beginner drum mic'ing question

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cemyender

New member
so, say i mic my snare drum with a sm57, how can i prevent it picking up the hi-hat?? or is that impossible.


Newby on a mission!
 
Really, you should not worry about isolation when micing drums. Rather, you should focus getting the kit to sound good as whole and then capture that. That being said, the hi-hats can be tough when they leak into the snare mic. What I do is mount a 57 on the snare drum rim close to the hi-hat but facing away from the hi-hat. So if your drums are set up right handed, the mic is on the left side of the snare, pointed to the right, away from the hats. Hope that helps a little.
 
Right. The idea is to use the mic's natural rejection pattern. Leakage between mics and instruments isn't always a bad thing, though. My floor tom mic always picks up my ride cymbal, but I like it.

Try and mic the drum kit as one big instrument. Not a bunch of separate ones.
 
PhilGood said:
My floor tom mic always picks up my ride cymbal, but I like it..
Click to expand...

I hate it, wanna swap attitudes :D

it was my china last time :mad: went crazy trying to get rid of it. Ended up automating an EQ sweep to filter it out & come back to zero db cut as the cymbal faded

I find that as much distance as is humanly comfortable between cymbals & drums helps to keep things out of individual mic's way
 
PhilGood said:
Leakage between mics and instruments isn't always a bad thing, though.
Click to expand...

Anyone willing to touch on phase cancellation? :)


I have done this before, and it worked. Get a small dixie cup. Cut a hole in the bottom just big enough for the 57's capsule to get through. Slide the dixie cup all the way down to where the edges of the mic and cup are even. Fill the empty space around the mic with something like mattress foam. Place the mic as close to the snare as possible.

Shutup! It worked! :mad: :)
 
ez_willis said:
Anyone willing to touch on phase cancellation? :)
Click to expand...

I find that the area where phase cancellation shows up the most is in the overhead mics. Placement there is crucial. With toms and snare, so long as the mics are facing down you really don't encounter the problem that often. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, because it will.

I like your dixie cup idea. Although I'm wondering if that actually makes the mic more omni. :) :eek:
 
I can't remember if this quote is correct, but I liked it and tried my best to remember it.

"Leakage between mics that sounds bad is called bleed.

Leakage between mics that sounds good is called ambiance."

I hope that's the right phrase. :D :D

(This is quite open for correction)
 
cemyender said:
so, say i mic my snare drum with a sm57, how can i prevent it picking up the hi-hat?? or is that impossible.



Newby on a mission!
Click to expand...


Let It Bleed.

Or, have your drummer raise his high hats up and lower his snare.

Kidding aside, you are best finding a way to make the bleed work for you instead of fighting it. Once you have it completely isolated and free of all bleed you will sit back and ask "Why do my drums sound so funny?"
 
cheers everyone, so in conclusion its more important to get the drum kit to sound good as a whole, rather than the object of getting each drum in isolation. And bleeding is something to be worked with??
 
when you listen to someone playing drums, think of it like this.

you have to ears, a left one and a right one. ears are like microphones. you listen to the drums through 2 microphones.

theoretically, you should be able to record drums (or any source..) with 2 microphones that replicate what you are hearing.

so bleed is at a maximum with 2 microphones or ears- so why try to get rid of something that you would hear naturally?

basically, im saying its no big deal. tune them up real good and position the mics carefully. thats the way to get a good sound (not that i have before or anything..)
 
cemyender said:
cheers everyone, so in conclusion its more important to get the drum kit to sound good as a whole, rather than the object of getting each drum in isolation. And bleeding is something to be worked with??
Click to expand...
YES! absolutely correct.

welcome to the BBS.
 
1 get your drummer to hit the snare harder.

2 use the mic's off axis rejection. (at the back, like has been mentioned)

3 get said drummer to hit hats a little softer.

or put trigger on drum and use that to key something like drumagog.

ever tried to record some with a limp left hand and a strong wright (read: crappy drummer) it's murder.
if the mix is bad at the kit, then the mix is bad in the mix.
 
Foam doesn't seem like it would be dense enough to make a big difference in a mic's pickup pattern. You would also need some solid barrier and either way it would mess with the overall tone of the mic. Not necessarily bad but could be. I find a good way to get hihat out of the snare mic is to simply move the hihat farther away. The drummer has to reach a little farther than usual with both hand and foot, but it can make a BIG difference in sound by just sliding the hihat 6 to 10 inches to the drummer's left.
 
Gamelan said:
but it can make a BIG difference in sound by just sliding the hihat 6 to 10 inches to the drummer's left.
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I'm sure it helps sound-wise, but that's a pretty considereable distance to ask a drumer to move a hi-hat right on the spot.
 
ez_willis said:
Anyone willing to touch on phase cancellation? :)


I have done this before, and it worked. Get a small dixie cup. Cut a hole in the bottom just big enough for the 57's capsule to get through. Slide the dixie cup all the way down to where the edges of the mic and cup are even. Fill the empty space around the mic with something like mattress foam. Place the mic as close to the snare as possible.

Shutup! It worked! :mad: :)
Click to expand...

This technique is covered in The Recording Engineer's Handbook. Though I've never done it, it should work, but I'd be worried about tonal differences when you basically put a cone around a mic.
 
Anybody thought of gates? My snare mic's are usually used for punch and attack in most of my mix's, and are gated. The decay of a snare is quite quick, so I don't get HH in the mix there, and the OH (in Fig-8 or Card. depending on which room I use) pick up the room decay.
 
i just figgure that they'll all be mixed really high up together anyway, so all i need is a few db of separation to adjust some of the levels, all i want is a little control to be able to adjust the snare, kik and OH.

i just recently switched from 7 mics down to 3, but for final, important stuff i'll prolly go back to 7...

and my kik was picking up my 2nd tom like crazy so i stuck a whole panel of foam, the thick stuff between tom and kik mic, and it worked great, it's a little tight in here...
 
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