Drum Overhead EQ Settings?!

  • Thread starter Thread starter carlosguardia
  • Start date Start date
carlosguardia

carlosguardia

New member
Ok, here's a question, I finished tracking a set of nice sounding Pearl Export Series in a small dead room with a pair of ECM 8000's as overheads; I placed them L & R of the set at about shoulder height, then placed a PG 52 inside the kick drum and a 57 for the snare. I got the kick sounding pretty nice as well as the snare and using the Waves Q-10 paragraphic EQ I tweaked both of these to sound more like what I wanted. I added a gate to both of these so to prevent bleeding from the cymbals and it's sounding pretty nice. Now, here's my question, should I try to cut out some lows from the OH's or should I even try to EQ them in any way?! My instinct tells me that the OH's shouldn't be EQd, they should tell the "truth" of what the kit sounds like, and I'll just EQ the snare and kick for "enhancement" purposes. What are you guys doing as far as EQing the Overheads??!!

Carlos
 
Just my humble opinion but I usually run the overheads pretty flat, may be a 1 or 2 dB at the high end but even that can be too much on some cymbals. I want my overheads to catch the whole kit ( along with a LDC out about 3' in front of the kick), not just the cymbals and then I "fill in" the kick, snare and tom mics.
 
I don't EQ a lot, but I have been using a bit of high-shelf in order to get closer to that splashy, sparkly commercial CD cymbal sound. Cutting a lot of lows out is only something I'd think about doing if I was close-micing all the drums, to cut the toms' low freq content from the OH's and thus reduce problems like phasing.

Steve
 
while i tend not to EQ the overheads, i often whip a little out to "clean up the room sound".

often if you record in bad sounding rooms.. like i do... there are some particulary offensive frequencies that you can drop out with EQ later to marginally improve the sound... marginally.
 
i record mostly punk and rock music and i try to get everything in your face and isolated so usually I put a low cut at 500hz.
 
This is some what of a concept issue. How do you preceive your OH's. Are they the main source of your sound? or a filler?.

The common eq to oh's sits in basicly 5 components.

1. If you have punch from the kick and snare then you can cut the oh's from 150Hz.

2. If you close miced the snare and what to cut some of it out of the OH's, you can cut around the 300-400Hz to diminish the snare.

3. You might need more toms in your sound as it seems you didn't mic them so you might try a boost of 80-100Hz to get more depth from them.

4. If you need more strike of the cymbal try a 6k boost.

5. And last....for more sheen and glean, boost your OH's at around 12-15k (even try on the left side 12k and the right 15k).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top