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

i have tried it like this and was really surprised at how good it sounded right off the bat. i can imagine spending just a bit more time with possitioning would make it killer. i did have to add a bass drum mic though. it just was not thick enough on the low end. i put the bass drum mic partly into the hole just so the diaphram was aligned with the reasonant head. it sounded really nice combined with the attack from the overheads.
 
oh yeah, i was using some custom built 1" diaphram mics that have an amazingly flat frequency response. i would definately go with large diaphrams for this one, if you have em.
 
Re: With every good comes some bad

Shailat said:
There are several flaws to this technique.

In a bad room (and they are plenty) your going to have more of a problem.

In a recording along side other instruments the leakage will be more problematic.

Knowing that most Drummers don't play all that balanced:D, you will have a problem balancing the kit.

Less control for the Engineer during mixdown.

Saying all that....with a good room and drummer and gear, it can sound very natural and even very powerfull.
Click to expand...

I disagree. The fact that the mics are so close in make the room LESS of a problem than mics that were farther out. Same for bleed, the mics dont ahve the gain cranked as bad as a higher pair, will pick up less bleed.
Works great for me. Heres a picture of the same thing slightly modified to keep from getting the mics hit.
 
Re: Re: With every good comes some bad

tubedude said:
I disagree. The fact that the mics are so close in make the room LESS of a problem than mics that were farther out. Same for bleed, the mics dont ahve the gain cranked as bad as a higher pair, will pick up less bleed.
Works great for me. Heres a picture of the same thing slightly modified to keep from getting the mics hit.
Click to expand...

Late reply....had no internet connection.

With three mics the room will play a bigger factor compared to a say, 8 close miced kit.

As for bleed - gating in some cases will be out of the question as you only HAVE 3 tracks to start with. if you hear to much of parts of the kit you can't seperate them. All in all it gives you less control.

The main problem is as I wrote the playing balance of the drummer himself. Go fix a snare hit to soft or hard or go compress the OH's after the drummer smacked the cymbls to death....go fix the toms who where hit with out perportions to the groove (happens on a lot of fills with over zealous drummers...)

Like I said ...good with bad...
 
Shailat - I would generally agree with your statement assuming that the engineer has 7 mics, mic stands, good pres, good gates, etc. Of course it would give you more control, lol.

I used the technique on a recent session and you do have to compress the hell out of the OH's to get a good balance. I also used a snare mic which helps alot.

Foreverrain- That diagram looks pretty wrong. Usually you would end up with the mics being about the same height and about a foot apart. I find it easier to use a piece of string rather than drumsticks.

Place the first OH above the snare and drummers head. Take a string and tape one end to the snare center and make a triangle from snare center- OH - Kick center. Tape the string up on the kick (where the beater hits) and tie a knot up where the first OH is.

Now take that knot (where the first OH was) and move it over towards the rest of the kit (towards the floor tom, away from snare) and when it is tight again that is where you place the second OH. You don't have a lot of room to move it and it does look weird. When you sum the OH's to mono you will have no loss of snare and kick strength due to phase issues. It should sound fuckin tight spread wide or in mono.
 
TexRoadkill said:
Shailat - I would generally agree with your statement assuming that the engineer has 7 mics, mic stands, good pres, good gates, etc. Of course it would give you more control, lol.

I used the technique on a recent session and you do have to compress the hell out of the OH's to get a good balance. I also used a snare mic which helps alot.
Click to expand...


No doubt most people can't get all that gear and mics together.
But a 4 mic configuration (like your added snare mic) will add more control and no less punch.

Asumming a person will have to compress hard on the OH's to get a good balance, the original sound uncompressed will dissapear and leave you with a totaly different sounding toms/snare/hi hat/crashes.

I'm not knocking the technique. I saw it work well during a recording of Michel Camilo and his band about 2 years ago . But then again he had a kick ass drummer:).
 
Shailat said:
Asumming a person will have to compress hard on the OH's to get a good balance, the original sound uncompressed will dissapear and leave you with a totaly different sounding toms/snare/hi hat/crashes.[/B]
Click to expand...

Yeah, that's why I always keep a couple compressors on my busses so I can monitor with compression and get a better idea of the final product.
 
I did this last night. It was awesome and easy. I 've generally done XY overheads, bass drum and snare drum. It's always been ok to good depending on the drummer.

We set this up with teh drummer in my band who is A. very good and B. has a well tuned set and it was just perfect. I used Oktava MK012s as the over heads and a CAD M37 as a front of kit mic. Was a little over 3 feet in front of the kit and vertically it was just below the top of the bass drum. This picked up a lot of bass drum and a lot of the bottom of the snare and floor tom (it's a three piece kit).
 
Hey!! this tecnique really works. I´ve done this last week, and I was amazed how fast I could setup everything. Finding the spots where to place the mics is the key.
Now I can get a real drum sound.
 
Hi, I tried this and it does sound good. Better than any drum sound I've gotten before.
I was wondering how it ensures that the mics will be in phase? I understand why the overheads would be in phase with each other because you measure the distances between the bass, and snare, but why would the toms be in phase?
Also, someone posted when you add an extra snare or bass drum mic those would be sure to be in phase. Why?
Thanks alot!
 
i still cannot visualize it. kinda sucks.... earlier in the post i drew what i thought it was, but i guess that was not right. can anyone post a picture?
 
no_monkeybiznus said:
Hi, I tried this and it does sound good. Better than any drum sound I've gotten before.
I was wondering how it ensures that the mics will be in phase? I understand why the overheads would be in phase with each other because you measure the distances between the bass, and snare, but why would the toms be in phase?
Also, someone posted when you add an extra snare or bass drum mic those would be sure to be in phase. Why?
Thanks alot!
Click to expand...

It's impossible to get everything in perfect phase so that is why you worry most about the kick and snare. The only way to get a close to perfect phase relationship with the entire kit and OHs is to have the mics be far enough away. In order to do that you need really high ceilings or just use room mics.

That last diagram looks correct.
 
here's my setup....

small room with very low ceilings....levels need to be adjusted for right balance....have recorded using only 2 mics and it sounds not too bad with EQ/compression plugins....very easy to set up
 

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