here is where fletcher describes the same kind of thing i am talking about.
it was mentioned to me that fletcher recommends the same technique that i favor.
proaudio101 wrote:
How do you do this with the overheads
(where should they be in height, distance, aimed at?), and are KM84 usually good tools for the OH pair? Will there be any polarity problems if I throw in a snare and room mic?
Fletcher wrote:
There a half a dozen "3 mic drum techniques" that I'm familiar with.
Is there any particular one to which you refer?
Here are a few of them:
I usually start with a mic in front of the kit. It could be 6 feet or one foot off the bass drum. The object of this mic is usually to get the "front of the kit". I look for a good bass drum sound, but also the bottom of the toms and a bit of snare...cymbals will also exist here. The tuning of the kit, the proficiency of the drummer, the mic selection and placement are all pretty damn important...you can do a little EQ to this, but not a whole hell of a lot. When you use equalizers on this mic, you will find that you often mess up the balance of the drums within the context of the kit. Depending on the tone you're looking for, a ribbon, lg. diaphragm condenser or dynamic might be the most appropriate.
For ribbons my choices are usually Royer 121's,
RCA-77's...for lg. diaphragm condensers, Neumann 47 FET's, M-147's;
Soundelux U-195’s/U-95S’s and/or U-99’s; dynamics MD-421’s; AKG D-30's often work pretty well, but they're a bitch to find and I don't own one. Sometimes [rarely] a Shure 57.
Now, in mono, one speaker, I put up a second mic. This can go anywhere from directly over the snare to over the drummers right shoulder...or anywhere in the arc in between. The key here is to add that mic so you get the snare, hat, top of the toms and cymbals without the cymbals being out of balance with the rest of the kit. If the drummer can't control this balance, you're pretty much fucked and should revert back to the close mic'ed SR methods they teach at the recording schools.
The reason I do this in mono-1 speaker is to insure that I'm not going to fuck with the bottom of the bass drum because of an inconsistent phase relationship with the front mic. For this I will often use a ribbon, like
a Coles 4038, or a condenser.
U-67's often work. I find that as I get closer to 'behind the drummer', a small diaphragm condenser, like
a KM-54 will often work a bit better.
Mic #3 is often placed next to the floor tom, just peeking over the rim of the drum at the snare. It's usually placed equidistant from the over mic as it relates to 'ground zero' [where the drummer actually hits the snare drum, not the center of it]. As always, one speaker mono is your friend.
Another set of fun ones...a pair of small diaphragm condensers [I usually like an SM-2 Neumann for this] about 4-5 feet over the front mic, aimed at the outer edges of the crash cymbals. I like an SM-2 because I have to worry about the phase relationships of the two mics less, but still worry about that relationship as it relates to the 'FOK' [front of the kit] mic. Lately I’ve been using
a Royer SF-12 in this application, and absolutely loving it. Big , clear, open, not too brash, yet no shortage of high end “silk”. Absolutely my first choice these days.
There's another I've done where I use two lg. diaphragm condensers [like 47's] and spread them out. Like one in front of each rack tom [on the side of the toms. When I do this one, it seems that if all three mics are equidistant from 'ground zero' my setup time is pretty well reduced. Don't forget mono one speaker, or you may end up wanting to drink Drano when it comes time to mix.
http://www.mercenary.com/3micdrumstuf.html
maybe big boy sound thinks fletcher is ignorant too?
maybe big boy sound is the biggest asshole in all forums!
