drum overheads....shure sm81s

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Executivos

New member
I don't record drums at my studio, I go to a friends studio for that...He uses shure sm81s for overheads. I've understood them to be pretty decent mics.

They don't however sound so great in this instance.

His room is coated in foam and very dry. Average drum sounds at best. My biggest complaint is with the cymbals. It seems like when the crashes are hit the decay doesn't last long AT ALL. These are nice zildjian a custom crashes (something like that)

is it the mics, or the room, or both?

we did some ghetto recordings in our rehearsal studio with my ecm 8000s and the cymbals sounded PERFECT....very nice decay, and these are CHEAP paiste cymbals...our room has an auralex pack up...not too dead...just right.

so once again is it the room or the mics? I'd like to take them over there, but wanted to find out here first....I'm kinda afraid if I suggest my my $35 each mics instead of his sm81s i might either offend him or look like an idiot if they sound like crap. :)

also im looking for ideas on mixing overheads....leave them dry, maybe some eq, verb, compression, severe compression etc. I know it's a subjective thing, but I'm curious what everyone else does.
 
I'm guessing it's the room. Plenty of folks have used SM81's for overheads with no particular problems.

But that being said, it couldn't hurt to try your mics. Any engineer I know usually jumps at the chance to audition new/different equipment. (Especially if someone else is paying for the time!) And every engineer loves to find out about useful tools that cost next to nothing ($35). If he is "insulted", this guy obviously has more problems than just a crappy drum room!

But I'm betting on the room. See if there's a way you can introduce some reflective surfaces into the room - leaning sheets of plywood against the walls might be all it takes. Alternately, if the volume doesn't get TOO loud, you can try moving the overheads closer to the cymbals.
 
right on..thanks for the reply....btw, he puts his ohs pretty close to the cymbals. i was thinking of moving them away?
 
Executivos said:
I'd like to take them over there, but wanted to find out here first....I'm kinda afraid if I suggest my my $35 each mics instead of his sm81s i might either offend him or look like an idiot if they sound like crap. :)
Click to expand...
I have many different pairs of mics I can use for overheads. Among them is a pair of SM-81s, the new T.H.E. KP-6Ms, the Oktava MC012s, the Sony ECM23s, the Audix TR-40s, the Marshall MXL 603Ss, the EV C15Ps, the Behringer ECM8000s, some Beyer M201s, and a pair of Akai 1/2" condenser tube mics. Sometimes the ECM8000s sound better than the other pairs I have; sometimes they don't. I didn't just recommend them because they were cheap - I recommended them because I thought they were good.
 
My bet is on the room, too, especially since you're talking about decay (or the lack thereof). Some people mistake soundproofing for sound treating a room. A room should have a pleasant amount of reverb to it and not totally dead. I would suggest, if possible, to remove some of the foam on the walls near the drum.
 
well yeah...thats how we did our rehearsal room....in moderation. He didn't really get it. It was first bare and terrible now coated and pretty bad. We're going to try recording in the rehearsal studio again pretty soon. For the setup we used last time (2 ecm800s and sm58's on kick and snare) sub mixed on an old yamaha mixer and straight into the computer (2 channel stereo) it sounded excellent.
 
If you don't want too much attack and want your cymbals to sound washy, back the overheads off and slightly off-axis. I prefer them behind the drummer and crossing each other, but you have to experiment a bit so that you don't have phase problems. My overhead mics of choice are Earthworks SR77's. Just incredible small condenser mics.
 
About 99.9% of anything I've ever liked or disliked about a drum tracking had mostly to do with the sound of the kit and/or the drummer himself.

The room definitely plays a role, as do the mics, but I'm always surprized at how small that role really is in comparison to the player and the kit.

As far as the mics go, well, the ecm8000 is an omni-directional mic. Omnis will pick up a lot more of the room than a cardiod like the sm81. The reason you are probably hearing more sustain is because the sound of the crash is reflecting off the walls, and omnis will pick that up a lot better, whereas a cardiod like the sm81 will pick up more of what it is directly pointed at and less of the room. So the answer is probably both the mic and the room .

This doesn't mean that the mic is better or the room is better. It may just be that the type of room you have is giving you the sound you want (sustain on the cymbals, reflective surfaces, etc.), and the type of mic (omni-directional) happens to accentuate that sound.
 
thank you everyone!!!!

Took the ecm 8000s over there and tried them out. WHAT A DIFFERENCE. I don't even consider his drum room bad anymore. I think it helped the drum sound more than the cymbal sound...the snare is huge and creamy. :)

Remember how i was worried i might offend him?

I accidently left the ecm8000s there. He ended up using them on his next session and he's into them now too.

Omnidirectional overheads are god.
 
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