Fig 8 Drum Room Mic

easyrider

easyrider

New member
Fig 8 Drum Room Mic
Looking at a 24/7 Drum Room mic….I was going to use Fig 8 mode off axis…

Set and forget….

Any ideas ?

Thanks
 
The only question is ... what does the room sound like? I assume you want to buy two fig-8 mics to use overhead or in front? Not a good technique in a smaller, parallel surfaced room. In a huge space then Blumlein stereo is a great technique but is fails in small spaces.
 
Hmmm.. Not something I'd do, unless I really wanted to capture the sound of the room? What does yours sound like? Mine simply don;t sound good enough. I spend time trying to minimise the room? What exactly are you up to. Recording a kit with one mic is rarely something people do unless trying to recreate something? The set and forget might be tricky - because sticking a mic in one place and leaving it might mean it's bang in the middle, and in the way? For set and forget single miking, maybe a boundary mic on the ceiling might work, but distant miking means the room becomes very much part of the sound - is that what you want?
 
I have two mono room mic's: one behind the drummer, overhead pointed at the center of the snare and the other ~4-5 feet in front of the kit,~ 4 ft up and aimed sort of generally at the top of the kick. The back one get's all of the upper mids and top end, the front one get's the bottom. Both are set to Unidirectional patterns. I do have a couple of mic's in the room pointed at other stuff that I can use for ambient if needed, but for the most part I find I don't use them much.
 
Here's a cheap experiment. Take a Sm57 and point it at one of the side walls. Like twoo inches off the wall and crush it with a compressor.
 
Fig 8 Drum Room Mic
"….I was going to use Fig 8 mode off axis"
I'm not following what you are meaning here.
Thanks
 
mixsit said:
Fig 8 Drum Room Mic
"….I was going to use Fig 8 mode off axis"
I'm not following what you are meaning here.
Thanks
Click to expand...
You have the null point of the Fig 8 pointing at the kit from say at distance
 
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Ah...... but is it nice space or rotten space? That's the real killer with fig-8s - if the wanted source is in the null, you're sort of getting double the reflective surfaces of the side walls. If you already have the mic, just try it and listen to what it captures, but if you don't have one, I think it a bit risky to actually buy one to use this way.
 
easyrider said:
It’s got bass traps in the corners and few acoustic panels…I’m just looking at adding some space to my OH mics and close mics.
Click to expand...
You are shooting in the Dark if you don't know what your room sounds like - a room mic captures the room for good or bad - have you traveled around your room and listen to what it sounds like at various places? Or you could buy a inexpensive Condenser like a Behringer B3 and place it around your room and record it - then listen back to various placements to decide on where the best location is - although unless your rooms is acoustically sound I don't think you'll find it - better off with Convolution Reverbs to get a room sound.
 
I want to try an M88 on the Kick, a Mono M160 OH a Cole’s room a M201 on snare etc…and have a play…the Shure DMK57-52 Drum Microphone KiT has done me proud and I can get an excellent drum recording…but I’ve out grown it…

The beauty is I can throw a SM57 on my guitar cab along with a M160 too….so the SM57 will get used.



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grimtraveller said:
Can you elaborate on this somewhat, initially confusing, statement ?
Click to expand...
Sure, I want to experiment with new microphones and placement and recording using different mics. I didn’t have £1000 to spend on one mic when I began recording drums. So I bought the Shure mic kit.

Now I can get a good drum sounds with it, I want to learn using different microphones like Ribbons.

Using the same mic setup for years means I’m not learning anything I’m not progressing.
 
I'm not sure there's really much progression to actually do. I've been comparing mics for years - I'm a collector really, and most of my collection simply sits in boxes because what I get is what I want. What I struggle with are drums. I've never been expert, just good enough to charge. I also can't play drums - luckily I can play most other instruments, but apart from an electronic kit, I have no real drums - I had some but sold them a few years back. If I collect all the mics that you'd put on drums, I'd have a pile of EV, Shure, Sennheisers, AKG and a few odds and ends. ALL of these if you speak into them are clearly very different, but stick them on a drum - and hit it and you get a spike of sound. The differences, so obvious on a voice, are just hidden. Stick a Sennheiser 421 on a tom or a Shure 57 and both go boing. Tonally different boings but you grab some EQ and it's a tom again. I see people like Alan Parsons grab a couple of ribbons for overheads, but he's in a really well designed room. Use a ribbon and the room sound becomes part of the overall kit sound - but only when the room allows, and that's the rub. I don't record drums in my studios, so when I want to, I'll record them somewhere else, and locally, the key feature for drum spaces is DEAD and insulated, as in very little room sound at all. Nobody in my area has a space big enough to have any character. I have a couple of EVs - an RE20 and 320, and the 320 gets good reviews for kick, but I still plod on with the AKG D112 because it's clicky not boomy, which works for me. I've always avoided the kits because although they're cost effective, I rarely like every mic (and I rarely buy any mic that I can't/won't use on other things and the Shure kits feature overheads I'm not keen on. The Sennheisers have nice sounding overheads, but I'm not keen on the kit etc. I bought some Audix ones but they turned out to be fakes, and not at all nice sounding. I like the Sennheiser tom clip ons - because they also work pretty well on other instruments. I sort of have a good/no good experience with drum mic choices - and the good list is tricky to then make sense of.
 
Drums is my favorite thing to track. The thing I've learned is how much the room matters and small spaces sound....small. The only times I was ever happy with room mics, the room was large. All my basement room mic experiences I didn't like. Your Mileage May Very.
 
Looking at the pic I would say if you want to get some room with figure 8 I would put it up nearer the ceiling ~ 1-1.5 feet below,pointed at the drums so the sides null. You will have some crazy cool build up that will sound horrible on it's own but with a bit of eq and compression and added to the main mic's will IME give some fun sizzle to your tracks
 
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