close micing everything, anyone had success?

[corban]

I'll give you my honest answer.

If I were close mic'ing everything on the kit - I wouldn't even bother with overheads. You'll hear all of the cymbals through the tom mic's, I wouldn't try to "close mic" the cymbals either.....proximity effect reall sucks on those. LOL

Try it, and see what happens.....beore I started mainly using the overheads - I just close mic'ed the drums, and the only cymbal sounds I got were what came through the tom mic's - and that is how I recorded drums for 10 years - and about 15 of the bands that I recorded went on to release and sell that material in the local market, so it isn't as if the sound is "unusable".

Tim

My problem with this is that then you don't have really any overhead sound for your kit, including your snare. I'm not saying it couldn't sound decent, I just don't think it's gonna get anywhere close to the best sound for your kit. Even if I close mic the toms I start with a good overhead sound and then gate the toms when not being used.

 

[cobradenim]

...The hi-hat can tent to be overwhelming and too sizzling, high endy and in your face. It would be good to be able to tame that without taking away from the hi-end of the crashes (which I like and think is important. ) ....

Or, you could use darker hi-hats. Brighter hi hats don't record very easily. However, darker hats record well (i.e 15" Zildjian New Beats). But It all depends on the sound you're after.

 

[edyer]

I think I'm going to stick with overheads and just upgrade my mics to Oktava MK-019's. But I would really like control of the hi-hat so I will definitely pick up a marshall MXL for that. The hi-hat can tent to be overwhelming and too sizzling, high endy and in your face. It would be good to be able to tame that without taking away from the hi-end of the crashes (which I like and think is important. ) Having control of the kick and snare seem most important because they give the song the actual "pulsating" up and down feel. I think a hi-hat, 2 overheads, a kick , and a snare mic might be just what the doctor ordered.

Save your cash and wait until you can buy some better mics. The octavas don't do really well on drums. I still have a few of them but they don't get used on anything with a lot of transients.great for some things.

Look at a set of earthworks tc 20s. If you can find them used great, the older ones were called SROs. New They are under $800. You don't need to buy matched. The Qc is very good. Other good mics that won't cripple you are the josephson c42s or the neumann 184s. The beauty of mics like those is that if you don't like them you can sell them and not take a bath.

 

[gumplunger]

You can certainly get very good results with close mic'ing everything, just gotta be careful. Here's a picture from the recording of In Flames' new album: