phase
Rick -
deep subject.
picture a snare with one mic on it. You hit the snare, it makes soundwaves, the mic converts those waves to an electrical version of those waves.
Now add another mic, a few inches away. hit the snare - it hits one mic a fraction of a second before it hits the second. The waveforms will be more or less the same, but they will be slightly delayed in relation to each other. How big that delay is determines how out of phase they are with each other (in degrees).
Now add a bunch of mics all around, all recieving that snare drum hit - and you have a huge mish-mash of waves, all slightly out of phase with each other, and it starts to get ugly.
What you generally want to do to avoid this is
1 - use less mics (when I went from 8 mics on a 4-piece to 4 mics, it made a HUGE difference!! Much easier to mix and sounded much better, more clarity).
2 - position your mics to maximize what you want them to pick up and minimize what you don't. It takes a little longer to change the position of the tom mics to minimize the snare bleed, but it'll make you happier in the long run... less bleed, less phase problems.
This is a total ghetto-level answer, but I hope it helps!!
good luck.
