Drum OH's - Untreated Room

CMolena

CMolena

Active member
Hey guys.

I've recently recorded drums in my laundry (only place I've got to record drums) and ran into some problems with the Overheads. I've used the Glyn Johns technique to record them and one thing I've noticed is that the Hi Hat is horribly loud and that kinda get in the way when I compress 'em to get some more toms going on.

Is there any way to avoid that?

Thanks guys!

:guitar::guitar::guitar:
 
Actually, I've tried some of them. The only way to minimize the Hi Hat problem is to place the mics closer to the toms, but then whenever I hit the toms the meters go crazy...due to the proximity effect, I suppose.
 
How do you even get mics close to the hi-hats use the Glyn? One mic should be directly over the snare, the other mic should be on the other side, close to the floor tom.

The only thing I can think of is...could it be that the hi-hats are very close to a wall, which would make them reflect off that wall? I don't know, but if so, try turning the kit around or at least changing the orientation of the drum set.
 
I meant closing the mics on the toms, not on the hi hat.

But yeah, they are close to a wall...
 
this is what you pay for, more often than not,
when you pay for expensive studio time....

the killer rooms.


makes you appreciate all the pro recordings that really make use of the actual space more.


your best bet,
is to give up on recording in crappy rooms...
and search for a place, and a way, to setup a mobile recording unit, to capture just drums.
 
An alternative overhead technique that might work out better is to put a PZM on the ceiling over the kit. One of the reasons overheads sound bad in small untreated rooms is the close reflection off the ceiling. By placing a PZM mic directly on the ceiling you avoid picking up that reflection. There are still other reflections in the untreated room but fixing the closest one should help.
 
bouldersoundguy said:
An alternative overhead technique that might work out better is to put a PZM on the ceiling over the kit. One of the reasons overheads sound bad in small untreated rooms is the close reflection off the ceiling. By placing a PZM mic directly on the ceiling you avoid picking up that reflection. There are still other reflections in the untreated room but fixing the closest one should help.
Click to expand...
Doesn't even have to be a PZM. Any mic, close enough to a hard reflective boundary, pretty much turns into a PZM, and it's pretty common advice for low-ceiling rooms where comb-filtering is an issue is to try moving the OHs right up to the ceiling. It basically pushes the lowest affected frequency up out of the audio band.
 
Have you treated the room at all yet, Cmolena? Hang up some blankets and such, put down a rug, diffuse some walls with anything you have lying around, etc.
 
RAMI said:
What the hell do you think we're talking about? Pretty much every post in this thread is about helping him "fix it at the source".
Click to expand...

Lol. It doesn't hurt to keep repeating it though. Maybe one day it might sink in with someone. Maybe.
 
Probably not. :D

No, I agree, but throwing out a safe cliche after 2 pages of people doing exactly that is kind of funny.
 
Hi dood, i came across a similar problem, what i've done to separate the snare and hats (hats in my case yeah) was to use an aux and boost the lows this gave me a lower snare and kick but it was workable, using this you could also side-chain some hihats out or some toms in with EQ or whatever i've done that too on the song i had problems with. Hope this helps
 
I recorded my drums in my basement and I dont think I got THAT bad of a sound! All I did was I used a pencil condensor over my hi-hat side that captures my hats, 16 inch crash, and 16 inch china. I then used a large diaphram condensor attatched to my drum rack and placed it between my ride and 18 inch crash. I was less worried about the rest of the kit (because this was a demo recording) and I had a sm57 on my snare and my kick was triggered (I did this because I broke my drum head and had a mesh one hanging around). https://www.reverbnation.com/thegreatnorth since this recording I did add 2 sm57's to the rack tom and floor tom as well.
 
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