Best mic placement to avoid bleeding

TamaSabian

TamaSabian

Peruvian skin beater
I will be doing a session with 3 bandmates playing together(guitar, bass and me on drums). The setup will be: bass going direct to the console, guitar through DI then to the console or maybe miced with an SM57. Kick, snare and two OH for the drums, where do you think I should place the OH???. What do you think about XY setup for that purpose?? (both mics as hi as the stand can go). The problem is my room, isn´t isolated, the only thing I could do is hang some carpets and blankets here and there.

Suggestions needed

Thanks
Tama
 
Tama,
It is most likely you will just have to experiment.
It depends on what style of music , and what kind of drum sound you can live with. It also depends on what the room sounds like.

If you are playing pretty much on your kick / snare / hat with the occasional crash I'd simply record with the Kick and snare mic. The snare mic can be positioned to pickup plenty of hat bleed.

Remember the more open mics you have, the higher the bleed factor in a smaller room.
If you feel you need more than 2 mics, try using them one by your hang toms (about level with the tops of the toms and one near the floor tom and ride nearer the floor tom. point them toward you and away from the other sound sources.

If the drum style is lighter like Jazz and needs a lot of softer light cymbal work you pretty much need to go with the overheads just high enough to give you the proper cymbol sound. I would then experiment with rolling off as much low end off the overheads as possible to minimize the offending ambient instrument bleed.

Hope that helps some.

tom@tmixstudio.com
 
Thanks tmix, I know that trying to avoid bleeding is almost impossible, I have to live with it. I have tried this XY setup with just drums and I think it sounds good and balanced. Now if I add guitar & bass things should be different, that´s why I´m planning to use lines for both instruments and only mic the kit. If we don´t like the guitar maybe we can record it again but miced.

Tama
 
heeey

hey
hmmm if you go direct with guitar and bass you could use headphones with the amps so that the speakers are muted and voila! no bleeding
 
Going direct with the bass and puting the guitar amp in the bathroom, hall or somewhere other than the drum room is a good way to reduce bleed over (close miking can help too). But remember, sometimes a little bleed over isn't bad, and sometimes it can even be a good thing. ;)
 
Yeah memo, I already mention it . ;) DJL using a different room or placing the amp in the hall could be an interesting option, first I need to ask: Is anybody home???. :D
Now I have more alternatives to recording guitar, what I have to do is try each one and see what I get. If you don´t mind I will share with you the results.

Thanks

Tama
 
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