Explaining Tubedude's Post.....I do not understand It! Please Help!

[drummerdoug86]

Ok, so I ordered a set of three drum mics for micing my drum set and I was reading Tubedude's post about how to get great sound out of 3 mics, but sadly, I do not understand most of it because I am fairly new to mixers and all of that good stuff. I will post the parts I do not understand and I will tell you why I do not get them. Hopefully somebody will reply and give me the help I need!

2. Next; take the drum sticks (still held end-to-end) from the center of the snare over to above your ( i.e." the drummers") right shoulder and place your "right" overhead mic here.

So, do you take the sticks and and slant them to the right shoulder? Please help explain where the second overhead mic goes?

3. Fine tune the placement by using a mic cable and measuringthe distance from the center of the Kick to each of these mics is also equidistant from the kick and snare.

Equidistant?? Can someone else explain this without confusing me?

4. listen with headphones and have the drummer lightly hit his kick drum, and adjust the "right" mics angle until the kick is in the middle of your "image".

This also confuses me so are you just adjusting one overhead ( the right one) or what?

1. Place the snare & the kick in the center when you pan these mics hard left and right.

Place the snare and the kick? the mics or the actual drums? I didnt think there was also a snare mic? What does this mean? Panning, hard left and right?

Well that is about it, and thanks to anyone who takes the time to explain this stuff me!

 

[Dioxide]

So, do you take the sticks and and slant them to the right shoulder? Please help explain where the second overhead mic goes?

yes you do slant them and this will be your right side oh
The other mic was to be done by taking two sticks end by end and setting it in the middle of your snare which makes this your left oh
Note your left oh will be higher than your right

3. Fine tune the placement by using a mic cable and measuringthe distance from the center of the Kick to each of these mics is also equidistant from the kick and snare.

I didn't really bother with this one too much I'll explain that by answering your next question

1. Place the snare & the kick in the center when you pan these mics hard left and right. Place the snare and the kick? the mics or the actual drums? I didnt think there was also a snare mic? What does this mean? Panning, hard left and right?

If your not using a snare mic then don't worry about it I didn't use one either. On your mixer be sure that you have your right oh panned to the right and left oh to the left. You wan't you'r kick drum to be panned dead center on your mixer. Sit at you'r set with a pair of headphones on be (sure to turn your headphones up a bit )lightly tap on the snare while tapping listen to where the snare sounds like it's coming from, does it sound too far right or too far left if so adjust the volume or the mic itslef a bit to where it sounds like the snare is in both ears evenly.

This may not be the way other people would suggest but it's how I got my drums to come out bad ass. Good luck.

 

[drummerdoug86]

You wan't you'r kick drum to be panned dead center on your mixer.

So when you pan the bass dead center, if you are running stereo does that mean the bass will be coming out of both speakers?

Sit at you'r set with a pair of headphones on be (sure to turn your headphones up a bit )lightly tap on the snare while tapping listen to where the snare sounds like it's coming from, does it sound too far right or too far left if so adjust the volume or the mic itslef a bit to where it sounds like the snare is in both ears evenly.

If you want the snare in both ears, shouldn't you just pan it dead center, or are you talking about having the same volume in both ears?

 

[mikeh]

Yes, if you have the kick drum panned to center, you should hear it evenly from each speaker (which makes it sound like it is in the "center" of the stereo field.

The reference to adjusting the mic volume (or mic placement) is related to the two overhead (OH mics). If you have one mic on the kick drum, you can adjust the panning to achieve center placement. But - if you then only use two overheads for a stereo
coverage of the rest of the set - you can't "pan" the snare drum to the center, so you need to adjust the mic placement (in trhis case over your right and left shoulder) to try to get the snare to sound like it is centered.

The basic rule of thumb is to pan the kick, snare, bass guitar and lead vocal to the center of the stereo field, and then fill out the stereo field with other sounds - however, I've never felt it is a good idea to pan drums hard right and left (I prefer 10 o'clock and 2 o'clock)

Basically, if the left mic picks up more of the snare than the right mic, the snare will appear more on the "left side of the mix".

I have found that with the mic technique you have referenced ( a kick mic with stereo overheads over the drummers shoulder - which in essence gives the stereo definition that the drummer hears) provides rather limited stereo seperation - although you can get a good recorded sound.

I prefer a four mic technique (kick, snare and two overheads) to give more control over the snare and kick.

Learn to develop your ears and than trust your judgement.

 

[tubedude]

I wish someone would take a few minutes and post some pictures of this... people just arent getting it.

 

[dr.colossus]

heres a pic, we had a go using beh xm2000s, (the only mic we had a pair of) as over heads and an at 25pro on bass drum

 

[Blackburn]

aahhaa...thanks for the pic Dr. That clears things right up.