lopsided drummers

F

faderbug

.
the drummer i work with has his complete kit on one side of his snare except for his hihat . now when i record his kit with four microphones - kick snare and two overheads (cardoïds due to poor sounding room) - the snare and kick end up on one side of the stereo image.

are there microphone (or mixing) techniques to compensate for 'lopsided' drummers?
 
faderbug said:
the drummer i work with has his complete kit on one side of his snare except for his hihat . now when i record his kit with four microphones - kick snare and two overheads (cardoïds due to poor sounding room) - the snare and kick end up on one side of the stereo image.

are there microphone (or mixing) techniques to compensate for 'lopsided' drummers?
Click to expand...
That is an incredibly common layout for drum kits, at least in my area.

You can try rotating the stereo OH positions around to capture the image from different perspectives, but the kit will always be "lopsided" in stereo. If you don't want a natural stereo image of the drums (theres no law against having the snare not come down the center of the mix, it is often offset) then I'd suggest not using stereo overheads. A single OH will do the job of capturing the kit just as well.

G.
 
If you line your overheads up so that they're equal distance from the snare (and kik preferably), they should come up the middle. The rest of the kit should sound the way it looks.
 
As others have said, position the OH's to the kit, not the drummer. Then, I always measure the distance from the center of the snare to the center of each capsule and arrange them so they ar exactly the same distance. That will put your snare right down the middle.....
 
If you have tracks that you already did and want to keep, then try panning your snare track opposite of the way it's leaning in the overheads. A combination of pan and level adjustments should put the resultant snare image in the center. Watch for phase issues.
 
yea, draw a mental line over the kit that splits the center of tom 2 and goes from there through the center of the snare.

try using that as the center of the kit, not the drummer.
 
exactly.

Imagine a line between the center of the snare to the center of the kick. place the overheads equal distance from this line. This will ensure the kick and snare will be in the center of the image.

or just use one overhead and put it anywhere.
 
whip him with a flail until he changes his ways. That's so unacceptable, it makes me want to shoot a mall full of people in Nebraska.
 
It's been my observation that all drummers favor one side or the other. Rarely will you find a drummer who's kit is perfectly ballanced. The best you can do is to position mics to try to make the kit seem more in the center if that is how you want it to sound.
 
Just put the overheads to the side of him and aim them so the snare ends up kind of centered. The kick has it's own mic and shouldn't really be a big problem.
 
thanks for all the replies.

i've been recording his kit with everything from one to eight mics and it's this four mic configuration that gives the least satisfying results but since i only have an eight channel interface i don't have much choice when i record band rehearsals.

i'll try positioning the oh's at equal distances pointing towards the snare but due to the smallness of the room that'll be difficult.

does anyone ever use three overheads on drums?
 
My suggestion is:

Quit worrying about a "stereo" split of the drum kit.

Mic the kick and then mic the "groups of things" with overheads and then just make sure you aren't having phase issues.



Tim
 
faderbug said:
does anyone ever use three overheads on drums?
Click to expand...
yes, when the kit is really, really, really big. :D

they did this with Neil Peart's kit up al Allaire when tracking the drums for Snakes and Arrows. they also had two "behind" overheads (for a total of 5), and a number of room mics including an old RCA ribbon that they placed near the floor behind the kit which apparently sounded so good that it made up a large percentage of the overall drum sound. they also mic'd the tops and bottoms of all the toms.

apparently Rich the Engineer spent several days out there with a tape measure making sure everything was perfectly aligned so there wouldn't be a phasey mess upon mixing. Remember kids, get it right in tracking.


cheers,
wade
 
My drummer is lopsided that way too. I record the overheads as is, then pan the louder overhead less than the quieter one, until equal average volume comes out of both sides. It's not a truly equal split, but the difference in L & R is enough to get you that fully panned feeling.
 
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