How are these drums sounding?

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Slowjett

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Started tracking yesterday. It's our first album and my first time tracking/mixing a full band situation in a long while (since the md4s!). We did Drum/Bass tracks yesterday w/ scratch acoustic guitar track.

Here is a rough mix of what we have. Raw tracks, No inserts/eq or anything except for oxford limiter on master buss to bring up levels. Not pushing any reduction.


Oktava MK-012's for overheads in 'recorderman' fashion.
sm57 Snare Top
EV 898 ND (or is it 868?) Kick
ADK hamburgs Rack Tom / Floor Tom

Im concerned im not getting a good stereo image.
What are your thoughts or helpful hints?
Should I be micing the hihat?

I've only got an sm57 and a 58 left. actually I got a studio projects b1 and a couple of jm27's somewhere.

thanks!
-josh
 
I think it sounds really good. Really clean. I rarely use a hi hat mic, I usually find it unnecessary. I thought the recorderman method was more for if you only had 2 or 3 mics? Correct me if I'm wrong. I usually us a spaced pair, which gives good stereo.
 
Sounds good. Don't see why you would need to add any more mics and make it more complicated :)
 
Sounds good to me. Stereo spread isn't extreme, but I think it's good. How are the two "Overheads" panned? If you're liking the recorderman sound, but want a bit wider spread and you're already hard panned, you can try keeping the mic capsule position in the same place, but having them point further away from each other. Hi-Hat sound nice and present, so i don't see why you would add another mic.
 
Thanks guys, They are panned about 75% to their prospective sides. I should probably experiment with some different overhead patterns. Any suggestions? Should I try to keep the two overheads equidistant from the snare?

-josh
 
I'm no drum expert but it sounds pretty good to me, Josh. I'm sure it'll sound better later when you EQ or compress. Guess you'll have to hear how it sounds when all the rest is tracked.

Cheers
Joe :)
 
Stereo spread sounds good to me.

I'm hearing the slightest hint of snare and kick phasiness. It's very slight though. It may even be room reflection. If you want to try to fix it, you can zoom waaaaay in on the OH tracks in your DAW and shift the overhead tracks to more closely line up with the snare, and with eachother. You gotta zoom way in though to get it precise.

Hats sound fine and natural. Don't mic em.

Sounds pretty good though. The drums can come way down in volume though, unless this little mix is just for drum critiques.
 
Thanks Joe! Your stuff always sounds fantastic.

I tried several different overhead patterns. It turns out that unless I want to mic the ride symbol itself (which I cant) the Recorderman setup actually gets the ride symbol the best because of the angle of the mic. the mic over the drummer right shoulder means that on my kit (a 3 piece, so the ride is where tom2 would be) the mic picks up the attack and brightness of the symbol MUCH better than if the mic were over it directly. You could barely hear the ride in my other configurations. Angling the mics away from one another helped with stereo image. Im really impressed with the kick mic (EV ND868). I just added Comp and it sounds great no EQ.
 
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