8 foot ceiling and overheads

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Bobalou

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I've elected to go with 2 small condenser mics for overheads, along with kick, snare and bottom, 3 toms, and a mono LD room mic.

with an 8 foot ceiling how high would you go for overheads in "trying" to get the most ambience and room size with the ideal stereo spread?

(I've experimented with both Fletchers and Recordermans drum micing techniques, but my small/low room seems to give me best results with more mic's)...just wondering if I can get more out of my overs and maybe not need a room mic.

thanks
 
Well...what type of music are you trying to record? For rock, I would say use them around 2 sticks' lengths above the snare.
 
FattMusiek said:
Well...what type of music are you trying to record? For rock, I would say use them around 2 sticks' lengths above the snare.
Click to expand...

For Jazz, smoke two sticks above the rim of the snare and forget about the sound. Look at the lights.........Wow, man.
 
by the tone of bluebears Huh, I would love to here the comment that I feel he was holding back on??
 
Well - I'm not a drummer, so maybe my perception is off, but a stick is about 12-13 inches, right? So 2 sticks is about 2 feet....

So if he was seriously suggesting placing overheads 26 inches up from the snare, he'd better be tracking a very short drummer!
 
Ive read about that two stick technique, you go the length of two drumsticks and you point them towards the snare...but it is for a 3 mic set-up...not nesasary if you seperately mic the snare.

good for jazz drumming.
 
well its nice to see everyone comment on Fatts reply, but how bout putting your opinions out there concerning the original question?
 
Details, man!

What kind of pattern on those mics?

Does the ceiling have any treatment on it? What about the walls? The floor?

Does the kit sound good in the room?
 
Well since your overheads are cardoids and pointing either straight down or nearly so then direct reflections from the ceiling are coming from the direction of maximum rejection. I wouldn't put them right at the ceiling, but the thing that they are mostly pointing at, besides the drums, is the floor.

The fact that you feel that the sound improves as you mic more drums directly makes me guess that you are liking what the drums are giving you more than what the room is giving you. Try either eliminating the ambience mic entirely or analyzing and improving the room accoustics.
 
I hope Littledog adds to this discussion. He claims to use a drum overhead technique from "Recorderman" (from recording.org and gearslutz.com) that calls for the overheads to be 2-drumsticks in height off the snare (one of the overheads) and at the same height 2 drumsticks from the center of the snare over towards the floor toms at the same vertical height. He can tell it better than me.
 
Innovation,
some good points especially the room mic..Thanks

Rev,
I did try the recordermans setup but didnt find any improvement (I'm sure its my lack of room) thats why I need to close mic everything.

M. Brane,
heres my details:

overhead mics- 2 MC012's thru - RNP/RNC
room 12'x15' carpeted office/studio, 8' foot accoustic ceilings, 1 wall treatment, 1 window wall treatment, 2 non treated walls....very dead/tight sounding room.

kit is facing into corner of both treated walls, (kit is a DW birch), sounds great in the room.

Digi001:
snare top- sm57/Great River ME-1NV/RNC
snare bottom- Senn E604/Art Pro MPA
Kick- Audix D-6/DBX376= via S/PDIF
2 toms- E604's/Mackie 1202 VLZ/ Multicom
Flr Tom- Cad KBM412/1202VLZ/Multicom
Room Mic- SP B-1/Art Pro MPA

Thanks all
 
Pretty nice setup. You shouldn't have a problem getting a good sound, but "ambience" in a room that size could involve some trickery.

I'd move around the room while the drummer plays until I find the "sweet spot". Put your room mic there. Then position the overheads, checking for phase. I'd keep 'em in as tight as you can since we have the room mic available. Then add in your close mics still checking for phase problems. Once you've got that dialed in and a track down, build your drum mix around the room mic & overheads. Just use the close mics to fill in anything that's lacking.

You are reversing the phase on that bottom snare mic, right? ;)

If you find yourself needing more "ambience" you could slide the room mic track to delay it a bit, or simply add some delay/verb to it. You could also point the mic at the farthest untreated wall instead of the kit, or even put it in the next room (if you can leave the door open). Depends on just how much ambience you're trying to get out of a relatively small room.

One other tip: if the floor is carpet over concrete, and the ceiling is pretty dead put the drums on a hard wood surface. That will usually add some life to 'em. Carpet on concrete is death for drum tones.

Hope this helps.:)
 
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