Do I have to have overheads?

EdWonbass

EdWonbass

pull the goalie
I have a pretty small untreated room that dosen't sound all that great. I have been experimenting with recording drums lately and have a budget type drum mic kit but no overheads. I have a Behr B1 LDC that I could use but I think I mostly prefer the tight sound of the close mic'ed drums.
I guess what I getting to is this. Is it a sin to not use overheads or to even just use one? Does anyone know of any examples where overheads aren't used?
 
I'm about to do the same thing, my OH's sound too unbalance b/c of the small room I'm in. Crashes distort, toms ok, so lowering the gain that much would just make it worthless. So the old trick of close-mic'ing to keep the room out is how I wanna go too. The trouble is in deciding on preamps and dynamics processing on more mics.

4 more mics and getting them to match up ok w/ different gear is a biggie. the same pre and same compressor would be nice, but that's a lot of gear right there. Going from 4 mics now, to 8 is expensive, it'll take me a while and that will be w/ out OH's.
 
EdWonbass said:
I have a pretty small untreated room that dosen't sound all that great. I have been experimenting with recording drums lately and have a budget type drum mic kit but no overheads. I have a Behr B1 LDC that I could use but I think I mostly prefer the tight sound of the close mic'ed drums.
I guess what I getting to is this. Is it a sin to not use overheads or to even just use one? Does anyone know of any examples where overheads aren't used?
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Not quite sure what you're expecting out of this question. You'll get close miced drums with little top end. Close mic style or not, why not set up some gobos around or even over the drums to keep out some of the room. Even with close mics that would clean things up. Then add in the B1 back near the drummer's head -move/adjust and mix in to taste.
It's a bit of work at first but I'd bet it will be worth it.:D
Wayne
 
junplugged said:
...OH's sound too unbalance b/c of the small room I'm in. Crashes distort, toms ok, so lowering the gain that much would just make it worthless.
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Question. Do you think the room is doing this? It reads like the mic is just too close to the cymbals Vs the rest of the kit.
Wayne
 
Overheads

I think the basic setup is a bass mic and two overheads.
Then comes close micing.
Overheads are mainly to pick up the crashes and ride/hihats.with a little toms.
Snare comes through no matter what...
 
I can't belive the room would make the kit sound that bad. A good room improves a sound massivly, but i'm recording in a crap room and im getting a good sound.

Can I hear some of the recordings your done in the bad room so far?
 
I'm not much of a drummer but I will try to record something tonight and post it so you can give a listen. I'm actually waiting for my drummer to bring me some cymbals. I have one crappy crash and a set of hats that came with the cheap drums. They sound pretty bad. I was all set to buy some decent hats when my computer fried so I had to replace my computer and the hi hats will wait awhile. When we record we will be using the drummers cymbals.
 
there are some dudes who don't really use much of oh's at all, esp in heavy music, according to slipperman (some of you should know him). i'd try a room mic instead of an OH, that can be cool. anything can be cool, really, if it's cool
 
EdWonbass said:
I'm not much of a drummer but I will try to record something tonight and post it so you can give a listen. I'm actually waiting for my drummer to bring me some cymbals. I have one crappy crash and a set of hats that came with the cheap drums. They sound pretty bad. I was all set to buy some decent hats when my computer fried so I had to replace my computer and the hi hats will wait awhile. When we record we will be using the drummers cymbals.
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It looks like your kit and cymbals are the problem, as you said you have a crappy set of cymbals that came with the cheap drums....
First of all you need a decent kit and decent cymbals....

TS
 
esp in heavy music, according to slipperman
Click to expand...

They use them they just tend to mix them in alot lower. This was more typical in the late 80s/Early 90s Heavy metal scene. I don't think it holds as true now days in metal.
 
TamaSabian said:
It looks like your kit and cymbals are the problem, as you said you have a crappy set of cymbals that came with the cheap drums....
First of all you need a decent kit and decent cymbals....

TS
Click to expand...

The kit itself doesn't sound too bad. It's got decent heads on it and I have been working at tuning it. Yeah the cymbal and hi hat suck when the money comes so will the cymbals. ;)
 
What's your budget.

For a room mic; spend a lot.
For a whole close mic set up...
Spend even more ;)
I have a 10 piece mic set up going on 11 to cover the ride.
Thank god for sm57's because I would be about $2000 into it instead of $1000 :D
 
You should be able to dial up a decent sound with 1 overhead condensor and a kick & snare mic. OK your toms won't have a lot of presence, but you can address that in the mix.

There's no way I could get an acceptable snare sound w/o an overhead. That's where the snare sounds good. Without an overhead you may as well just use triggers
 
Snare

Bulls Hit said:
You should be able to dial up a decent sound with 1 overhead condensor and a kick & snare mic. OK your toms won't have a lot of presence, but you can address that in the mix.

There's no way I could get an acceptable snare sound w/o an overhead. That's where the snare sounds good. Without an overhead you may as well just use triggers
Click to expand...

I like Close micing the snare.
You cant have too many mics :)
 
Bdrum said:
I like Close micing the snare.
You cant have too many mics :)
Click to expand...


As long as you have the channels for them. ;)

I have 4 channels to record to so I have been going with kick, snare, toms, and overhead. I have also tried going with kick and snare on channel 1 and 2 and putting a stereo tom mix on 3 and 4. This means that the overhead would be kinda premixed in with the toms and could be panned anywhere.
I think the first set up gives me the best results but is mono. Now that I think of it, I could get another LCD and make the overheads stereo on the same channel as the toms.
 
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