do the adjustment on the gain of the Saffire Pro40 pre-amp inputs. I then hit the record button after finalizing the settings.

This is what it sounds like with the recorded cajon drum box and a bass guitar together (no digital effects applied, no EQ and normalization applied on the DAW):

Content last updated on August 6, 2012