Advice needed for recording drums with a bunch of Shure57s

[mellitacas]

Hello there, this is my first post, I hope I'll get some feedback for a mic placement problem I have. I have searched this and other forums for tips, I got familiar with a number of techniques (Recordman, X/Y, spaced pair etc.), I know that, eventually, I'll have to get down there and experiment but I don't want to start on the wrong foot. BTW, this is a great forum. OK, here's the situation...

My girlfriend got me as a birthday present a pair of Shure 57s, a Shure B52 and stands to replace my crappy old mics for my drum set. I'm not sure if I should replace them or actually add the Shures to my current set. I can't afford to buy some more quality mics, so close micing set up is out of the quetion.

My current set up consists of a pair of mics behind the drums, 5 feet from the ground, 3 feet away from the set, aiming for the center of the set and a kick mic an inch away from the resonant head's hole. All three stands are self made, so no height adjustment, no crane whatsoever... Oh, almost forgot, all three mics are dynamic, unidirectional ones. The results from this setup are satisfactory.

B52 is a kick drum mic, I got the proper stand for placing it inside the drum, near the beater, I'll manage that. The placement of the 57s is what really puzzles me. I never really got much serious about the placement, distance, angle of the mics but now that I've got the Shure ones, I'm determined to find a proper set up to capture a nice sound out from them.

If you have any suggestions of how I should set up the mics (old ones with new ones or just the new ones), I'll very much appreciate it.

Thank you very much for your time.

Cheers,

John

 

[darrin_h2000]

Use the 57s on the snare...top outer rim...and under...the rest of the set can be picked up with the overheads...that is close to how Zeppelin did it.

 

[mellitacas]

Use the 57s on the snare...top outer rim...and under...the rest of the set can be picked up with the overheads...that is close to how Zeppelin did it.

Thanks for the reply friend! The thing is that I have only 4 inputs available for drums. So, I was thinking of using the new Shure ones and one of my old crappy ones (the best of them anyway). One of the 57s for the snare, the B52 for the kick, the other 57 and the crappy one for overheads seems like a reasonable set up... The overheads should be a matched pair though, shouldnt be?

Or maybe something like B52 for kick, the pair of 57s for overheads and the crappy one for room ambience (front or behind the kit). Any other suggestions? What about the actuall placement and pointing of the overheads?

Thank you very much for your time.

Cheers,

John

 

[darrin_h2000]

Mostly matching of overheads isnt as big a deal unless you are micing stringed instruments...I think it is an excuse to sell a pair for alot more than 2 sell for

 

[rockerdude]

Thanks for the reply friend! The thing is that I have only 4 inputs available for drums. So, I was thinking of using the new Shure ones and one of my old crappy ones (the best of them anyway). One of the 57s for the snare, the B52 for the kick, the other 57 and the crappy one for overheads seems like a reasonable set up... The overheads should be a matched pair though, shouldnt be?

Or maybe something like B52 for kick, the pair of 57s for overheads and the crappy one for room ambience (front or behind the kit). Any other suggestions? What about the actuall placement and pointing of the overheads?

Thank you very much for your time.

Cheers,

John

Use the beta 52 just inside the hole or rim for a beefy thump too close to the beater head takes away the thump and adds click attack.Use a 57 on the snare top and the other two for overheads .Sm57 is a killer workhorse of a mic alot of great music has been recorded with the sm57 www.sterlingsoundstudios.com

 

[Minion]

I would use the Beta 52 on Bass and use the SM 57 on the snare and then Pick up a couple cheapo SDC"s as over heads to pick up the Toms and Cymbols...I recently did a sesion useing this method and it sounded great ,I used a couple cheapo Nady SDC"s that were super cheap and sounded OKfor overheads....

 

[dgatwood]

I would use the Beta 52 on Bass and use the SM 57 on the snare and then Pick up a couple cheapo SDC"s as over heads to pick up the Toms and Cymbols...I recently did a sesion useing this method and it sounded great ,I used a couple cheapo Nady SDC"s that were super cheap and sounded OKfor overheads....

IMHO, the Nady SDCs only sound OK if you've never heard a good pair of overheads. They have almost no bass response, and stereo separation is appallingly bad. Cymbals sound harsh and shrill,kick drum and lower toms are almost completely lost, etc.

I spent months trying to get a usable sound from my CM-90 mics before I gave up, found a second MK-012 on eBay, and nailed the sound I was looking for on the first try. I nearly cried when I realized how much time I had wasted with those Nady mics.

My advice would be that if you're going to go with cheap SDCs, at least get cheap SDCs that sound decent. If you wait and look around hard enough, you can generally find used MK-012 mics for $100 apiece on eBay/MusicGoRound/Craig's List.

Here's one for $120 right now.
http://www.musicgoround.com/gear/inventorydetails.asp?id=550126

Or bid on this pair and send the second one to Marik or Oktavamod to fix.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Genuine-Octava-...39:1|66:2|65:12|240:1318&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14

 

[mellitacas]

Thank you all for your replies, I'm considering exchanging one of the 57s (I hope my girlfriend doesn't find out... ) with a couple of overheads, I think I've seen a set of 2 Behringer C-2 that has the same price as the 57, so that I could apply the Glyn Johns technique and use the remaining 57 on the snare. I'm a bit skeptical about it though because the snare usually sounds too loud and sharp for my taste (I like it a bit warm)....

Still any suggestions would be much appreciated and thanks a lot for your time.

Cheers,

John

 

[aidan_m]

and use the remaining 57 on the snare. I'm a bit skeptical about it though because the snare usually sounds too loud and sharp for my taste (I like it a bit warm)....

Still any suggestions would be much appreciated and thanks a lot for your time.

Cheers,

John

loud and sharp can be sorted with adding compression and eq later.. Good luck with swopping the 57 un-noticed!

 

[bigtoe]

what have you tried with what you have - and what don't you like about it?

"The results from this setup are satisfactory."

stop while you're ahead!

Mike

 

[mellitacas]

what have you tried with what you have - and what don't you like about it?

Well, my biggest problem with my current setup (without the new mics that is) is the snare and cymbals. Snare sounds weak, too much interference from the hihat I think and cymbals are too loud. You can search YouTube for "mellitacas" to check some samples of our recordings if you like.

I'm sure I can solve these problems with the proper placement of the new mics. I can't wait for my band to get together on the weekend to experiment with them.

Thank you guys for all your help, I'll keep you posted of my progress.

Cheers,

John

 

[mellitacas]

Hello again, just a quick question regarding Glyn Johns and Recorderman techniques... Is it just me or these techniques don't take into account the 3 to 1 rule? If the distance between the OH mics and the snare is X, the distance between the mics should be 3*X. So, for a distance of 3 feet between the snare and the OH mics, there should be a distance of 12 feet between the mics to prevent phasing issues. That's a lot! Maybe I'm missing something...

 

[mellitacas]

Hello again, our band gatherimg was postponed due to family matters...

So, I didn't have a chance to try the new mics in action with the rest of the band, I did try them on my own though (couldn't resist ). The results were... well, I'll let you guys judge by yourselves, if you care to listen to THIS sample of my recording trials. I used the B52 in the kick (low cut on), one S57 on the snare and one S57 as overhead, all inputs' pan center, no gain, no eq, just raw streaming.

If you could give me some pointers for getting this setup to sound better (gain, eq, placement etc.), I'll very much appreciate it.

Thank you for your time,

John

PS: I did try the Glyn Johns technique but the stereo image was... not stereo... I'll try it again, when our band, eventually, gets together...

 

[Farview]

First thing to do is tune the snare. It sounds like the top and bottom head are tuned to almost the same note. Tune the bottom head high and try to get the tension even across the head. This is hard to do on the snare side because the tension will almost always be lower on the snare beds. If you have a ring on the top head, or tape or anything else used to deaden the head, take it off. Tune the head properly and you are less likely to need those things.

Make a relatively deep cut in the overhead somewhere between 400 and 900hz. Add some high shelf at 8k

for the snare mic, I only have some generic advice because I don't know what the snare will sound like once it's tuned properly. Add 2k and a shelf at 10k. If it's sounding thin add some 200hz. Run it through a compressor with a medium attack and medium fast release at 3/1 and set the threshold to have up to about 4db of gain reduction. This is just a starting point, play with it from here until it sounds right.

The kick, Suck out 900hz, add high shelf at 7k and low shelf at 50hz and run it into a compressor at 5/1, medium attack, fast release and a gain reduction of 1 to 6db.

 

[wbcsound]

I think you have a very good starting point. I'm a guitarist, so don't know anything about drum tuning so perhaps follow the above tuning steps. However the eq and compression suggestions are spot on and I think you'll be shocked by how good it will sound.

 

[mellitacas]

Hello again! First of all, thank you for all your replies! I appreciate it! We had a band session (at last!) two days ago and I have a stereo sample HERE or a mono sample HERE that I would like you guys to listen and tell me what you think, with all the instruments in place and all.

Same setup as before, bass panned on the left at 10, guitar panned on the right at 2 and drum mics on the center. Mixer's main mix fader on 0, guitar and bass amplifiers' line out volume adjusted on mixer's 0 peak meter, mixer faders on 0, no eq. Mixer faders for drum mics on 0, no eq, gain... in the middle... well, I'm not sure how to read it... let me show you...

THIS is a picture of a portion of our mixer, pretty amateur low level, I know... We have never used it properly in the past, just the faders. How the heck do you read the gain control?!? How about the eq controls? (to Farview: thanks for the great advice on eq but, as you can see, I don't think we could get those settings with our mixer... )

Any suggestions would still be very appreciative!

Cheers,

John

 

[darrin_h2000]

Hello again, our band gatherimg was postponed due to family matters...

You just tell them to Tivo Urkel's show and come over to practice.

 

[mellitacas]

You just tell them to Tivo Urkel's show and come over to practice.

Didn't get that, sorry friend...