GREAT way to get fat drums, fast, with 3 mics...

no_monkeybiznus said:
uhh, that last pic sure does'nt look like it. Mics seem way far from each other.
Click to expand...

Umm, not really....

the mic behind the drummers right shoulder is as far away from the center of the kick as the mic directly over the snare is.....

the mic behind the drummers right shoulder is as far away from the center of the snare as the mic directly over the snare is....both are about 2 drum stick lengths from the center of the snare

I used the "string" method to measure the distances...and they are to the inch....

If you move the mics closer to each other, you could get them to be equidistant to the snare, but that would mess up the equal distances to the kick center.....
 
Last edited:
I know this thread is old, but since it's on topic,
How do you keep the kick mic in phase with the overheads? What's the consensus on distance from the batterside kickdrum mic hole and phase in terms of inches? thanks in advance! My AT3035 is producing some interesting initially pleasing results for a kick drum mic :)

-dejacky
 
im sure this may have been answered. but....since you take the sticks to the drummers shoulder...is the left oH gonna be higher than the right?
 
btr31 said:
im sure this may have been answered. but....since you take the sticks to the drummers shoulder...is the left oH gonna be higher than the right?
Click to expand...

Yep, the right OH is over drummers shoulder, but the left is two sticks above the snare, you better use a measure tape to be almost perfect.
 
well, isn't the one over the drummers shoulder gonna be two stick lengths above his shoulder?? so, the measuring tape would be kinda pointless.
 


That's a quick little one from a few months ago. I used Oktava MK012s as the overheads and a CAD M37 as the FOK. The FOK could have come up a lot in the mix. There is some compression on the over heads and a little on the 2 bus.
 
Keep on keepin on...........

Man I remember this thread from eons ago, that last clip sounded about what I got when I first tried this style, and I still use it since I first posted about it. Although I have my own little tweeks now, but all in all not a bad shot.
 
I've read alot about this technique and I think I finally have a mental picture of how it should look but I still have a few questions. Where should the capsule of the right side mic be pointing? Is it also aimed at the snare? How well does it represent the right side of the kit (ride, china, etc...).
When trying to center the kick in the stereo image your monitoring with the mics already split hard left and right? Is this correct.
I always close mic everything and I don't intend on using just 3 mics. How well does this technique represent the cymbals? Basically I could get away with using the overheads for nothing but cymbals but I would like to have a fast setup method like this.
 
i use oktava mk012's as overheads and this 3 mic drum technique works great!

both mics are pointed towards center of the snare. Cymbals for me came out excellent, really had a nice space in the mix.
 
Wireneck said:
Where should the capsule of the right side mic be pointing? Is it also aimed at the snare? How well does it represent the right side of the kit (ride, china, etc...).
Click to expand...
Yes, Generally point the shoulder mic at the snare (same location as the snare overhead mic). It does not have to be... experiment. The basic idea is to place the snare and kick in the center of the kit image.

When trying to center the kick in the stereo image your monitoring with the mics already split hard left and right? Is this correct.
Click to expand...
Yes. The Overheads (snare and Shoulder mics) are panned hard left and right

I always close mic everything and I don't intend on using just 3 mics. How well does this technique represent the cymbals? Basically I could get away with using the overheads for nothing but cymbals but I would like to have a fast setup method like this.
Click to expand...
This technique does a great job at balancing the cymbals against the drums. Also, increasing the mics distance pulls in a lot more room.
 
Last edited:
decent results can be had

I've gotten very acceptable results using only 2 mics..... a very cheap condensor mic overhead (Realistic brand, innards made by Crown, garage recording supersecret....shhhhhh) and an SM57 for the kick. It really helps if you've got a drummer that knows how to "mix" himself and tunes his drums well....he better....or I'll will!

This is BY ALL MEANS bare bones to the max, but it CAN be pulled off.

Scott
 
http://www.purevolume.com/civella

The "Rough Demo" are the scratch guitar and vocal tracks and a hasty mix. I'm getting closer to getting this one done but gives a good in the mix reference of the sound. The third one is what the band previously recorded that I had no hand in.

This was done in SONAR. I've got BLOCKFISH and the Cakewalk EQ on the kick. The overheads and kick are sent to a drum bus where I added the sonitus Compressor and started with the dbx preset and tweaked from there.
 
Great thread. Thanks much to everyone for the great info. I finally got a chance to try this out and it seems to work great. I wound up extending the distance out to between 2 1\2 to 3 drumsticks since the drummer I am recording is pretty wild and would have hit the right hand mic with them in close. I added a snare mic.

In the attached pic, the snare mic is actually about 6" back from the rim of the snare, it just looks close from that angle. The mix on the mp3 clip is VERY rough, pretty much just threw the faders up and dumped over to the DAW. No effects,compression or eq on any tracks, but I did hit the whole thing with a touch of limiting to keep stray transients from doing nasty things.

 

Attachments

  • drum_setup.JPG
    drum_setup.JPG
    40.6 KB · Views: 883
Oops, I forgot to post the mics and chain. It was pretty late when I posted last night.

The overheads are Alesis/GT am-52's, pattern=cardoid, bass cut=in, pad= -10db.

Snare mic is an md-421 Sennheiser, bass rolloff one click back from "m" position.

Kick mic AKG D112, about 6" from beater.

Mic preamps are just the preamps in my yamaha RM800 24x8 console. Not boutique by any means, but solid and very useable.

Thanks again for all the great info!
 
Great stuff

I've been doing my drums this way for a while, but it was out of poverty! *LOL* I use a ATM25 on the kick and 2 AT Pro37a's as overheads. The mics are mounted to the rack on booms for the overheads and I've used the top tube of a spare stand to "hang" the 25 down to the kick. With a little work on the overheads first I can get a good sound, maybe not the best but everything comes thru pretty well, and then I bring up the kick to fill out the bottom end. I've even done the thing I had read about how Zep placed a single mic out in the room and about head high to catch a big room sound. I don't know if they really did this but it did sound really big with some placement time.
I would like to have better overheads but the 37a's work pretty well and are small enough that I don't have to worry about "Animal" drummers hitting them too many times! *LOL*
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top